"Don't you know nobody drinks alone"

Last night was...last night. I went to the gym until about eight, got home and about nine M. called me and essentially invited me over...it was more a discussion of "I don't care if you come over" proportions. Anyway, I knew he'd be drinking and I hate when he drinks alone because 9 times out of 10 he'll call me to come over anyways because drinking alone he gets depressed. So I figured why not just go, keep him some company, have a couple glasses of wine and go to bed? Harmless, right?

BAD IDEA! Not because we had a bad night per say but because apparently I had more wine than I thought and spent midnight on sick as hell. Bad thing, I didn't get there until 10pm. I downed half a jug of wine in two hours and I damn sure payed for it. It was so random too, I just got up to go to the bathroom and when I got in there, boom. I have not been that sick from drinking in a long time and I've never been sick in front of M. before.

I am so thankful he was there. I was really embarrassed but I got over that quickly and accepted his assistance. He got me water and pepto bismol, he didn't even get mad about me getting sick on his bed, didn't get mad about anything. I know I said a lot of random stufff, I know I threw around "I love you" quite a few times which I don't say anymore unless I'm drinking. I don't know what set me off, I don't know why I drank so much. Part of it might have had to do with him mentioning that he was talking to this random girl he used to date. He said it's more out of curiousity than anything else, they've already tried to make it work twice and it hasn't. He asked if it would upset me if they started hanging out and I started to cry. It was more the wine than anything else, but even still. I told him if it becomes a daily or even semi-regular thing, of course I'd be upset.

We listened to this Kenny Chesney song I've never heard before and I immediately started to cry. It's called "Better as a Memory" and the hook to the song is "I was better as a memory than as your man." and it just reminds me of the way that things can go south with M. and I hope and pray that nothing goes south with him. I do love him, I seriously do. I can see myself marrying this guy in a practical sense. With Cedric it was more because he was my first love, he was the only thing I'd ever known romantically that way and I knew that I cared about him and loved him but marrying him was pushing it. With M. I can actually visualize our life together, I can see me and him getting married and having children and living happily ever after. We mesh that well when things are good and when things are bad we deal with them and move on, I can only think of one, maybe two fights in the past four months that have carried on past an hour. And all of our fights are over stupid little shit, nothing major or life changing.

Okay, back to work. I'm sure I'll ramble on some more later but I need to kill a few hours actually doing my damn job.

"Well you done done me and you bet I felt it..."

After a rough weekend (to say the least) I have a renewed sense of hope and self...and people say Monday's are bad days.

Friday night I went out with Leeann and Meghan. Leeann and I grabbed drinks at Chilli's than headed to the Watering Trough with Meghan. We had a great time...drank a little much. M. came to pick us up way too early in our opinion but it was a free ride so the complaints were kept between us. Apparently when we got home, I made a complete fool of myself in front of M. while we were laying in bed. I don't remember exactly what words were exchanged but I know I was sad, I started to cry and M. rubbed my back and told me it would be okay and he held me for a little bit then rolled over and fell asleep. It was sweet for awhile and I'm at least thankful I remember his kindness and not everything else. The next morning was rough though, on both of us, me more so than  him. I felt ashamed and I was a little grumpy and he was rightfully grumpy so it was just a rough day all around.

Saturday I spent the day cleaning my aunt's house with my mom and step-dad. It was a selfish gesture on my part because while I know my aunt needs help with such things, I did it mainly so that my mom and I would start speaking to each other again. We've been on the outs because she doesn't like me going out and spending the night out at people's houses, etc. etc. and I've done so three times in the last week.

M. and I had it out on Saturday night. Words were thrown around and things were said. He actually suggested that we not speak for three months until I lose weight and I about lost it both on him and myself. We're okay now, as okay as we can be I suppose. We talked a couple times breifly yesterday and he was short with me, borderline pissed each time so I left well enough alone, left him alone. Monday is generally a night I come spend the night since I have Tuesday's off and while I have my stuff to sleep over in the car just in case, I doubt he'll call. If he does, I don't know if I'll say yes. I have laundry and other obligations I need to fufill. My room is trashed and I want to play some guitar and maybe sew some bags tonight or make some jewelry, do something to distract me from thinking about him.

Work has been busy thankfully today. I've paused for the last two hours, I wrote the upper portion of this two hours ago and I just now have two seconds to add to it. I have eight callbacks pending, jobsheets to print for tomorrow, follow-up calls to complete and pre-calls to complete. I hate feeling rushed like this. I'm going to smoke a cigarette in a minute, relax and hopefully get ready to bust it out for the next four hours.

