I'm up late tonight, thinking about life and love, joy and sorrow, dreams fulfilled and dreams delayed, of hope and disappointment. I'm thinking about the past, the future and the present, and how all are part of this huge mountain I'm attempting to climb in writing this book. I desire to be finished with it, and so want to work in earnest to complete it this summer, or come as close as I can. I have two months off, and I want to write, read, and write some more.

I've read so much, and underlined so many things in so many different books that when I read one book, I hear echoes of another in the wisdom that's being shared by someone else. I've decided that my next assignment is to mine everything that has earned an underline, or for me, the ultimate sign of a passage's importance: stars next to it in the margin. I'm going to sift through all of the books that I've read in the past two years, and organize them all into the different themes that I've seen emerging throughout this process. I can't possibly remember all of the passages that have held meaning for me, and some of them blow me away again and again whenever I reacquaint myself with them. These are gems that I feel are hidden away, and now it's time to pull everything together to see if it's a piece of the puzzle or not, and if it is, where it fits.

I find that of late, all I ever want to do is to hurry home and work on my writing. Much of the urgency comes from the desire to be finished, but I have come to cherish the times where I can write and read in solitude. I'm grateful for the time to focus on such things. It's a time of solitude that I want to fully engage in, because I do not know what the future may hold--perhaps in the next chapter of my life, times of solitude will be few and far between. If one of my dreams is fulfilled, that of being a father, times like this will not be often in my life. These times are a gift that I want to embrace fully and I realize that in some ways, part of the reason I am single is so that I will have the time to write this book.

Pray for me, please, to keep on keeping on.