Can You Meet Me Halfway?

What's with the fighting lately?

This time it was with Jason.

It breaks my heart every time...

I'm too needy,

He's too remote.

Truth is after every fight I feel we are closer than ever.

I don't know if we'll be taking that next step any time soon though.

Relationships can be hard work. But should they be?

When it's bad it's so bad...

But when it's good,

It's SO GOOD.

Can you meet me halfway? Right at the borderline?

That's where I'm gonna wait...for you.

I'll be lookin' out...night and day...

Took my heart to the limit, and this is where I'll stay.

Sweet And Sour

I am trying to work out a lease agreement with my Ex over the truck that we once shared. After saying one thing for months then changing his mind when I did not want him back, he changed his mind and is threatening to take my vehicle and means to work right out from underneath me. I've put thousands of dollars into this truck at this point. The truth is that if he cared so much about that truck he wouldn't have started doing drugs again immediately after he signed the loan. Now he's tripping over paperwork. And then the name calling began. Regardless of the details of the fight, the phrases child molester(?) and crack whore should never come up during a conversation about a lease agreement.

Yeah.

He called me a child molester and a crack whore.

It was fucked.

On so many levels.

Destruction.

That's all I could think about. I was ready to join a metal band.

I wanted to physically hurt him. Destroy him.
It took a whole xanax to calm me down.

Vengeance.

Destruction.

Apparently I did not have the right words for this situation yesterday because pretty much everyone but my own mother thought I overreacted. Jason was wonderful. However childish he thought it was, he still called Austin and told him to shut up and leave me alone.

That meant a lot to me.

So anyway, I've decided to let Kelly Clarkson speak on my behalf:

Sour First...

So what’s your evil attitude
When you got me spending my time pleasing you
Why must you keep me underground
Tell me tell me, why you wanna bring me down?
Is it too much to give a damn
When I GAVE you one hundred and ten
Don’t blink cause I won’t be around
Tell me tell me, why you wanna bring me down?

...Then Sweet.

Remember all the things we wanted
Now all our memories, they're haunted
We were always meant to say goodbye
Even with our fists held high
It never would've worked out right
We were never meant for do or die

I didn't want us to burn out
I didn't come here to hurt you
Now I can't stop

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
But I want you to move on
So I'm already gone

Looking at you makes it harder
But I know that you'll find another
That doesn't always make you want to cry
Started with a perfect kiss
Then we could feel the poison set in
Perfect couldn't keep this love alive
You know that I love you so
I love you enough to let you go

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
But I want you to move on
So I'm already gone

I'm already gone, already gone
You can't make it feel right
When you know that it's wrong
I'm already gone, already gone
There's no moving on
So I'm already gone

Remember all the things we wanted
Now all our memories, they're haunted
We were always meant to say goodbye

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
But I want you to move on
So I'm already gone

I'm already gone, already gone
You can't make it feel right
When you know that it's wrong
I'm already gone, already gone
There's no moving on
So I'm already gone

I'm Falling in Love all Over Again

It's the little things here and there...

Lately I'm seeing them everywhere.

I am so proud of him...

He gets sexier every day.

Today he told me he'd be with me for the rest of his natural life.

But not out right, he's not that kind of guy.

It was a "by the way" situation, making it that much more charming...

It is just what I've been desperate to hear.

We talk about our future.

We've discussed our children's names.

I got him to look at wedding dresses tonight,

And that's when I knew he loved me and would never leave me.

He may even take my surname one day!

As he has no relationship with his father.

This caught me off guard in the most flattering way;

And it wasn't long till I was scribbling like a school girl...

Jason Dickerson Hughes

Molly Kathryn Hughes

James Andrew Hughes

Rachel Olivia Hughes

...is that embarrassing for a grown woman to doodle in private...?

I feel like a child in so many ways. Finally in the good ways.

I'm in a healthy relationship for the first time,

We are kindred spirits, he said so.

My body has never fit so beautifully with any man...ever.

I am in love, in love with a man I never knew existed.

Es La Verdad (A Greater Understanding)

The Pisces Man...Jason.

You may have observed that Pisces is a strongly feminine sign. Feminine, that is, in terms of its feeling bias, its imagination, its softness, its compassion. Many Pisces men are extremely masculine, and perfectly capable of what Jung calls, 'Knowing what you want and doing what you have to do to get it'. But all in all, the combination of being a man and being a Pisces is a slightly uneasy one. Largely, once again, because of collective pressures and social expectations.

