To My Dear Friend Clayton

Its been two weeks since that passing of one of the best people I have ever met. I have been able to move on quiet a bit since then although I'm not sure if that is the right way to say it. The truth of the matter is I haven't moved on, I just don't cry any more. I still just cant believe he is gone, that said if any one I cared about, supposing you believe in god, was to be taken early it makes sense it was him. He lived more in His 22 years then a lot of adults I know. I have had the opportunity to work in a large variety of jobs. I have worked as a swim instructor, bowling ally mechanic, electrician, door to door sales man, phone sales man, Marine. In all of these jobs I have seen many lost souls. The wandering of people who lacked the direction to pursue what they truly wanted out of life and had settled for what they were currently doing. I have seen men who, though they had a great deal of intelligence and potential, they lived up to only a fraction of it due to cowardice to risk anything. Others, merely lacked the initiative to try. Clayton was the opposite of all these things, He pushed forward into any and all endeavors with the spark of intelligence and dedication that is so visible in anything anyone can remember him doing. A trait He shares with His twin sister. In Shakespeare play about the assassination of Julius Caesar my favorite line of the entire play comes from Caesar himself when he says " cowards die many times before their deaths/ The valiant never taste of death but once." To often it is evident when the loved ones in our lives fall short of their potential is fear to blame. Whether they feared missing out on something fun, moving on, growing up, or just failure it plagues so many people. Clayton never feared anything. 

One of my most vivid memories with Clayton is the time He went to St. George with Wes and I. We went up to Dixie Rock and were doing some bouldering and found a rock face that was particularly sketchy. I wish I could say it was hard to get Clayton to climb it, but it wasn't. All we had to do was offer Him dinner and up He went! He made it to the half way point when a big chunk of rock broke off and He almost fell.  "ooo sketchy." that was all He said and kept climbing. He made it all the way to the top, it was about thirty feet up. The sucky thing was that St. George had recieved a lot of rain the two weeks prior to this and the rock was to soft to support His weight. The ledge He was standing on broke and He fell feet first to the bottom, breaking all the metatarsals in His left foot and the joint in His right ankle, both of which required surgery to repair. The moments directly following the fall were epic. He hit the ground, rolled around of a second and then said "I stuck the landing at least." Then He tried to stand up felt the pain, and the crunching, and realized stuff was messed up. Wes and I had to carry Him out, but after Clayton had to crawl about twenty feat with two broken legs down a slide that three people couldn't fit in. He didn't complain at all. Even when we arrived at the hospital He acted like a champion. When the nurse went to cut off his shoes to take them off He stopped her. "at least let me cut off the laces." He paused and thought about it for a second, Wes and I told Him to let Her and that we would buy Him some new shoes and He refused. He made them loosen the laces and pull the shoes off of His broken feet. I tell this story because it is eidetic to who Clayton is, and was here. He never blamed Wes and I for what happened though it was in a large way our fault for bribing Him to climb. He never complained about what happened. He just took it, made the best of it, and moved on like a boss. 


I have so many other stories like this about Clayton, He was and is amazing and I cant wait to see Him again. I still cant believe He is gone to the point that some times I feel like at any given moment I'm going to wake up from this nightmare and He will be just fine. But the fact of the matter is He isn't, and He is just fine just in a different place. So here is to you dear friend. I love you more then I ever got to tell you because that's not how bro's are, and I miss you more then I ever thought possible!

4 months

I can hardly believe I've been home this long. Life small and large has returned to how it was before I left. I have a new job at a doing the same I was doing before I left just with a different company, and so far Verizon Wireless has treated me very well. Other than that things are pretty much the same. Same gym, same friends, same friends doing the same things. It's interesting to me when you leave a place you love you can be so worried that your missing out on so much when in reality, you didn't miss anything. I love this place. Is it perfect? Not at all, but its home.

