Chipped Polish & Wornout Jeans

Sometimes I think I want too much out of life. And I don’t mean little things like the fact that I’d love to have more readers on my blog (although I really would) or finally mastering some recipe or losing the fifty or more pounds I need to lose. I want to do so much with my life, and some of it is all so different.

I want to change the world, make it better, and I want to practice law. For so long I’ve wanted to be a lawyer, and I’ve done as much as I can to make that happen. I’ve given up so much to do it. I feel like I lost Jake to my own ambition because I left before I should have; if I had stayed in TN just one more year instead of rushing off at the first change I got, maybe things would have turned out differently for us, and then maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely. But that’s not the point. The point is that I so desperately want to be a lawyer, and I’m so afraid that I may never become one. I don’t what I’d do with my life if I couldn’t go to law school and become a lawyer. I’d give everything to be able to do that.

But I also want to bake; I want to make amazing cookies and cakes. I think it would terrific to be able to make these fabulous creations that make people smile when they see them. How does that add up? I mean becoming a lawyer and owning a bakery, or maybe just a small shop that sell custom orders only. I love baking, and I love being able to be creative in the kitchen. I had so much fun baking my niece’s third birthday cake, and I would love to keep improving. My Grandmother offered to send me to classes to learn stuff, and I’m really tempted to take her up on that offer. It would be great to be able to really decorate cakes and to make those beautiful and adorable cookies I see on other food blogs all the time.

When I said that I want too much out of life, I meant it. You see I want to write. I mean really write. I’ve always been passionate about the written word both reading it and writing for myself. It should come as no surprise that I have read thirty two books towards my goal of reading one hundred books in the year 2012. Someday I’d like to be published. I’d like to write something amazing and brilliant, something worth reading. I have folders full of unfinished works that I just haven’t been able finish. I have so many ideas, and I just want to write everything.

I want so much, and I’m so afraid that I want to much. I want to write and bake and practice law. I want to be happy most of all. I want to be happy.

---

In other news I have a new obsession. You can find me on pinterest! I don’t know what makes it so fabulous, but I love it.

Vain and Gratuitous Picture to update you on my appearance (edited in photoshop out of boredom)

But the problem with a blog when you have no life is that you have nothing to write about. Most of the time my life consists of playing in Photoshop, occasionally writing on novels that may never be finished, tons of reading, and cooking (lots and lots of cooking). Just a reminder, I talk about my culinary adventures at A Taste of Joy, and I promise to update that blog more often. In fact, my goal is to blog more from now on, and hopefully I can manage that.

Before I start with the updates on what little has transpired in the life of Nic, let me begin by saying that this blog will hopefully become a lot more interesting. I’m not going to be blogging about major political issues or anything like that, though I may talk about important issues that have been on my mind a lot, but I am going to hopefully talk more about life as I experience it. This includes blogging about the books I read, the movies I see, things I see, and things that happen in my life. Whether or not that will be interesting or worth reading is yet to be determined, but writing used to be a great outlet for me; I intend to let it be that again. So on with the blogging.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been doing a lot of reading, and you can find my Goodreads updates both on my sidebar and by visiting my account. I’m open to book recommendations and friends there. I plan to blog more about my literary adventures, including reviews of sorts of the books I’m reading.

Currently I am halfway through a re-read of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones so that I can move on to reading A Clash of Kings, and it’s one of those books that is so dense and rich that reading it a second time gives you more to love. Let me take a moment to talk about this book in general, without giving away too much, and then when I’ve finished I will write an actual review.

Martin’s writing style is very heavy, and he tends to be very wordy; however, for me that is not a deterrent so long as the story continues to move forward at a decent pace, which for the most part he does. He has a sort of Joss Whedon wickedness about him, in that you will fall in love with characters only to have them viciously taken from you via death. But his characters are deliciously human, and even the villains are realistic. I absolutely love that there are characters to love, characters you’ll love to hate, and characters you find yourself cheering for despite misgiving. The story rotates through their various points of view, which can be very daunting, and some of his chosen narrators leave a lot to be desired (I’m looking at you Sansa Stark, you little simpering whiner); however, each narrator weaves a brilliant portion of the overall tapestry, bringing their subplots and motivations.

