On Being Strong…

There is no question that life has taught me that I must be strong. It has also taught me what it means to be strong and what real strength is and isn’t. Life has given me excellent guides in some of the women I have come into contact with. My mother fought cervical cancer and won. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers lost their husbands and have survived to keep really living. My Great Grandmother has made it through TIAs and the loss of her husband. And Brandi, my mock trial coach and friend has taught me that it is OK to be a strong, brave, and intelligent woman, and that people like me can make it into law school and into the legal profession. So life, while being bitchy and cruel at times, has given me a great deal as well.

I am strong, and I know that. It sounds snide and concieted, but it’s the truth. I can take on most anything that comes my way, and I can handle a lot. I’ve been forced to become strong because I am female want to be a lawyer, because I am Southern and want the respect of my intellectual peers, because I am difficult to handle and want to be loved, because I have been dealt losses and heartbreak and must keep going. I can be snarky and abrasive, and I am harsh and sarcastic. There seem to be three categories that people around me fall into. I either take care of you, run over you, or meet you as an equal, and that makes it difficult for me to make friends, find love, and be handled. I’m the kind of girl who generally refuses to be taken care of and refuses to show weakness. I hide if I need to cry, and I make war against illness and attempt to push through it, often at the expense of my own well being. I chase people off, especially when they might see me at a weak moment. As I grow older, I grow more guarded. I protect myself, and I take care of others. I do battle with the world, and I rarely tolerate stupidity.

And so now I must be strong enough to realize that I cannot change the past. I must be strong enough to accept that loving him may not bring him back. I will be strong enough to realize that I can make it without him and strong enough to realize that I will find a man strong enough to handle me. I am strong enough to be weak, strong enough to let go. I realize that I don’t have to pretend that I don’t hurt to be strong strong. I realize that just because this happened doesn’t mean that I am not strong. I must learn that even the strongest of us cry and break, and I must learn that I cannot always be the one to take care of it all. My strength is nothing to regret; it is something to harness. I can and will be strong. I thank everyone who has taught me that, who has given me advice, who has stood not just behind me, but beside me. I thank whoever granted me this strength and gave me the strong women who have been my friends and guides over the years.

Readers, I leave you with this final note of the post. Be strong and have faith in yourselves. Don’t accept those who do not accept you. Don’t settle or give up your strength for anyone, and don’t let the weak bring you down. And to the men in my future. Take me as I am, with all my strength. If you wish to handle me, you better damn well be strong enough to do so. I’m tired of beign the sole source of strength for people. I may be strong, but I am not strong enough to bear it all of my shoulders, nor should I have to. I know that now. I am strong, and I will always be.

Quote of the Day: “Take me for what I am
who I was meant to be
and if you give a damn
take me baby
or leave me” Take Me or Leave Me, RENT

I don’t like to even think the truth…

Warning: There is no, I repeat no, sunshine or daisies in this post.

This may be the hardest post I have ever written because at the momentI am holding back a thousand tears, and I’m not doing a very good job of it. Yesterday we ended it and I had to pack up three years of memories and put them away. I changed my wallpaper on the laptop and phone, I changed all my profile pictures, and edited all my statuses. It’s over, readers, and my heart is shattered. The worst part is that after all of this I still love him and would give anything to have him back again. I know I should be angry, I know I should hate him, I know I shouldn’t want to be with him. I know that by all accounts I should just decide that I’m better off, but I don’t know that I am. God knows that this has been painful, but I am still in love with him. He still holds my heart, even if he took his back. I just can’t see how we can have gone through so much just to be split up like this.

Yesterday a girl I don’t know sent me a message on myspace with a link to this other woman’s blog and a link to a myspace page that belonged to Spoony. The other woman was talking about her ‘long term committed relationship’ with the man I love, and I panicked. I called him and I finally got through to him only to have my heart shattered into a million pieces. It was true, he’d been seeing this other woman for a while, and couldn’t bring himself to tell me it was over. I should be so angry about it, and part of me is, but part of me is just heart broken because I can’t stop loving him, no matter how much I want to. So we broke up, and the way he makes it sound, he broke up with me because it was what was best for me. He says he still loves me, and that he loved me before, but I don’t know what to believe anymore. I just want this all to be a terrible dream that I am going to wake up from. I know all this sounds a bit naive and idealistic but a girl has to have a bit of hope in the dark.

