"You're really walking? Like, with your feet?"

I've been thinking a lot lately.

About the people I miss now, and the people that I will miss once we start.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Jess and Whit, and how time, space, and my laziness has pulled us apart. Or Kristina, who I've known since...before we were born. These people that I relied on to get me through the crazy times before college. The people that know my family inside and out, know me from my ugliest and most embarrassing moments.

There are those people that come up occasionally. It would be one of those horrible TV Shows..."What happened to...Lindsay Messemer, Mary Drungo, Sarah Allen, etc. etc."

I don't talk them anymore. I think of them all the time, and have the conversations in my head that I would have if I could just take the time to pick up the phone.

The same is true with a number of people at Webster. For whatever reason they are not as close in my life as they once were, and that makes me sad.

It makes me realize how much will change being gone. If things change while I am here, what will happen when I don't see people at all? I will have Matt, Lauren and Jonathan, of course, of which I can't be happier, but there are people that we are leaving behind. Their lives will continue to exist without our physical presence in them; they will go on changing and growing. Will our lives grow even further apart?

I wish I had enough time and a big enough heart for all the people I think about.

And just think, of all the people we meet along the way. We will, literally, walk in and out of their lives in such a short time. How quick and momentary. We met a biker on the street today walking to church, and he is but a couple of minutes in time. But I remember his enthusiasm about our journey, and the bike he was riding, and the excitement he had in his eyes as he thought about if he could do something like this. "I bike ten miles a day..." he said.

We met people yesterday as well, walking down to the Loop, about a 12 mile roundtrip journey. I was surprised at how friendly and open everyone we encountered was. I think the only rude thing that happened was actually in the Loop, when two clowns kept honking hand-held horns at us because they couldn't see the group of prom-goers getting off a bus to go in a restaurant. Our backpacks were too tall.

The people that seemed to be the most inclined to talk to us were teenagers. Uninhibited, nothing to lose, curiosity lapping at their tongue, they'd stop us on the street and be blunt. "You're really walking? Like, with your feet?"

Yes, we plan to walk with our feet.

And our feet held up, walking that much yesterday. Socks that contain no cotton and are completely synthetic work well to keep the sweat and friction low, leaving less opportunity to blister. Breathable shoes helped too.

But, back to where I started, there are people that I miss now, and people I know I will miss, and that's a lot of missing to do. If I don't say it later, let me say it now.

I love you, and I miss you.