Dating is interesting, I genuinely feel the older I get the easier it gets. I suppose I could just be getting better at it, or I am making it less complicated then I used to so it just works better. The girl I am dating now is the closest I have come to a "relationship" in four years. Not out of lack of trying I just have had a really hard time finding a girl I didn't get bored of really quickly. Biggest pet peeves in a girl are as follows. 1. I don't want to hear stories about friends of your friends who i will never meet and do not know. I don't know if that just makes me difficult or what but it drives me nuts. I'd rather hear about your cats if you have any. 2. Girls who feel the need to text me what they ate that day. Not literally mind you, but i'm referring to those relationships where the other person texts you ALLL day EVERRRY day just for the sake of talking. My Grandpa married happily and didn't have a cell phone to talk to the girl He was dating 24-7. He asked my Grandma to marry Him while home on leave from His job as a fighter pilot in the Air Force during the Vietnam war. It went something like this. Grandpa in living room eating pie "Donna, do you want to marry me?" Grandma in kitchen "yeah, i'd like that." BAM!!!!! happiest marriage i've ever seen. 3. This one is kind of shallow but bare with me because it speaks volumes about the "no one should care what any one else does so there is no accountability these days" mentality. When you take them some where in public for a date, or just to go shopping or spend some time with them in a public setting and they come out in sweats. Now this is not to say that I expect a girl to get ready every time I see them. If we are hanging out with close friends, my house, her house, camping what ever go for it grunge it up! But if we are going out get freaking dressed sweet *#&$ @# @* #$@# its annoying. Ok here is the last one 4. These are not pants.

Not pants, not ok.

I had more I was going to write about but I went a little more over the top on the whole pet peeves thing than i expected. So I'll just end with HAPPY SPRING EVERY ONE!!!

a thought

if your reading this stop sucking and go outside moron.

Marine Corps

Suuup. So im lazy and youtube will tell it better. These are videos of the training i have gone throw the last six months as well as my job in the Marine Corps, ENJOY... or I'll kill you.

Boot Camp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfOwmWnzuJI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJoeGvn6MAY&feature=fvst

This last video is what they call Incentive training it was usually longer and worse than this but its the best video i found in my quick thirty second search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ImRURFiQ-I

Now for my job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAdg8tD83Hk

And finally a tribute to the marine corps


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESl2MuDChW0&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dmarine%2Bcommercial%2Btill%2Bi%2Bcolapse%26oq%3Dmarine%2Bcommercial%2Btill%2Bi%2Bcolapse%26aq%3Df%26aqi%3D%26aql%3D%26gs_sm%3De%26gs_upl%3D5124l11244l0l11349l34l31l1l16l4l0l253l2145l3.8.3l14l0&has_verified=1

Semper Fidelis.

It

So as many of you know I joined the Marines back in October of last year, and since that time I have been waiting to leave for basic training. I have now tried to leave for said training three times and have now been presented with a new opportunity at the place I work that is by far a better option. So, I am withdrawing my commitment to the Marines. Family, and Friends have expressed a lot of resistance to this change despite most of the same people being extremely angry with me when I originally joining. They seem to feel the choice will ruin opportunities to succeed in my life and get to what ever IT is that I am trying to get too.
I cant really say what IT is, if I know what I want IT to be or if I know how to find IT which is not entirely good for a 21 year old. This is very possibly the problem in my life, and why this world is such a freaking screwed up place. I wanna get angry, I wanna shout at the people around me or shout for them, to let me live my life how I feel is best. Push through everything, and come up with nothing, that's what I've been finding a lot of the last three years and that is probably due to a lack of foresight on my part. But I want to be happy, weather it's making average income doing something I love after collage or being... a doctor? I don't know but I do know I do not want to force myself into something just to fulfill some inner obligation to KNOW what IT is. But things are looking up, I have a great job that makes attending school a financially sound thing to do, despite the fact that I am receiving a lot of grief from people about not following through with commitments. But why does everything have to be so black and white? What if I don't want to live my life the way IT is supposed to be. I will always always keep the commitments I make to the people I care about and I feel like everyone should do the same. I will take accountability for my actions, stand up for what I feel is right, and push my self to be the best Me I can be. That said why should my pursuit of IT be dictated by others perceptions of my plan to get IT, why do I feel so anxious and guilty about changing my direction just because it isn't what I told everyone was the plan. Shouldn't I grab onto a better opportunity if IT is given to me? I am tired of feeling like my life is something that others grief over my choices is something that should motivate me into doing things I don't want to do. Not saying I would ever do anything self destructive or selfish to cause others pain but that's just the problem, I am not doing those things. So basically this is me wishing for more freedom, not just to do what I want but for the things I do to be accepted. Some trust that I will get to IT because I know me and I will find a way to do so, and some support in what ever decisions I make to get there. I dont think any one has ever read my blog so I'm mostly writing this to vent feelings of frustration and this probably doesn't make sense to any one but if some ones does read it, I hope if nothing else you can take away the idea that in the end we will look back at the end of our lives and realize despite how other people feel about the choices we made it was those choices that made us who we are. So do what you feel is best for you, in the end, that's what will take you to IT.