The world is richly developed, and while there are underlying elements of high fantasy (dragons, direwolves, magic, and the mysterious Others), the fantasy aspect is cleverly worked into the overall story without bombarding the reader. It is not a book for the squeamish or those uncomfortable with sex, violence, and death, but I highly recommend it for fantasy lovers who want something thick and detailed to feed a need for heroes and villains.
Other books I’m reading:

• Eona by Allison Goodman
• Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
• Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

The only update I have for now is that I have two mapped out but unfinished barely started novels. One is a futuristic dystopian work called NeverWonder and the other is a historical fantasy work that has yet to be named.

When you are a child you don’t realize how much more there is to losing a loved one than their death. You don’t see the extent of the sickness if they are ill or the difficult choices about medical treatment and care. You only know that your loved one is gone. Being an adult and dealing with it is so much more difficult. I’m learning that now as I sit here, blogging from the hospital room where my Nanny, a woman who has been a very large part of my life, is slowly dying. My Nanny is possibly suffering from a very rare degenerative neurological disease called Atypical Motor Neuron Disease; it is incurable and will eventually claim her life. This has really affected my family, especially my mom who was always close to her mother, and that tears me apart because I am very close to my mom, to the point that I will go to blows with people who mess with her. The family drama that is happening due to crappy relatives only makes this worse.

Right now, as I sit here, my Nanny is dehydrated and a bit emaciated because she cannot eat due to her inability to swallow and she made it very clear that she did not want anything invasive like feeding tubes; my mom and I come and stay at the hospital almost everyday, and early in the week we were actually sleeping at the hospital because we weren’t sure she was going to last the night. We are practically living in the hospital room at the moment. The sad thing is that, while we don’t want a pat on the back or anything, no one seems to appreciate the way we are sacrificing and suffering, and instead either we are ignored or it is implied that we are doing this out of a guilty conscience. We have nothing to be guilty about because we have always taken care of Nanny and been there for her. So all of the drama that is happening on top of my mom losing her mother. Soon I will only have her recipes and the memory of her voice, and I’m not sure how to handle it. I love my Nanny, and I will miss her so much; I already miss her. That is why I’ve made up my mind that the bakery and sweets shop I plan to eventually have will be called “A Taste of Joy” in honor of Barbara Joy Smith, my Nanny, the woman who opened my eyes and introduced me to the joy of cooking.

When I was younger, only about eight or so, I lost my Granddaddy to lung cancer, and I remember only understanding that he was gone. And when I lost my Pa and then my Papa within a few months of each other I was in high school; I was not involved in the decision making process or any of the drama that happened afterward. Now it is entirely different. There are people who must must be called and choices about her care, and most of that is falling to us; the problem is that those who don’t want to make the choices are not happy with the choices we make. It is a painful vicious cycle, and it feels like we simply cannot win. And while I know there is no real victory here, I simply wish there was a way to make things better for my mom, who is suffering because she is losing her mother. I wish my family hadn’t lost their ever loving minds and decided that this is the perfect moment to stir up drama and cause fights, and I wish that we could have peace in this family for once because it is something my Nanny has always dreamed about.

I guess I’ve been thinking too much again. I’ve all but given up on ever getting to be with Jake, although I miss him terribly; I still do not know what happened, and I still wonder if he left because I was a mess. I can be so harsh and abrasive, and I’m a mass of contradictions and trouble; I came with baggage and damage because the one person who’d promised me forever lied to me, cheated on me, and never had the courage to actually end the relationship, and I got scared a lot. Sometimes I feel like I was way more trouble than I was worth. I know I should move on because that would be the wise decision, the strong choice, but I have yet to get over him, even though it has been well over a year since he said it was over. My heart still break when he crosses my mind, and there are times when I need to hear his voice telling me it’s alright, and I know that can’t happen.

