1. Energy is something that I have all the time. You rarely see me not “doing” something. I am always running from here to there and only stopping to pick up a snack for a meal. This is a good thing and a bad thing. I feel sometimes I never get a chance to stop and look around and see things in a different light. It is a good thing because I am never bored with life and always have something to do. I am slowly learning to appreciate alone time and stopping to take time to see the beautiful world the Lord created.
2. I am a servant at heart. I get so much more enjoyment out of life to see someone blessed by a gift, note, flowers, anything, than to receive a gift. I sometimes do too much for people and it makes them feel like they have to give me something in return, and that is not the point of what I am doing. You can change someone’s day by simply being nice...(opening doors, saying thank you, being a gentleman)
3. With being a servant comes patience. I am a very patient person. I help people and give my time to help do little things they don’t understand or coach up kids in a sport. I love to coach and try to direct people. Again seeing one’s reaction after I have used patience and time to help them figure something out is one of my greatest joys in life. In this fast world we live in, giving someone time can go a long way in a relationship.
4. Athletics is and has been a main focal point in my life. I love all sports. I love playing, watching, and coaching sports. I feel like a have a real way with teaching and using skills I have learned to help those out who need work. I feel like my whole life has been sculpted around sports and it is a good and a bad thing. I have used my athletic career to mask the real me and overshadow the issues that I have needed to deal with for a long time. It is never too late to change, but as I look back I wish I could have changed things I did and choices I made. I don’t regret anything because I have learned from everything, but my legacy is not the most glorifying to the only one that really matters in life, Jesus Christ. I have not been the real me and I am sorry to the people that I have led on and shown you the Cary that was not who I wanted to be. Athletics will continue to be a focal point in my life but with different motives behind what and why I am doing them.
5. Structure has always been a huge part of my life. I usually have a plan and try to stick to it. I was always the kid growing up who had different color pens for each class and almost OCD in some areas. My mom said I used to love to go to the grocery store and walk down the isles and begin to rearrange things that were out of order. I am also going to make a wife very happy one day, because I love to clean, do the dishes, fold clothes, and other things that people despise doing. When my life is feeling like it is going in the wrong direction I can always make my bed, clean my room, wash my clothes, and though I am usually struggling on the inside the order and structure of things I can physically see are in order. It’s a mental game I play.
6. I have learned over years that I am growing to be very impulsive. I usually have a plan, but I am becoming more impulsive and spontaneous. I enjoy this new phenomenon and it is causing me to break down the walls of the very structured life I have always enjoyed. Now I make a plan just to try and switch it up. I have never been one to enjoy surprises, but now I love them and I love surprising others. Hehe!
7. I wish I would have had more time in my life to use the creative side of my brain, but I have literally had a full time job playing sports that I have not had time to slow down. I always loved to paint and sketch, and this past Christmas I bought a sketchpad and pencils to draw and it is really enjoyable to do it again. I have always been able to play the guitar, but again I have had this sports thing going on and I “never” had time to play. I really did, I just did other things instead. I picked up my “git-fiddle” as Johnny Koch says… on Christmas break as well and has been a great addition to my life.
8. Friendships in my life have always been difficult to have for some reason. In highschool I had a lot of “friends” but not many bestfriends that would drop everything and be there in a second. I think since college has started I have bounced around so many states I have been in a weird “friend” zone. I keep just dropping into peoples’ lives and they are very accepting of my friendship but it keeps feeling like a forced relationship…this is not to say that the friends I have are not amazing friends. The friendships I have formed in the last few years are great and they were all meant to happen. I see myself being bestfriends with many of them after college is said and gone. BUT As a senior, I look back and love the people I have met and I have many friends and bestfriends, but I haven’t been the real Cary that I have always wanted to be around them. Now with a semester left, I hope to change the imprint to a positive and uplifting one. I want to say sorry to all the people that I fell out of touch with in my life. I have not been very diligent in keeping up with my bestfriends in highschool and that happens when we grow old. I am always here and I have never changed my cell phone number even though I have had many chances to. I just don’t want to lose anyone that has ever had my number in the past. I always want someone to be looking through his or her phone and see my name and just try calling that “old number” and it will still work!
