The Beginning

Originally written June 25, 2006

One year later.

For the life of me, I have no idea what happened on the fourth of July a year ago. I have asked my friends whether I was with them that night, if they knew what had become of me, and for the life of them they cannot remember where I was to be found. I cannot remember what had happened over the course of the weeks that turned to months that began one year ago tonight, for the red and the black came together and nothing would be the same.

Waking up I'm surrounded by good old boys from Indiana in a spacious hotel room in Arlington, Virginia. Forty-five minutes earlier I had returned to the hotel room from a night of splitting a bottle of vodka with the infamous D.C. Mike Shubbuck in his apartment across the street. On the floor lay the broken bottle I had apparently brought home with me. As I returned to the land of the living, I realized what today meant. I was going to change the course of national college politics. A smile crept across my sobering face, as I made my way across the sleeping Indiana bodies into the shower. Instead of the suit, it was the sport coat and jeans and a beer chaser with the coffee. It was game time.

If you look back at "Nothing Personal, It Was Only Politics" you'd get a sense of the storyline that was taking place. As I made my way down to the hotel lobby I could feel the electricity in the air. Hundreds of college students, pushing hard for one candidate or the other, still trying to persuade the few delegates to change their vote. For this was the morning of the college republican national committee national election, and I was the state chairman of an uncommitted state. I was worth my weight in gold. As we were seated in the convention hall, I watched some kid hand out fliers on the convention floor, where only delegates were seated. Although the electoral process and me have never been the best of friends, thank you d'angelo, I wasn't about to allow some amateurs influence the delegates while we were seated. I stood up and went after this kid, threw his flier back at him and missed, I hit some little Iowa girl in the face. So of coarse the other Iowa delegate stands up furious, and in the middle of the convention hall seconds before the election process begins, I'm standing face to face with some punk I'd have thrown across the room in a heartbeat. Maybe it was the fact I was wearing sunglasses in doors at 9am, I was breathing smoke, but we separated before it came to fists because of the Delaware.

In a feat of sheer brilliance, the establishment put all wavering states near the front and seated next to them loyal to the establishment states. Kansas got a second row seat wedged between Alaska and Delaware. For the next seven hours we sat there while different people made motions on credentials, while votes were made and tested, where alliances broke down and true colors were shown. My other delegate Justin had cut a deal with the other side, and would have split our state's vote. I asked him as a friend not to do it. No response. I asked him as a representative of Kansas to abide by our declaration of support for the other candidate. No response. I told him if he didn't do exactly what I said I would promise him a day of reckoning by the likes he's never seen before. I always get my way.

The election goes the way I planned. My candidate won and Kansas was a crucial deciding factor in the election. I was loved, I was hated, I was the big bad. Politics never mattered, it was the glow of the drama of the day that kept be entertained. As the night went on I met a lot of people that would have loved to pick a fight with me, but no little college kid has the sack to mess with the big bad, and I showed those kids who the lawyer of the bunch was.

Until that day then...until I came home. That Saturday I was on top of the world, on the top of my game, showing everyone that I was an impact player to the bitter end. Sometime that night my hero, my best friend, my grandfather passed away. Everything I had accomplished in politics, in law school, in life, nothing mattered and part of me still feels it doesn't. I found sanctuary at the bottom of a bottle, in those darkest moments where I simply lost track of weeks at a time, I nearly spun off the planet.

We were supposed to go to Ireland in August, to travel around the island after I finished the Bar exam. Whenever I needed someone, he was there. Whenever I needed my hero, he would find a way. Its been a year without his voice, his advice and courage, to tell me to do what I do best. This blog, this world I've created, these demons I fight every day reflect the change of my life since losing my best friend. I promised him as I layed his casket down, I promised him this was not going to end like this, we wouldn't stop here, all of our best laid plans would be seen to the end. That is why I have no choice, why I've never been given another option, this is what I was destined to do, this is what everything we planned was meant for. We've come this far together, there's one last thing I have to do.

Operation Hong Kong is in effect. Our dreams live on.