Stalking the Emotions

Currently, I have been using my journalistic ability to stalk my friends around the Internet. It's not a bad thing, really. I find people I know and learn about their lives.

Two and a half weeks ago, I started my first summer internship at a local television affiliate (I would give details, but I myself don't like to give too many in case someone might be stalking me). I was looking at my usual Web site when I spotted someone whom I know. Next thing I know I’m reading a Web log (“blog”) by one of my colleagues at the affiliate.

I read for about half an hour. The details. The photographs. The emotion. I felt as if I was reading a journal. And then I realized that my colleague – I would call him a friend but I have only known him a short time and do not believe we have befriended one another – is pouring out his soul and feelings while typing.

Expressing emotion with others has always been something that is hard for me, but I do believe sometimes expressing what is inside you can be self-fulfilling and also fulfilling to those who experiences the expressions. While this might not sound logical, I believe that while reading his “blog” I have learned something that will forever change our relationship. I now know what lies beneath his seemingly happy and pleased facade.

One of the other parts of his “blog” that also amazed me was the up-to-date nature of it. The latest post was recorded less than three hours ago, chronicling his Fourth of July festivities.

I have always been someone (aforementioned) who does not like to reveal much about myself, especially when it comes to my emotions. While I am not as stoic as I once was, I still feel I do not truly express how I feel for my friends, family and other about whom I dearly care.

Earlier in the evening – actually early this morning – I returned home with my mother from my own family get-together for the Fourth and turned on the television. I looked through the menu guide and found “Flight 93” on the History Channel (The Flight 93 Memorial Site). I had wanted to see the film in April when it debuted on A&E but never saw it.

I was immediately drawn into the emotion and feeling of that Tuesday morning in September: the fear in the air, on the ground and around the world. It was very difficult to watch the harrowing tale – one that must be told – of the brave men and women who gave their lives for the fight against those terrorists.

A husband and father talking to his wife for the last time, saying goodbye. The daughter calling her mother, who said that she was with her and embracing her. The operator who prayed with a man named Todd. My heart dropped as I watched every second of the well-made TV movie.

After the film, there was a special documentary of three people whose lives were forever changing by coincidence when they decided to take a later flight or not to leave on United Flight 93 at all.

This left me thinking of when I do not always express my love and affection to my family and friends. I do sometimes take my life for granted, not living up to my full potential or not being true to the ones whom I love.

So as I wrap up my first “blog” of 2006, I would like to send my love out to my mother and father, grandmother and sister, my entire family and collection of friends and colleagues from around the U.S. and even the world. I also pray for all of those who serve our country daily (at home and abroad) in the war that unfolded from the events on that tragic Tuesday morning.

God Bless America. By the way: Happy Belated Birthday, America.

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