It seems others haven’t given up hope; my mother swears that he’s going to come back, though I find that hard to believe. She says that he still loves me, but I highly suspect that she is simply saying things to make me feel better; I’m sure that he’s moved on, and I hope he is happy. He is good man, and he will make some very lucky woman very happy; I hope whoever that woman is, she is grateful and kind and loving because he deserves that. My grandmama, who fell in love with him the moment she met him, is convinced that I will turn around and there he’ll be; she firmly believes that I just have to be patient and he’ll be back. I don’t think so. A tiny part of me still hold out hope that he will call me or show up, and I occasionally have these stupid heartbreaking dreams where there’s a knock at my door and I open it to find him standing there, waiting. I’m sure that someone else has come into his life, someone less damaged and crazy, and he’s happy. She probably swears less than I do, and she’s probably more of a lady than I’ll ever be. I think my nanny still secretly hopes that he will come back because he was smart and funny and well mannered and everything a good Southern man should be.

I will admit that there were times when the only bright spot in my day was the sound of his voice on the other end of the phone or a text message saying hi; no matter how crappy my day was, he could make me smile. I could be crying and miserable, and he’d make it better. I have moments, when I’m in tears and falling apart, that I reach for my phone and have to remind myself that I can’t call him, that he won’t answer, and he certainly will not come and kiss my tears away. I miss his smile, his laugh, the way he had so much faith in us and in God and in everything; I miss the way he held me tight, and I miss the way he’d sing in my ear when I was feeling terrible about myself. I miss the way he understood me better than anyone else, and he knows more about me than anyone else in the world; I shared all of myself with him. I just miss him. (I know you probably aren’t reading this, Jake, but on the off chance you are, I miss you, and I still love you.)

I’m trying hard not miss him so much because missing someone who isn’t interested in you is pointless, but it isn’t working. I’m trying not to wish we were still together, but it’s almost impossible. When he walked out of my life, I lost my best friend, which sounds really cheesy, but it’s true.

Last week, around Wednesday night, I finally broke my glasses. I couldn't even tape them to get through the week Harry Potter style. They snapped right in half at the nose piece. That meant that, while I had intended to stay at the Shoebox and work, I had to go home to the Boro for an eye exam to get new glasses and new contacts. I really love eye exams (haha, yeah right), especially the glaucoma test where they puff air at your eyeball. It always, I mean always, takes three or four times per eye to get it right. I spent Friday working on my brief (foul creature though it is) and watching curling. Saturday morning I went for my eye exam and then had a heart attack when I saw just how much it cost me to handle my eye issues. $75 for the exam, $50 for my contacts, $52 for my frames, and $110 for my lenses. That is outrageous, not going to lie. Our insurance doesn't cover contacts and glasses, just the exam, and I forgot to mention the insurance when I did the appointment, but it's really just a big hassle anyway. That afternoon though I got to see my cousin Erica's baby, and she is such a little doll. I didn't think I was ever going to see her (family issues suck), so I was very excited to see her. She looks like her mama, right down to the big blue eyes and chubby cheeks. I failed to take pictures, mainly because she was still dealing with a slight cough and runny nose after her bought with pnuemonia and the lighting was really bad. I promise that the next time I see her I will take lots and lots of pictures.

When I got home last night I didn't intend to go grocery shopping because I was really tired, but after seeing the ridiculous parking situation going on and realizing how much I would have to do tonight, I decided to go ahead and do my shopping. Of course that means going across the river to Indiana, but its not so bad when there is no traffic. I am one of "those people" when it comes to shopping. I don't just grab the first item I see. I am that woman you see studying a cut of meat to determine whether I like the amount of fat or looking through the apples to select shiny ones that are firm and nicely colored. I am a food snob, and I think you should be conscious of what you are putting in your body. Good ingredients make good dishes, and so when I'm picking out veggies to make a tomato sauce (which I can't do in the Shoebox because I have no blender and no room) I pick out the freshest tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions, for example.  On that note, I am making a diluted version of my father's "Savage's Dear God Lasagna", which is a version of my Aunt Bessie Petrillo's delicious recipe, and so I was picking out decent pasta, cheese, ground beef, and pasta sauce (I hate sauce from the jar, but can't make my own at the moment). I hate that I cannot afford several of the needed ingredients and thus cannot make a truly good lasagna, but I will survive. It will provide me with plenty of leftovers for lunches and dinners, which is always a plus.

