Today, I am faced with two very difficult decisions. Though I don't like to mention my navy life at all in my personal section... it is a part of my life and therefore I must mention it from time to time. I have a decision of two locations I can go for my next station, which is a decision that I must make tonight, and I also have to make a decision on what to do about my relationship with Val.

I love her very much. I will always love her. She will forever have a piece of my heart, and I feel that I will always carry a piece of her heart with me. Alas, circumstances have not made this decision easy. I keep trying to think of a compromise that just does not seem to exist, not a fair one anyway. I am leaving soon, there is no doubt about it.... and I am not ready for the type of commitment that she wants and is needing. I feel in the future that it may be, but it is not here now, which is something very damaging to us. We seem to be hurting each other every other day with small comments that shouldn't hurt at all. Is there a way to live a life I have not yet lived yet feel I need to and keep her at the same time? If it does exist, I am afriad I do not see it. Unfortunately, this decision lies completely to me. The first decision I can throw in the wind and have someone make it for me, in which he will more than likely decide with a flip of the coin, but this second decision is not nearly as easy. In fact, I believe it is the most difficult I have ever faced in my life. But I just do not know what to do.

What if I were to completely commit to her, even to the point of marriage now? With this current state that I am in, I feel that somewhere deep inside of me, I will be saddened by the thought of things that I wanted to do, and at that point would never be able to do. I will easily be able to suppress it at the beginning, this I know for a fact. But I am afraid that over time, it will slowly surface, and make everything worse than it is now. Perhaps nothing would ever come to it, and happiness would prevail, but this is not a gauranteed outcome, and a risk I feel is not worth taking, since many people's emotions would be affected by it all.

What if I were to tell her that I need to break it off now? I would lose one that I love dearly, and one who holds a piece of my heart. Life will go on, this I know and I would move on, and possibly her... that would be her decision entirely. There would be a great amount of pain for both of us, but for both of us it would pass, but I do not feel it would ever pass entirely. I have already learned from some past experiences in life, that something this passionate can never be completely forgotten, and from time to time, it surfaces itself for a few moments. Thoughts of what could have been would bounce itself around in my mind, and then eventually it would sink back down only to surface again another day. This does not only go for relationships mind you. The worse part of breaking it off, is that I would be losing a great and special friend. I absolutely hate losing friends.

I try to think of solutions... ones that will present themselves. But as I said before, maybe there just isn't one that exists. I hate this. I hate it all. The part that upsets me most, is that I feel that she would not try to move on in life for a long time, if ever. She does not deserve to be lonely and without someone, but at the sametime, with my current mindstate and all, she deserves better than me.

Why can't things be easier? Why is life made to be so hard? It doesn't matter what you do, it always is, and always will. It doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have, how much material possession you have, how popular you are, how religious you are, how superstitious you are, how busy you are, how bored you are, how much you care, how much you could care less. None of it matters, life will always be hard, and decisions like this must be made.

Whatever the outcome of all this Val, I just want you to know, and I want to tell the rest of the world, that I love you very much, and you will always be special to me. I know good things will come your way, I just hope that you will take them when they arrive. I want you to know that no matter what you think, you are beautiful, both inside and out.... please don't kill yourself emotionally or otherwise over this one little situation. No matter what happens, if we stay together or must drift apart.... I will always have a piece of you in me, and you will never be forgotten........