9. I attend one of the greatest and historic universities in the US. And I don’t say that to brag but to tell you that I haven’t taken full advantage of my opportunity here. It is only a miracle that I am here. I would have never been accepted here if it weren’t for football. So I make that an excuse and I have made below average grades and don’t feel like I have actually learned a great deal about schooling. This is not to say that I haven’t learned so much in college. I have not spent enough time in the books as I wish I would have. I have always held myself to a high academic standing and I just slacked in this area the past few years.
10. I am a very passionate person. Whatever I am doing I am doing it to the fullest and the maximum. I can go back through the chapters in my life and see the things that I was passionate about. Some bad, some good, but definitely passionate about them. The passionate personality comes with the sports world. No one just goes to college and sacrifices so much time and effort to be mediocre in their passion about their sport. I am very passionate about playing sports whether it is on the football field, intramurals, pickup game, wherever, I do not like losing…but I really don’t know who does!?!? Whenever a challenge is given to me I am going to do it, and probably go try and go above and beyond what is expected. Right now, I am learning how my life has changed to be passionate about the Lord. I am taking the challenge the Lord has given all of us to spread the love of Christ to everyone.
11. Playing sports and being outside has always been a great joy in my life. I love being outside doing anything. Growing up in Louisiana has been a blessing and allowed me to play outside everyday of the year. I have never been “snowed in” and not gone outside an entire day. I have had a day when my school was underwater, but that was another opportunity for mud football. I never slowed down as a kid and was playing so much outside. I still enjoy just working in the yard and sweating in the heat of the summer and grabbing a glass of lemonade. There is nothing better! I love heat,…I mean blistering blistering heat. I love running out into the ocean and tripping on the waves faceplanting in the water. But what I love more, is to get out of the ocean still wet and go lay on the scorching sand. Many are reading this and are cringing because they hate being sandy, but I love it! I love rolling in the sand and staying like that for hours…I know it’s weird but that’s me.
12. People think I am weird and I am in some ways...but everyone has their weird moments (mine just might happen more often than others). Sometimes I wear a pink sweater with penguins on it and blue pants and feel completely normal. I just think my normal is weird to others. I push limits of dress codes, haircuts, and the social norms, but it just doesn’t seem right to always do what is “normal.” I don’t think standing out is a bad thing, if you’re making the right choices.
13. With my “weird” personality comes my happiness. I am a very happy person. I love to be happy and make others around me happy. It takes a lot to make me sad. But when I am sad, I don’t let anyone know. I don’t want to cause someone else the trouble of dealing with my sadness. I know I shouldn’t hide my sadness, but I just have always filled my sadness with things of the world. Now I am taking a new approach, and I am being filled with the Joy of the Lord and it is amazing. I have always found my Joy in making others happy, but I do it NOW with more reason than before.
14. I love food. And not just certain foods, but I have yet to find a food that I don’t like. There is not one food that I’ve spit it out and said, “I will never eat that again.” Give me anything and chances are I will like it. I have not been over seas yet and maybe they have something that I will not like. When I eat at peoples’ houses sometimes they think I am being nice because I go back and get seconds and thirds, but I actually like the food. Maybe it was due to the fact I was always a member of the “clean plate club.”
15. I am huge technology nerd. I love all types of electronics. It was quoted in a UVA game program that, “I love installing car stereos.” What a loser! That’s a little quirk about me that some of you didn’t know. I am also a huge computer geek and stay up to date what’s new in the pc world. It is ironic that I love the outdoors but also love the computer, so I just bring my laptop outside! I actually was a computer science major for 3 semesters but changed because I didn’t want to be inside my whole life working on computers.