I am not pleased with the current weather. It was very pretty this weekend, but not its gloomy and wet and unpleasant. Boo weather, you fail. This is not really worthy of a paragraph all to it's self, but its not related to anything else either.

I am well aware of how pathetic my last posts have been. Losing someone you love makes you feel pathetic though. I think that part of my problem is that I've let the pressure of law school, the unpleasantness of being fairly isolated, and the distance (and now the loss) cause me to become something I'm not. I know that I am strong; I've always been a strong person both mentally and emotionally. I'm stubborn, willful, determined, and I never give up. I hold my own even when I'm carrying the weight of the world. I take on everything, and I don't let things knock me down. I am independant. I can get by on my own. I have always said that I can live alone and get by without having someone, but I choose not to do it. I don't want to go through life alone, but if I have to, I can. But lately I've been crumbling. I let it make me soft, pathetic, and weak, and it started long before the recent insanity. Those are not attractive qualities, and this pathetic woman I seem to be right now is not the woman that Jake fell in love with. Perhaps that was part of what caused this to happen. I am working on it though. Yes, I hope that some miracle will happen, and things will go back to the way they were, when everything was good and happy and wonderful. But I'm not going to obsess over it, not going let it destroy me. Will I just forget it? No. Will I give up completely on saving something that means so much to me? No. But I am going to "woman up". I am going dig into my well of strength and independence and manage to get through things. I am a strong independant woman, and its time for me to be that woman again. I know I can do it, and I will.

Well, I have a lot to do and need to get started before I cook dinner. I will now leave you with a fun veiw of my to-do list for the week:

Late Monday night it started to snow, so much so that Tuesday's classes were canceled and we had a delay Wednesday. It's finally stopped, but we have six or so inches on the ground. Wednesday morning when I went out to go to class it took me forever to knock the snow off the blazer and then inch my way over the huge pile of snow where they plowed our parking lot. I love snow, but I don't enjoy the way it affects my usual routine. I'm a fan of snow, but not really winter or cold. On a positive note, until they scraped the sidewalks and the cars drove on it, L-ville was a pretty sight all covered in white.

Ok, so tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and, regardless of whatever relationship insanity I am currently experiencing, I will be spending it exactly as I had planned minus a phone call. I planned to use this weekend to work on my Brief (oh how I hate that Brief) and my outlines; I had also planned on calling Jake and telling him just how much I loved him, talking since we have been apart so long, and perhaps even plotting some sort of adventure to make up for the lack of V-Day fun that we would be experiencing. Now, I will just spend the weekend working on the Brief and outlining and writing a letter. Last Valentine's Day I got all girled up and sparkly, and I baked these killer cookies shaped like lips with red sugar sprinkles. They were brilliant and I was so proud of how they came out. Jake and I went out to Longhorn (My parents were there, only we somehow managed to not cross paths with them; what luck) and then to see The Pink Panther 2 because we had already seen Bride Wars (the only real date movie playing) two weeks prior. It was fantastic, and I still have the card that he gave me. I remember how he spent fifteen minutes or more writing in it while we waited to be seated. I miss those kinds of memories. This Valentine's Day I will spend the day in the Shoebox, surrounded by textbooks and case law. I will make bold, if fruitless, efforts not to cry like a little girl, and I will try to remain hopeful that some sort of miracle will take place.