When It Get's To Hard To Stand, You Can Kneel

I am currently sitting on a gray fold out chair, facing this computer, the antique finished desk it sits on, and a picture of my savior. Playing through the speakers is Rooftops by Lost Prophets. I'm home alone, in Kaysville Utah. I should feel relaxed, happy and, at peace. I have three of my favorite things, my home, my family, and music right at my finger tips and yet my emotions are geared towards anxiety and pushing for hostile take over of the sanity I have managed to keep after being sent home from my mission early. It was, and is nearly impossible for me to describe to anyone how I felt and, feel about my mission and missionary work. It's like trying to describe how incredible music is to some one who has been deaf their whole life, or the beauty of sunsets and nature to the blind.

I dont know how to describe how I feel right now, I suppose lost would be as good a word as any but when your lost you can go any where you want and at least get closer to finding something. I am in a state of limbo, I cant go to school because I'll more then likely be returning to my mission before I could finish the semester, and I dont have a job to occupy the time that was very recently completely devoted (And filled) by missionary work. There are some where around 6 billion people in the world, 6 billion people who feel, shake, cry, laugh and want different things. But all 6 billion need one thing more then anything else. There 6 billion people who don't know who they really are, where they came from or where they are going. There are 6 billion people in the world but they all really only need one, and that's the savior. There are just over 13 million members of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, that have the opportunity to take his message to the 6 billion living in darkness, and yet so few do. I had that opportunity, and I loved every second of it. It changed how I see things, how I feel things, and how I want things in my life to be. After all, our Heavenly Father can make so much more out of our lives then we can.

But enough about where I was, if you read this you probably talk to me, and if you talk to me you have heard more then enough about my mission. My present however is very easy to explain. I came home to a situation that I wasn't expecting and really want anything to do with. My days are filled with the vast intricacies of the nothing that takes place in them, and the changes I constantly try and fail to make take place. Like throwing a cup of a water into the ocean expecting it to flood, sometimes, I feel about as dumb as if that's what I was really doing. I wake up, I read, I go to the gym and then I lay around a listen to music. Thank you Wes Bledsoe for being in scootering proximity of my house, and the mountain dews that keep me trucking, thank you to Brooke Williams for being a silver ligning for a few hours a week, any one who has put up pictures on facebook that they have edited a friend into to embarrass them (you entertain me) and thanks you mp3 rocket for feeding my hungry music addiction. (i know its wrong and normally i buy my music butttttt i cant right now soooo... dont judge me?)

There was more I was going to write in this entry buttt I am to angry, and confused to write anything of worth that would resemble cognitive thought for any one but me, my feelings and thoughts shift as quickly as... ok I was going to say something funny and inappropriate about a certain famous person but I'll be christ like and not.

So that's all for now, I am a prisoner in Kaysville for now (dont get me wrong I actually love K-Town and where I grew up) so feel free to visit or call and if you need suggestions for some good listening music I have found tons lately. Music is the one thing in my life that never lets me down. Music is so much like life, most songs tell a story about true life experiences, they come from beginnings as frenzied as an electric storm or as calm midnight in summer, they progress to heavy over tones, simple melodies, and mind dulling beats, but just like everything experience they end, and you can always relate them to something you have experienced before.

Pray that my time hear is brief, and pray for our brave men and women working in the armed forces, police forces, and missionaries.

Ryan McDonald

Fall 2009

So i am quiet possibly the worst blogger in the history of blogger. So here is whats up. I have been working at cache valley electric since i moved home from St. George as an electricians apprentice. Its full time, i make more way good money for some one my age and I HATE IT! Seriously blows but a good job is a good job and its a means to and end (paying for the mission, school, car etc.) so it will have to do for now. I'm not a quitter, so I'll stick it out as long as I need to. (used to be a quitter but not its almost physically painful not to see things through. Possibly thanks to the gym? seriously get hooked on working out everyday, it helps in way more that just being in good shape.) thats item 2! i have officially gained twenty three pounds since i started working out a month and a half ago. When I started i weighed 120 on a good day and im now up to 143. Woo woo. I also got a lot of photography business lately thanks to a poster I made for kelsey and tanner that is found in this post! Hope you all like it. Its also fall which is my favorite season, seriously love fall. The colors, the tempeture, its jacket weather ha ha. Other then that stuff my life consists of hanging out with wes, and visiting lynsey on the week ends up in logan. Oh how i love my logan pepes. Kelcie, Jymil, Lynsey, Clayton, Jamie, I love you all, you will always be some of my all time favorite people no matter what happens. also last night i went to the gateway with wes, brandon, jennie airyn and twenty other people i dont know and played steal the flag after it closed. ha ha way funny. any ways thats all for now only because im out of time but i love any one who reads this because that probably means we still talk. ha ha later!!!