I hope his mother and sister are happy because they got what they wanted and it came at the price of my broken heart and pouring tears. He wants to go back to the way things were, when we were friends in high school, but I can’t do that, I just don’t think I can. Because I still love him, I still really love him, and I will never stop. If we are soulmates then how can we just be friends? He thinks he was holding me down, that he’s not good for me, that I’m better than him because he couldn’t fight his family and wasn’t strong enough to fight. It’s not true, none of it. He was never bringing me down, never holding me back. He did so much for me, so much good. He made me stronger and braver, and he taught me to trust myself and trust my heart, though I’m not sure where that puts me now.

The problem with all this is that I love him, and I think I always will. I want so much for us to be back together because, unless it was all a lie, we were happy together. And I don’t see why two people who love each other shouldn’t be together when they were happy and made sense together. I guess it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t think it matters anymore and he’s given up. I guess I’m just stupid and foolish because part of me wants to keep fighting and find a way to be together. I wish the tears would stop falling, but I know they aren’t going to for awhile. Watching all your hopes and dreams and plans for the future go down in a flaming ball of destruction, or your world implode if you will, sort of opens the flood gates, you know.

So right now, I’m praying for a miracle one way or another. Whether that miracle is that things with us some how fix or I just get over him, I’m praying for a miracle. I love him, and I hope this new girl in his life loves him as unconditionally and deeply as I still do. She’s a lucky chick; this girl who stole him from me. Maybe I lost him long ago, but for a while it was good. And we were happy, at least I hope, and I want it back, but can’t have it. So I leave you, dear readers, with the quote of the day that almost wasn’t, and with my final hope that things get better.

Quote of the Day: “What’s meant to be will always find a way.” Trisha Yearwood

Life, or something like it…

The button at the top of this post is a theatre reference that will only make since if you’ve actually been on stage in any sort of big production that required extensive blocking. It is a reference to knowing where you are supposed to go and what you are supposed to do. I’m pretty sure the techies in this production failed to put down the glow tape and that is why I keep bumping into shit all the time. It’s really annoying and if I had the blocking written in my script, or if I had a script at all, then I wouldn’t need the tape, but I have neither and so I need the glow tape. The curtain went up on opening night and I have been stumbling about on stage for quite some time. Now that the extended metaphor about life and theatre is taken case of I think I can move on.

Life is getting crazy, and I’m not sure whether I like it or not. Classes are now in full swing, and so is mock. I’m now trying to manage my time much better. I’ve got to allot at least six hours of my day each day to be able to cover everything I need to do. I’ve got to make time for homework, LSAT studies, mock trial, and working out. All that and still manage to come up with some time to help run the house and for something to keep my sanity. I have no idea what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it. But the fact remains, I am going to have to do it all.

Excuse me, stage manager? Techies? Where is my glow tape? I’m stumbling more now than ever before. Life is getting busy and fast. With a bit of glow tape, I could know exactly what to do, but without it I just sort of guess and check my way through it all. After the 4th of October, things will calm down because the LSAT will be over, but I may have to take it again in February depending on my score. Then I have a tournament, and exams, all that while still working on regular class work. I think I may be crazy.

Think is not the right word. I know for a fact I am crazy. Why else would I be taking on this much at once? I guess that means it’s time to crack down. Wish me luck dear readers.

Quote of the Day: “When you can’t run, you crawl. And when you can’t crawl, when you can’t do that…you find someone to carry you.” —Firefly

Team Shagnasty: A New Beginning

You must pretend you are hearing Fly Like an Eagle, either by the Steve Miller Band or covered by Seal, as you read this entry because that is this year’s Team Shagnasty theme song. Mentioning the song reminds me that I must begin created a mock trial playlist for my iPod, but that is neither here nor there. What is here and there is that Team Shagnasty, the new one, had their first scrimmage and so I will blog about mock trial and my new team.

This is the new Team Shagnasty because the majority of of the old team has either A. graduated or B. moved on to become a captain of sorts. Only to Shagnasty team members are left, and there other one of us is on a captain of sorts on another team. So I revived Shagnasty to be the name of my new team, which consists of two returning memebers, GNarmes and I, as captains and six newbies. Since I have the most experience I have a permanent seat at the attorney table and as the closing attorney on both sides. GNarmes also has a permanent spot at the table and is opening, as it stands. Right now we have a newbie plaintiff middle attorney and will have a newbie defense middle attorney. The rest will be witnesses, alternating in roles and the like since we have eight people and six slots in each round. It would be helpful if I understood the burden of proof in the case, but I really don’t. And good ol’ AMTA is not good about providing such assistance.