There are a great many turntypes among Pisces men. They compensate in a thousand ways for being Pisceans. Some of them run in terror from the depths of their underwater visions, into an extreme and brittle kind of rationality which calls for statistics, definitions and proofs. They are the dogmatic material scientists, attempting to stamp out in others what they fear in themselves. They have no tolerance for what they call 'emotionality', and cannot abide moodiness in others because their own threatens to overwhelm them.

But if a Pisces man has the courage to face his own vulnerability, and to see that it can live happily side by side with his manhood, then you have a rare creature. And he's able to maintain his manhood without disappearing underwater into the realm of escape, that is. This is the hero of so many books and films, the antihero, the gentle fighter, the sensitive lover. It's perhaps closer to our modern myth of man than any other, since it's a peculiar marriage of male and female. The Pisces man who has accomplished this has a rare charisma, a drama about him that makes him endlessly fascinating both to men and women alike.

Sadly, many more Pisces men hit the extremes. We've mentioned the rationalist, the Pisces who hates being a Pisces and wants desperately to protect his own sensitivity. The opposite kind is also common enough. He's the fellow who loves strong women, especially women who can support him financially; who can take care of him while he's writing the eternal half-finished novel, while he's contemplating the job he'll never take. He's the passive victim, abused and betrayed by a cold, brutal wife, looking for pity and sympathy and playing for all its worth to the maternal instinct of some poor foolish woman who thinks all his romanticism is true tenderness and feeling. These are pathetic Pisceans and their wives and lovers are frustrated women who have to be men most of the time and chafe violently against it. Many Piscean men of this type gravitate toward the powerful signs in women: Leo, Aries, Scorpio, Capricorn. They have no strength of their own, and seek it in a partnership.

As you might guess, Pisces tends to run to extremes. It's rare that you get a neutral Pisces. It's generally one extreme or the other.

The Pisces man generally needs to feel 'understood' more than anything else. This isn't so much a sign of physical passion as it is a sensuous sign, a sybaritic sign. Dragging the woman off by the hair to the cave isn't generally Pisces' style. Allowing himself to strike up a warm, sympathetic conversation and then allowing himself to be seduced by good wine, soft music, satin sheets and erotic underwear is much more his style. Pisces is as happy being passive as a lover as he is being, literally or figuratively, the one on top. It's his particular brand of masculinity. Often he will make himself the buffoon, the clown, the victim, for he works a lot from sympathy and empathy. Women love to protect him. He can protect himself perfectly well. But it isn't always in his interests to let you know that.

Trust him and you'll bring the best out of him. See only the shadowy side of him and he'll have a devil of a time trusting himself. He never trusts himself anyway; he's brutally realistic, beneath all those visions. He needs the trust and loyalty of another person to bring out his own - the realistic trust, that is. Accuse him of something, and he'll happily go out and do it, just to please. His way of fighting is not to fight; it's to bend so far backwards that you fall on your face. Impotence is also his way of fighting. In this, you'll see the feminine side of the sign in strong colours. Passive resistance is a technique dear to the Piscean heart.

You might think he can easily be dominated. Think again. In fact his world doesn't include dominant or submissive. He'll play pliant on the surface because it's easier, because it's not that often important enough to draw blood. Beneath that pliant surface, it isn't that he needs to control; he just wants to be left alone. Try to dominate, and you'll discover you're empty-handed. He's simply drifted away, without a fuss.

If you are the type who likes to have all your decisions made for you, don't choose a Pisces. On the other hand, if you want someone to henpeck, pass on this one too. Now you see him, now you don't. No promise or marriage contract means anything to him if the fundamental values of the relationship have been abused. And he'll see through all the games pretty quickly. He just won't be there the next morning. No note, no phone call. Just gone. Like the fish.

But if you want a relationship which is more nearly like the ideal vision of what the so-called 'liberated' woman seeks (and these are rare animals as well), you will find that Pisces is not one of your diehard male chauvinists. Being strongly emotional himself, he usually has immense empathy for women. He generally gets on with them better than men. And with his profound understanding of human nature, you're not likely either to be the housekeeper or the sex object. You get to be a person. And that's worth quite a lot.