I spent the day at Meghan's house yesterday with her family. I love them, they're so upbeat and open. We hung around drinking beer and pina coladas, smoking cigarettes and playing volleyball. I had a lot of fun and it was really relaxing! I definitely needed that.

I'll probably write later when I get home...if I don't update we all know where I went but I haven't heard anything from him today so it is what it is.

"I wanna it swing, I wanna feel it sway..."

Working out everyday really does improve one's quality of life. I feel so much better about everything now a days. Even though I woke up sore and tired as hell today, I am still in a good mood, I am still looking forward to my work out this afternoon after work and looking forward to working out the day after that and so on and so forth.

Yesterday afterwork I went to the gym and then hung out with M. and his best friend...we had a damn good night til his friend's girlfriend showed up and dragged his best friend home. I don't get some girls, and M. and I spent the better part of last night's drive home as well as about 45 minutes just now talking about it over the phone. This girl thinks that she owns him...how do you "own" another person?? Her and I are gym buddies and so we talk a good bit, she constantly says things like "He's not a free man" and "He can't do whatever he wants"...sweetheart, it is our God-given right as American's to do whatever we want and whether he's with you or not, he will. She doesn't like him and M. to hang out because she thinks M. is a bad influence when in actuality, probably the ONLY reason they're still a couple this morning is because M. told him to stand down last night when he was starting to get mouthy, he told him that they'd just hang out today. We left M's car at their place because M. had been drinking so I drove us home and when M. was trying to breifly set it up so that his friend could take him to get his car, his friend's girlfriend is like "you don't have plans tomorrow...you DON'T have plans tomorrow, you have stuff to do..." I mean I enjoy this girls company and the four of us have hung out on more than one occasion...at first, things were hunky dory for lack of a better description, we all hung out and enjoyed ourselves but she's way too comfortable embarrassing him and trying to pull rank in front of his friends. In her defense, M. and this guy have been friends since they were about 11 or 12 and I've been around enough that they're comfortable around the two of us, but still, it's disrespect...blatant disrespect. M. and I talked a lot about it last night and how he's glad I'm not "bat-shit crazy" like this girl is. This girl seriously drove up, sat in her car for no less than three minutes than got out and stood there until his friend went over. She lit him up in front of me and M...it's just serious disrespect. How can you have a relationship without respecting someone? It's not plausible and it's not realistic.

We were having a damn good time though. I did a beer and pizza run for the guys since they were drinking already, hung out and a drank a beer, at a slice of pizza and bullshitted. It was the first time since I've met his friend that I've really seen him break out of his shell and actually have FUN! They were cracking jokes about the three of us and questionable activities *cough cough* and being very talkative and just having honest, harmless fun. She pulled up as her boyfriend was giving me a lap dance, we laughed our asses off. She didn't see it, Thank God, but we were all scared she did and M. laughed so hard he spit his beer out...it was the hardest I've ever seen his friend laugh and damn close to the hardest time I've ever seen M. laugh.

M. really impressed/surprised me last night with some of the things he said to me...I think last weekend woke him up and I'm glad, I'm so glad that I'm not wrong about him. Our conversations no longer include the word "if"...as in "If we start dating..." it's now a "when". "When we start dating..." He told me he doesn't give me enough credit and he does appreciate me. He said Thank You several times last night and called me about an hour ago just to Thank me again. Little shit like that speaks volumes! He's giving me a lot more credit, praise, affection, etc. We were actually able to sleep fairly well last night for the first time in about a week and there's a chance I may see him again tonight. I think a big part of the change between us is on my part as much as his. I'm not crowding him anymore...tonight for example, he mentioned something about drinking. I told him I'd be in Tampa but if he needed me, call me and I'd come get him. And he said he'd probably take me up on that. The way that's different than before is I'd normally hang around Largo, even if I had no money or any plans, I'd hang out and wait for the possibility of him calling me and that was stifling. He's beginning to trust me more and more now, which is a huge step for him because he's very wary of females considering the way he's been screwed over in the past. I know have free reign of his debit card when I need to run an errand at his benefit, last night's a good example. And he's more comfortable with my presence in front of other people, especially since he knows I've been busting my ass lately and that I'm only going to get better looking. Him and his friend apparently had a conversation about how M. is going to have "one hell of a girlfriend" and his friend, while we were eating, made a comment about how I was "smart and funny and sweet and fun to be around and SWEET" lol. It was funny. His friend does like me, which is good. It means a lot to M. to have one of his friends approval especially one of this particular friend's caliber. I was told last night that I "outrank" his friend's girlfriend as far as our little foursome goes. The only thing she has on me, she weighs less, but she carries it a lot more unattractively than I do for lack of a better way to describe it. You can tell she's built small, I'm not. There-in lies the difference.

