Thank Goodness It's Time for a New Year!!!

It's time to say goodbye to 2010 and hello to 2011 and I couldn't be happier!!! This past year has been the worst year of my life and I'm ready to have a fresh start and completely turn my life around. Of course there's the resolution to work out more and eat right just like everyone else says, but I'm most ready for 2011 because I've realized that my life can't possibly be any worse than it was this past year. So, it's all up hill from here, and I've never been more ready for my life to change!

One of the many pictures Josh took of himself on my phone

Also with this new year comes lots of change that I don't know if I'm ready for. This past year is the last year that Josh and I lived in the same year. There are a lot of goodbyes associated with him that I haven't prepared myself for. For Christmas, I finally got a new phone, but that also was a change I didn't expect to hurt as much as it did. Everytime Josh picked up my phone, he took a picture of himself and set it as my background. He even had his own portfolio on my phone. Thankfully I got all of those uploaded to my computer, but there are still a few videos on my old phone that I haven't gotten off yet. And he left me a voicemail about 1 day before he finally arrived in Afghanistan and I'm not ready to say goodbye to that either. I just want to have that so that I will never forget his voice. That is one thing that I am so afraid of. Also, all of the text messages that we shared before he left are on there, including the last conversation we had. I just can't say goodbye to those yet. The whole phone thing has been way harder than I even thought and showed me how much I am leaving behind that I just don't want to. It's all little silly stuff, but that silly stuff means so much to me.

The December 27th issue of People magazine contained a tribute to the 547 men and women that had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan this year (well, up until the article was printed anyway). Josh's name is among those 547 people. It made me so happy to know that people all over the country can read his name and just for a split second know who he was and thank him. That is one thing I hope to accomplish, is to tell the world just how awesome Josh was.

547 husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, nieces, nephew, sisters, brothers, and the list continues. 547+ families this year have had to go through the pain that I have. It is just unbelievable to me. One of my resolutions this year is to send sympathy cards to all the Marine families that lose loved ones this coming year. I know how much the cards helped me, and I just hope to help other deal with this pain. I honestly believe that seeing the support of people all across the nation and the tremendous amount of hometown support is helping me deal with this. Just knowing how many people that didn't even know Josh, but were so grateful for what he did gives me chills. It just feels great to know that so many people out there care. So thank you everyone for what you have done these past couple of months, and I hope that you continue to show your support for our troops on into the years ahead. Peace. Love. Semper Fi.