Clearer Since the Rain's Been Gone.

This is the only time I will ever write anything about the 17th of July. Here it is born, and here it shall die.

When my affair with Band of Brothers began in 2006, I never expected the men, both portrayed and portrayer, to envelop my SOUL in such a way that I pray for them every time I think of them, cry over them all when one passes, and devour any information I am handed regarding their well-being or their history.

They inspire me to write paragraph-long sentences.

They lift my thoughts to higher things (and sometimes not-so-high things, but this is neither the time or place) and force me to dig for deep thoughts when I would prefer to ignorantly cruise through life.

They are part of what has aged me beyond my sixteen years; but at the same time, they have delved into my personal Fountain of Youth--through them, I've been given the secret of eternal agelessness.

There is tightrope that has been bonded from my heart to the heart of Easy Company that is unexplainable, undefinable, stunningly influential, and all-encompassing.

Often I wish that I had this sort of relationship with Him Who Is Most Important, but my spirituality finds limits. (I believe I'll be spending my life pushing those limits.)

But this is what it is. My mother asked me once, when I was earnestly re-watching Band of Brothers again, Why is this so captivating to you?

I could not tell her that the very seat of my emotions was so entangled in this terrible, swift OCEAN that I had no hope of ever rising to the surface.

Because I'm drowning, asphyxiating; don't want to break this spell that they've created. They're something beautiful--a contradiction--I want to play the game; I want the friction. They gave me freedom, bound and restricted; don't want to give them up, 'cause I'm addicted.

And now I'm sitting next to a mannequin named Karen while The Humble is lying in a mortuary mourned by millions.