I love my friends, my married friends, my engaged friends, my when the heck are you going to just give her a ring friends, my dating and happy to with their partner friends, and my single friends. I have friends who are married and not expecting children anytime in the near future; I have friends who are married and expecting their first baby, and I have newly wed friends. I also have friends who have been engaged and are rapidly approaching their wedding days, and I have friends who are newly engaged. I have friends who are dating wonderful people, and I have friends who should stop with the mushy facebook love and just get hitched already. I'm happy for all these friends, and happy for the single ones who are happy with being single. I think of all these friends with a smile and wish them the very best, but then I think of my current situation, which has brought me to tears, brought me to my knees, broken my heart, made me question lots of things, caused me to lose lots of sleep, messed with my appetite, and in general messed me up. I cannot count the number of times that I have reached for the phone, trying to get up the courage to even talk to him. Every time I think that I can manage to just say hi, I panic, drop the phone, and bite back tears. The number never gets dialed, and the text is never even started. There are so many things I want to say to him, but I feel like he is avoiding me, like he will keep avoiding me until I give up on us. But I can't give up, I just can't. He seems to be operating just fine without me, but I'm falling apart inside. I love him. Is that wrong? Am I supposed to just kill those feelings? Because I can't do that. If I could just move on, if I didn't feel like this is all wrong, if I didn't have this feeling that I'm not supposed to give up on us, I would.

I still don't understand why it happened. I'm afraid people think that I hurt him, that I did something horrible. Isn't that funny? A part of me wants it known that he chose to break it off, not me. A part of me wants it understood that I didn't leave him and I didn't walk away. I guess the evil and sarcastic Nic would rather not have the idea that she hurt the man she loves, that she walked away from it, that she gave up on the best thing that ever happened to her, floating around out there. Maybe I'm not so strong and mean and nasty after all. I'm so afraid that I screwed up our relationship; in fact, I'm almost positive that something I did ruined it all. You see, once upon a time there was this woman and this man, and they met at just the right moment in a classroom. They were both a little bit lost, and they found each other. It was good, and it was wonderful, and it was everything love is supposed to be. But she was all damaged, and she let her fear and stupidity get in the way. She thought they could get passed it, and she thought they would be OK despite it all. But it wasn't, and she lost him. I'm so afraid that I did hurt him, that I did do something wrong. It hurts so much. I am so lonely, and I miss my other half. The thing is, I need him in my life, which may say sound insane, but I do.

I promise that I will come up with an entry before this weekend is over, but country music sort of says exactly what I want I am feeling and what I want to say. I don't really like posting just the lyrics to songs and what not because that is not what my blog is about, but this just needed to be done. It's been echoing in my ears for a while. So at this time the best way to convey my emotions is Clay Walker's "This Woman and This Man".

So much is on my heart right now that I can't just let it build up; I guess I just need to blog it out for now. I don't keep a journal, so this is what I do. Maybe I shouldn't blog about this particular issue, but I promised myself that I would use this blog to chronicle my life through law school and beyond, and this is big part of my life. (Besides, I'm pretty sure I don't have a huge number of readers.)

Make-up miracles are in store in the life of Nic for a while, I think. Black eyeliner and mascara, strategically done in combination with the right amount of concealer and light eyeshadow, manages to cover the puffiness of my sleep-deprived, red teary eyes. Nothing will suck the pretty out of your face like the look of loss, hurt, and heartbreak; the one exception is that when I cry, the gold amid the green in my hazel eyes suddenly pops, and they look all bright and shiney. Funny fact: my eyes are pretty when I cry, the rest of me is not. That is what I've been doing off and on since Thursday night, crying my eyes out. I've also been doing a lot of praying and a lot of dragging myself  through my work at a snail's pace. I know that it sounds pathetic, but nothing seems right anymore. Who am I going to save the world with now? I would gladly let him go into politics and pass the laws that save the world and I will prosecute the offenders. He was my partner, my best friend, my better half. I need my partner back, the man who makes me grin like a fool for no apparent reason, who believed in me when no one else did, who brought me back to life so to speak. I would gladly give up everything I have just to have him back. I'm trying so hard to give him time, hoping that time will bring him around and we will be able to be together again. It feels so strange not to have text message conversations that last all day about nothing what-so-ever. I miss the way hearing my phone ring or feeling it vibrate and seeing that he was calling or that there was a text message from him. I wonder if he misses that too. I wonder if he misses the random, "I love you" texts, the random "I miss you" messages. I wonder if he misses the way we shared our inner hopes, thoughts, and dreams. I wonder if it feels as strange to him as it does to me not to be swapping texts about the little things that make us smile or laugh. I wonder if this hurts him as much as it hurts me. I'm afraid that he's gotten over me, over us, that he finds it so much easier to just move on and forget us. I'm afraid I've lost him forever.