The Pisces Woman...Myself.

Many paeans have been written to the Pisces woman, for her mystery, her gentleness, her compassion, her elusive charm, her pregnant silences. And she may be, indeed, the archetypal feminine. The lovely, gracious princess of the fairy-tale castle, waiting for the suitor to rescue her and cherish and protect her, is modeled on Pisces. The Pisces woman has a unique ability to make a man feel terribly masculine, because she seems so often to need protecting, cherishing, and tenderness. Because she has such a changeable range and depth of feeling, she often gives the impression of being slightly unformed. It brings out the Pygmalion tendencies in any would-be artisans. Many men think they can shape her into what they choose. In part, it's true. The qualities of devotion and gentleness and softness are in abundance in many Piscean women. But blank slate she's not.

Like the Pisces man, she's unfathomable, and possesses a soul which no one can ultimately reach. Although eager to please and rarely argumentative, she also has the gift of defence through submergence. Now you see her, now you don't. She may physically disappear, usually with a lover; but more likely she'll be physically present and simply psychologically disappear, gone to the underwater realms or to someone else in fantasy. It's a very peculiar feeling when she's gone. No one home.

Romanticism runs very high in the Pisces woman. She expects, and needs the poetry and tenderness and style that any fairy-tale princess merits. Starve her of these and you will drive her either to another lover or into herself, where she may transform into the martyr. Provide them, and your princess becomes a queen. Simple. Yet astonishingly difficult for many men, since Pisces, as a watery sign, seems to attract airy types who believe they can impress her with their sparkling intellects and long for the exhibitions of feeling she herself provides without realizing they must give in exchange.

And make no mistake, the Pisces woman, if she is disappointed, will not hesitate to deceive. Remember Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton? Being good to her isn't enough. You must enter her dreams with her. Ignore them, patronize them, and you do so at your own risk. There is a strong theatrical element in the Pisces woman. She has a unique gift for getting herself into the most dreadful dilemmas and crisis which no one could possibly sort out, and then going about among her friends asking for advice which is never taken since her need to suffer and sacrifice is fed by the dilemma. A perplexing creature.

But meet her in later life, and all the compassion and wisdom which come from having seen the seamy side of just about everything yield a glow and a richness which is far more meaningful than the unshaped marble which Pygmalion sees in her late teens and early twenties. In this, the last of the signs, the Wise Woman emerges - with all the instinctual wisdom of her sex and all the human insights of her sign. Often she is almost mediumistic, preferring to shelter herself from life because this gift is so dubious and so difficult to bear. There is also more than a touch of the witch in Pisces; whether it is white or black depends on whether she has been badly bruised, and how badly. A Pisces woman gone wrong is a vampire, playing on the fantasy life of others, and draining their strength. Never underestimate her, because she may be inarticulate or reluctant to explain herself. Neptune is an enigmatic god; to love him is to love the ocean, for all its moods and changes, its anger and its peacefulness, its destruction and its beauty.

Yes, we're back together.
Thinking about moving in together next year... !

Aromatherapy Stress Relief in Tranquil Mint

I got the job at Bath & Body Works! HUGE promotion for me! Customer Sales Lead. It's a big job, and I get stressed out easily. My biggest character flaw is that when something doesn't come naturally to me, I tend to want to quit or cry. Yeah. Not something I'm proud of at all. But I AM proud of this job.

So Austin is out of jail now, living in a court-ordered halfway house in Temple, Texas. I think it's shitty that his mom (who I used to be extremely close to) has declared that she wants me to have no contact with Austin, which is a kick in the teeth after having been there for BOTH of them for so long now. I am NOT the bad guy.

Though it has felt good with him around again. His voice feels like home. I hope to get to know who he is now.

