Not so courageous.

When I think of courage, often I think of the brave service of the men and women in our military that do so much for us and for which I am very appreciative of.   This post is not about them, well, it sort of is.   This post is about the opposite of courage, being completely paralyzed in the face of fear, unlike our heroic service people.  This post is about my friend Kristen and I on our way to work out. 

Kristen and I, who are both getting married this summer, have recently been much more motivated to work out regularly (for some reason…)  and today we were up at 6:30 to go to the BYU student fitness center.

Side note:  strange fact of BYU # 652 – more students pack the gym at 6:00 in the morning than any other time (source: myself).   A bunch of overachievers, I think.  Aren’t college students supposed to sleep in all the time?

Anyway, we were just minding our own business walking up to the Smith Field house when suddenly we were behind about 20 ROTC students who were walking, very slowly, in perfect formation.  So, naturally we try to walk around them on the edge of the side walk.  We try to pick up the pace to pass them quickly.  As we are doing this and listening to their leader yelling out calls, we hear “DOUBLE TIME.”  So now, our paces are very similar as we are trying to out-speed walk them and I start to get nervous.  Just about as I am to the front of their line they yell out something else which I guess means run and the whole formation takes off, almost trampling us.  Right as this happens, I utter my awkward “dangit” and simultaneously Kristen and I are hunched over, and huddled together whimpering in fear.  Of course, then we start laughing so hard that our abs are getting a head start on the work out.

Was this actually a scary moment in our lives? Probably not (especially for anyone else that would have experienced it).  But was it a completely real and raw reaction? Absolutely.

And so the saga continues of something awkward happening pretty much every time we are together.   We will see what happens next time.