16. Reading has been an area of my life I have struggled with. I am getting a lot better, but I just cant stand to be reading when I know I could be doing something active. I have always had something to fill my life besides reading. I know that reading is a key part of life and one can gain so much by reading, but I have never been turned on by it. It is sad because I wish I could sit down and just want to read. I just don’t operate like that. My reading skills are improving finally… I think I was doing Hooked On Phonics till I was 14! The more I grow in my relationship with the Lord, the more attractive reading the Bible is, and therefore my willingness to read is improving.
17. I am huge music head and I love all genres. Whatever mood I am in is the type of music I will listen to. I love finding new bands and telling everyone about them. I also love to sing. I walk around either singing or whistling all day. The best gift one can give me beside a Starbucks gift card is an itunes gift card. I also have this annual Christmas whistling thing going on with my sister, Lindsay, that has been really funny yet surprisingly pretty good (I think ☺)
18. Family is a huge part of my life. I have always been so close to my family. I am so incredibly blessed to have the parents that I do. I didn’t understand the things they made me do but now it’s all making sense. My parents are happily married 37 years and only because Christ has been an integral part in and outside our home. My parents have been great examples and it shows because they are still so in love with each other and still so in love with God. I only hope to raise three kids with the guidelines set by my parents. My brother, Jady, and my sister, Lindsay, are older than me and my earliest memories are being tossed around on Lindsay’s shoulders and double-bounced by Jady on the trampoline. I went through most of my life communicating with them by phone and it has grown into wonderful relationships. I wasn’t old enough to experience much besides holidays and family vacations with both of them. Now since we are all older, the phone conversations have so much more meaning. Liza, Jady’s wife, has also been a magnificent addition to our tight knitted family. She has meshed right in with the crazy Koch clan. I have grown in my relationship with her thus far and is a great addition to my family support team! I can talk about real things and open up to all of them, since they have all been down the tough roads of college life. I feel the closest to all of them now that we are older yet we are physically scattered around the world. All of them are pursuing life in ministry and I am so proud of them. I don’t know if I have ever expressed that to them but words don’t do it justice. I look up to you and the work you are doing. I cherish all the times we are together, but we will continue to grow on this journey together.
19. Love is very hard subject for me to touch on and needs to be addressed, but just not right now.
20. The past is something we all have. I love to bring up the past and relish in those moments with people who were with me. I love the present and I am excited about the future, but the past is something that was all a learning experience. One prominent memory was when I was with my mom’s father, Papa. He was amazing and everyone always told me I was a replica of him. He was a 2-sport college athlete at Marietta College in Ohio and was inducted into the Hall-of-Fame there for his accolades. He fought in the Battle of Bulge and earned several medals including the Purple Heart. He lived long enough to tell and even write a book to let people know what happened. When he passed, I was hurt for a long time. I turned that sadness into happiness and now I love to think about how great of a grandfather, husband, athlete, and patriot he was. I look back and I have learned so much from my roller coaster of a college career. Everything happened for a reason. God allows us to endure pain and hardships to test us when we are at the weakest moments in our lives. Who will you lean on when the road gets rough?
21. I am a firm believer that change is a good thing for everyone. Whenever we are constant it is bad thing. One is always changing for the better or for the worse. I am going through change in my life right now. I am changing my old ways for a brighter and more fulfilling life. I have not been the man that I have known that I have needed to be. I have made countless mistakes and terrible choices in my life, but our God is good and gives us grace through forgiveness. Grace came through his death on the cross and washes us clean. No matter what you are going through, you can trust in God and things will work out. He promises us that!
22. If you know me I am not much of a writer, reader, or artist, but I am learning to enjoy these things. I am becoming habitual in my daily journaling and becoming very interested by reading God’s WORD. I am majoring in economics solely because I have hated to write anything. This is not like me to post something that I wrote…hopefully one person will read this and think about me in a different light, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY SEE THROUGH THE TEXT AND SEE THAT SOMETHING GREATER HAS CHANGED ME.
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