On to last nights scrimmage. The Mock Trial gods were not smiling down on that round, of that much I am certain. Things were a lot rougher than I expected, I mean a lot. I thought we were more prepared, though clearly we were not. Our attorneys were out of sync with out witnesses on some occassions, and our objections and arguments were very poorly done. However, in the next four weeks from now to SLU, Team Shagnasty will work hard and get better. I will have a squirt gun, and we will get things right. I do have faith in my team though, so we shall see. Wish us luck readers.

Quote of the Day: “Life’s like a novel with the end ripped out…” Rascal Flatts, “Stand”

Twenty One Years

Twenty-one years, that’s how long I’ve been on this mudball we call Earth. Yesterday at 5:03 PM I turned exactly twenty-one years old. I’m old, dear readers, freaking ancient really. I’m a senior in college, with a lot going on, barely time to breath, and the only thing I really wanted for my birthday is my boyfriend, who I am still and always will be madly in love with, regardless of my family telling me I’m crazy and his family hating me. Yeah, I know how lame that is, but I really don’t care. There are few things that scare me, one is India and Pakistan pointing nukes at each other and another is losing him. I know that sounds really stupid, the fear of losing him, but I love him with everything I have. That’s not the point of the blog entry of the day, though. So I’ll get with it.

The point is that things for me change as I grow older, which is a given But the thing I notice the most is how differently things change for me. For others I’ve come in contact with have experienced the opposite changes as I have, which I think maybe a product of my bizarre personality. I’m actually having body image issues now in my early twenties more than I did when I was a teenager. My appearance bothers me more now than it did when I was at that age when young women are supposed to worry about their appearance the most. I stress now about a guy more than I did when I was in those drama-filled halls of high school. It’s funny really, in a strange sort of way.

Honestly, I’ve been bothered by my hip and left leg for example, more than I used to. For those of you who don’t know, and that’s all of you unless some of my friends have somehow managed to find me here, my left leg, from a few inches above the ankle all the way up to my hip has some pretty serious scarring stemming from an accident when I was two and a half. The scars that are visible when I wear shorts and skirts, which is rare for this very reason, often bring up questions like “Oh my god, what happened to your leg?” or “Wow, when did that happen?” But those questions are questions I’m used to, I’ve been hearing them for ages since I was a little girl. But that hip, which makes my left side uneven and sunken in looking, has finally started to bother me. I have issues with pants, most often fit my hips funny, and I can’t wear anything slinky, though I have never really had the notion to, for fear of the unevenness looking bad. I hate swimsuits that don’t have boycut bottoms because the boycut bottoms hide the scars. My scars used to be my badge of survival and living, now instead they’ve become flaws that I can’t stand sometimes. I mean I don’t constantly worry about them, but on occasion, when my inner female attacks, I feel awkward.

Then there’s my weight. I was not happy with my size in high school, and senior year, around prom time, I went into panic mode about it for a short time, but I never worried enough to cause myself harm. Now at age twenty one, I’ve begun to have problems with it. I look in the mirror and shake my head because I discover that without the fat I might be really pretty. I’ve got a lot of positive features, like my eyes and hair when it behaves, but they are overshadowed by the fact that I am not thin enough, fit enough. Now there are days when the temptation to do something radical about my weight is only quelled by my fear of getting sick or something. No, I’m not anorexic or bulemic, but I have seen what it does to people. It isn’t pretty, and it is scary.  I am faced with sitting next to usually much prettier and much more attractive girls at the attorney table, and I’m used to that. I guess I find it sort of odd that it is now, when I’ve reached adulthood, completely, that I begin to think about this stuff more.

Honestly, at this point I expected myself to be mature enough to except this stuff, but I’m not. I thought by now I could get past this, but apparently it’s still an issue. I’m wierd, dear readers, because I  change in strange ways, but hey, I’ve never been normal.

Side note: Akismet is failing on me. I’ve been getting a lot of those freaky, disgusting things about naked celebrities and shit that are not being caught. This makes me an unhappy bunny.

Quote of the Day:
Dr. Mathias: Gave up a brilliant future in medicine as well. It’s madness.
The Operative: Madness? Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At his face? It’s love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous.
-Serenity