Like I said in the last entry, I'm afraid this all comes from something I've done, and to be quite honest, I'm willing to change whatever that was. I will change my ways, my stupidity, my insanity. I will do anything I can. I will give up my vices, learn to watch my mouth. I will never talk about the future unless he brings it up. I will be nothing but supportive no matter what that means. I could care less about settling down and building the log house and all that. It doesn't matter anymore, and I don't think that it ever did. Everything is in better perspective now; none of those things mattered to begin with because the only thing that really mattered was being together, being there for each other, having each other to lean on, and loving each other. What mattered and what still matters is that we knew each other, we shared with each other, we were close, and we were just us and it was good. I had this happily ever after all thought out, but none of that matters without him. None of it does at all. I'm not sure that he will ever come back to read this thing (I know he used to read it because he would tell me what he thought), but if you are reading this Jake: I'm sorry if I ever made it seem like what mattered most to me was settling down and the future and all that other BS. None of that ever mattered so much as what was good about being together. None of it matters at all in comparison. I'm sorry if I allowed our spark to grow dim, darlin; I should've been paying closer attention. I'd give absolutely anything to fix that. I'm sorry if I did something to make you stop believing in us. I still believe; I really do believe in us. I'm sorry if I didn't show you just how much I appreciated what we had, and I'm sorry if I didn't show you just how much I love you and believe in you. I'm currently writing a letter, one that I don't know that I will have the courage to give to you, one that I'm not sure you will read, one I'm not sure really will matter much at all or do any good because if you have given up on us (a fact that I can barely stand to think about) then it won't really matter whether you know why I think this should be saved, that explains all of this so much better. It may seem sort of crazy  to say this here instead of directly to him, but sometimes I can write or type what I want to say better than I can every say it in person.

Some of my friends, well our friends, are already wondering what went wrong, and I don't know what to say to them. I love my friend Tiff because she is such a sweetheart; she was so concerned and so willing to help. "But you two were so perfect together... it was so obvious that you were good together. When you two were together you lit up the room. It was so clear you adored each other." She immediately wondered what was up with the sudden change and even offered to talk to him for me. I told her not to, that I didn't think that it was a great idea to interrogate him. (The idea that such an action would both make me seem pathetic and would push Jake farther away if there is a chance that I might be able to fix it). If I thought it would help, if I thought maybe it would do something to fix things and get us back together, I would let her ask, let her talk to him about it. But somehow doubt that it would do much good to have that happen. I guess that my best hope is prayer and patience (which I lack) and faith and the strength of heart and determination (which is something I've always had). So right now, I'm wandering about the world right now, pretending that I'm not falling apart, sitting in my classes, staring straight ahead, biting my lip really hard every time Jake's face flashes across my mind, fighting back the tears every time my heart starts aching because I think of something that I want to tell him or want to show him, and in general just taking a deep breath and grinding it out.

Pretty much I'm living this song by the Carter Twins:

Ladies and Gentleman of the reading audience, it breaks my heart to put this into words, and I will do this without using quotes from the actual conversation, simply because I care too much about the other half of this issue to humiliate him or hurt him.

The Jake and Nic show is over, canceled abruptly like Fox cancelled Firefly. It was not mutual, but maybe somewhere down the road, they will get signed for another season, (If I'm lucky anyway). I'm not holding out a great of hope because he seems to have made up his mind. So this will be my last entry tagged Jake and Nic unless a miracle happens. This how we got where we are. Apparently, he was feeling off about us, and being the inexperienced one he didn't tell me, and then last night when I finally get worried he calls and tells me that our spark is gone, that he no longer feels the way he did about me. I had to take off my ring and start changing all my stuff around. Needless to say that so far my weekend is dominated by tears and insane hopes and then more tears. I don't understand how you can be fine one month, and then suddenly you aren't anymore. Something had to go wrong, and I want to fix it. I love him, dear readers, and I love him more than I probably should if he doesn't love me (or if he doesn't think he loves me, if that's the case). I love him so much that it hurts. He still has my heart, and I don't want it back at all. In the year and three months we were together, I was the happiest I'd been in five or so years. Nothing fit so perfectly, not even the ex who I once thought that I loved. Nothing was as right as things were when there was an us. I want the chance to rekindle our spark, because if it went out it can be relit. Maybe he doesn't want me anymore though, maybe he's given up. I don't know, but I don't want to just be friends. I don't want have to go back to August and September 2008 when Jake and Nic were friends. I want to make a new start. Maybe we just need time, time apart to grow a little, time apart to realize what we had. Maybe we need a break, but I don't want that break to be permanent. I don't know, but I don't want this to mean the end.