When I was relatively unemployed, I took on a babysitting job for a guy friend of mine with a crazy baby mama. When I say crazy, I mean she's got 2 aggravated assault charges against her and is on probation. The baby, Ember, is only 6 months old, and we were having a blast. When it came time to put the Ember down to nap, I'm lie on the bed to watch her, dozing myself. I heard something loud and wondered what it was. It didn't take long to find out.
Suddenly the baby's mom is in the room and I stand up and say "you're not supposed to be here!" So she grabs my breast and twists it and throws me to the ground and grabs Ember and takes off. I get up and chase after her and by this point there's nothing I can do, she's already in the getaway car, driven by an ex-boyfriend. I'm trippin. The only thing worse than LOSING the baby, as a babysitter, is if the baby dies. So I call the dad, and the grandma, and of course, the cops. I file an assault charge, which was later dropped by the county, although William's lawyer filed a motion against the mother for interfering with the custodial rights of a child. The custody hearing was yesterday.
I was subpeonaed by BOTH parties to testify. Got sworn in and everything. I was so nervous! I'd never been to court save to plead guilty and say "yes sir" and "no sir" when instructed. These lawyers wanted to cross-examine me, Law & Order style! LUCKILY, I never had to take the stand because the mom was in so badly they just made a deal where William has full custody and she only gets to see Ember like 8 hours a week under state supervision. So basically, we won. But Here's the kicker.This bitch alleged that I was NAKED with the child. WTF. So I'm temporarily not allowed around the baby. Temporary meaning a couple months. The lawyer said it really didn't mean much. But I gave that bitch the EVILEST eye on the way out of court. Tell me that's not fucked.

The whole situation was traumatizing.

Danielle is getting married next October! I'm the maid of honor. So I've been busy checking out wedding ideas and fun, girly stuff like that. The wedding is in Dallas at a magnificent hotel. The "theme" is Vintage Southern. I can't wait! Never been a bridesmaid. Maybe I'll catch the bouquet!

So Jason and I have been getting closer, but he had made it terribly clear to me that he wanted me to move on. Therefore I had. Austin's back, and I remember why I loved him. I ran into Jeremy, an old high school friend at a Texas Aggie football game a couple weeks ago. My dad mortified me by making it OBVIOUS that I was single. Well, we have a wedding shower we're both invited to tomorrow, so it's a date. I have a date! Afterparty at his house. It's only AFTER all this, that Jason owns up to me that he's still in love with me. Men! What's a girl to do?

Tears of Pain, Catharsis, and Happy Surprise

So. Yesterday was a rough day. I found out one of my good friends, who will remain unnamed, was arrested for selling to an undercover. The penalties in this country for non-violent drug offenders are ridiculous, and it hurts me because I know what he's in for. It's not good. I saw him the night before he turned himself in. When I left I gave him the fist bump...if I would have known what was gonna happen a few hours later I would have hugged his neck. Honestly, I'm surprised at my feelings because I believe in taking responsibility for your actions, I did. But my heart goes out to him because the flood of emotion surrounding my own incarceration has knocked me on my ass. The lonliness. Utter and complete loneliness and isolation from everyone and everything you love. It sucks.

And of course I internalize that feeling. Lots of shit has gone down this summer. I've found out who my friends ARE and EXACTLY who they aren't. It's hard when you put yourself out there and people don't accept you for who you are. That's a REAL lonely place. And I've found myself there this morning.

I've been sleeping at Jason's because he's needed me. His bitch-ass roomate is moving out and sticking him with tons of bills. She was too chickenshit to tell him herself. He found out from someone at a party. Yeah. He could have won an Academy Award for not crying on the spot. Now he's trippin cause he's afraid he might become "homeless." I love him too much to let that happen. Love like in a regular way. He's one of my best friends. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it's true. I love him like family. I may love him more than that, but I honestly don't know. It's up to him and the way he acts. We've been working through alot of the muck we've found ourselves in. Either way, I've been taking care of him, giving all I've got to keep him going, because I know if he quits now, it's all over.

And he's got his first show coming up in a few weeks. And I won't let him fail.

So this morning we talked. I cried. All the strength I'd mustered up over the last few days/weeks has waned. I've given and given and given and given till I don't know if I've got anything else to give. That's a very lonely place.

And of course, just as I'm ready to give up, throw in the towel, and crawl in a hole, I get this phone call out of the blue...

My manager from Bath & Body Works calls to tell me that they want to promote me to sales lead, which is a permanent, management position! I couldn't believe it. I've got to meet up with her tomorrow for the first of 3 interviews. This is a godsend to me. As soon as I hung up the phone I hit my knees and thanked god. I cried to him. I apologized for counting him out. I begged his forgiveness. I should have never doubted his love. I thanked him again and again for the opportunity to make something out of myself, and this time, I'm gonna do it!