I'm afraid, afraid I did something wrong. I'm afraid that I somehow became unattractive to him. I'm afraid that my personality changed and pushed him away. I'm afraid that me being crazy lately somehow drove him away. I'm afraid that I made a  bad impression on his family, that they didn't like me. I'm afraid my family scared him off (which is also something Mama is afraid of). And most of all I'm afraid that the fact that he's super involved in church and I can't be right now made him decided that it wasn't right. I was trying so hard to be involved and that's part of why I went to Gatlinburg with him. I was finally ready to do that. I wanted some much to be a part of that in his life, and I'm afraid that I didn't show him enough. I'm afraid that he thought that I didn't want to be a part of it and so we couldn't be together. I'm afraid we started moving too fast and that scared him. I'm afraid that's my fault, that because it kept coming up and I was dumb enough to think that it should. I'm afraid the distance messed things up for us. I'm afraid that I have lost the one man I love. But I don't want to lose him. It would be wrong to give up on someone like this.

I just understand how the feeling can just be gone all of a sudden. I don't understand how he could give up on us after we've been through so much already, after we'd come so far. Maybe I should just give up too, but I can't do that. I don't care about this distance or the difficulties. I don't care about the future right now or settling down or log houses or pugs or bulldogs or first apartments or any of that. I care about laughing over not being good at bowling. I care about holding hands and running from the rain. I care about Peter Pan and Tinkerbell in the parking lot after a ridiculous exam. I care about seeing movies about food when we're starving then getting milkshakes and burgers. Maybe that's what we need to get back to now. I don't know how, but I do know what I want. I'd like to get back to that happy place, with laughter, smiles, and flirting. I think we can, and I think that it would take some work. But I think that if we really cared and really tried, we could do it, provided that he hasn't already found someone to replace me. I love him, readers, and I want to get him back.

The lines from this song is playing in my head over and over:

One of the downsides of living away from home is that sometimes you get phone calls that aren't exactly pleasant and you are stuck alone in your apartment crying your eyes out. You see, on Monday night Mama called because Little Bit was going in for surgery because of a bad infection of her reproductive system. Well in the middle of our conversation the vet's office called and told her that when they opened her up it was too late, and that she was gone.

Let me tell you a little bit about our Little Bit. She was a rescue rottie that someone had not treated well. She'd been starved and beaten, and then the people had dumped her out at my Nanny's farm. We brought her to our house with the intention of finding her a good home, and we did, ours. We wound up adopting our foster dog, and she adopted me. I became her person, and eventually she slept in my room under my bed. This dog, named Little Bit because she was just a little bit of dog when we brought her home, had probably known little kindness in her life before we adopted her, and she didn't have the best experience with humans. She never quite learned that she didn't have to eat so fast and that she would always be fed, but she was getting better. When she came into our lives she chewed everything from broomhandles to belts, and I think it was because she had been hurt with them so many times. It took her a little while to get used to being touched, and while she grumbled and barked a little she allowed us to pet her. Adjusting was difficult because she wasn't raised properly from a puppy, but for a dog who had been through so much before us, Little Bit was good natured and sweet.

She had grown so used to me being home all the time that when I moved to L-ville for law school, she was having a difficult time adjusting. She would pretty much explode out of the house when I arrived home for the weekend, and sometimes if I came home at night instead of the afternoon she would have to be held back to keep her from jumping off the deck when she saw me. She was very attached to me, and I was attached to her. She was my baby girl, and I will miss her very much.