 But the fact that I "outrank" her and was flat out told that I "outrank" her means that M. and I are getting closer and closer to our happily ever after.

"Drink a little drank, smoke a little smoke..."

So I feel wonderful! I've had a very fufilling past couple days and I haven't felt this good, this upbeat in a long time.

I went to the gym yesterday after work and put in two hours, woke up at an ungodly hour this morning and put in two hours and I'm going to go back to the gym after work for another couple hours. I'm addicted to working out for multiple reasons. 1) I felt like crap when I woke up this morning but as soon as I got in there and started working out, I felt great! 2) I want to slim down as much as possible in the next week or so because Meghan got VIP tickets to Shepherd's for Memorial Day Weekend 3) I want to get down to a healthy weight because I'll look and feel better and 4) M. has already told me how proud he is that I'm putting in so much time and effort and him and I have been getting along great lately and I just want us to be in a good place. He's kind of like my reward...you set goals and work hard to achieve them and reward yourself in the end, my reward is happiness not only with myself but happiness in my relationship with him. He's been going to the gym everyday too and he's already lost some weight.

I'm drinking a ton of water, cut out soda completely. I went shopping today for work food, got some grapes, carrots, yogurt, lean pockets, pickles, blue corn tortillas and salsa, popcorn, and applesauce. I can't wait to get back in the gym this afternoon. One thing I've started to do that I really want to keep working on is running. I'm starting slow and light but eventually I'd like to get to the point where I can run a couple miles a day and start doing that in addition to my workouts in the gym. I spent some time last night putting good work out songs on my MP3 player.

The only thing plaguing me really and truly is money...or lack there of. I reached a settlement with one card today because it was either that or my file got sent to a lawyer. The battery in my car is literally on it's last leg. I have to pay that speeding ticket. I figure if I can make at least, at the VERY least $300 per check I'll be alright but right now, I'm scared. I know next week's check will be decently sized so I'm hoping to put 1/2 of it into my account. I have to pay off a payday loan from Amscot only to turn around and get another one 24hours after when I can. It's just irritating. I wish I had never gotten myself into this mess. I just want to pay off my cards and be done with it. I'm going to knock out the two small ones and be done with them, then I have 3 big ones left. =/ The whole thing just sucks.

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you..."

Gorgeous rainy day today...hate being stuck at work, I'd rather be stuck in bed. Reminds me of one particular Sunday not to long ago, M. and I spent the whole day in bed and on the couch. That was a great day.

Talked to M. yesterday...I've been thinking about him a lot, thinking about what we talked about on Saturday and how everything played out. You know some people are disappointed in the fact that I couldn't say goodbye, the fact that I couldn't part ways with him...and while I don't blame many of them, I think a big part of the problem is I never talked about all the good things that M. did for me, how he took care of me on my bad days, how he took care of me (in one instance I remember) when I was sick to my stomach and he was just very doting and sweet. He helped me with money on more than on occaision and on top of all the bad, did a lot of good too.

David also called me last night. Told me that M. called him and text him a few times but that David blew him off. I hate running interference on these two...telling one what the other has said, they're worse than high schoolers some time. David is doing M. dirty in some ways and in other ways, I wish I had his strength...David's reasons for parting with M. are shady though, he is walking away from a friend because he has a new girl in his life and that is wrong. My only advice to David was don't burn bridges you can't afford to burn... I don't burn my bridge with M. because I can't afford to...I rely on him as a friend and I told him last night, even if we never get together, I will always be his friend. And I mean that, I am not an unloyal person and M. even admitted last night I have proven myself trustworthy on a number of occasions. I don't know, I take it 1 day at a time with M. because that's all I really can do.

God I'm tired. I've gotten too much sleep in that past two days, my body is in shock from it. I have Danielle's graduation to go to tonight. Her party was yesterday at our house, we had a good time. I enjoyed seeing all my family and spending time with them. I am proud of her for busting her ass in school and getting into UCF and going away to college. It was disheartening though because all I heard from them is "When are you going back to school?" "What are you doing with the rest of your life now that you're not in school?"  I know I need to get back to school, I know I need to get my degree, I know that I need to do a lot of things but right now, I need to get the $6000 debt looming over my head to go away so that I can get financial aid and a loan and money saved up to go back to school. I just have a lot on my plate right now and I'm trying to figure out which bite to swallow first.

"Well the truth...well it hurts to say, I'm gonna pack up my bags..."

So I completely waffled yesterday...COMPLETELY...as in, look up the definition of "I have no spine to speak of" in the dictionary and there's a big honking portrait of me.

I got to M's house and we sat in silence for a good five minutes. Then I asked, "What do you remember?" and he remembers nothing except for his legs giving and how scared he was. That's it. He remembers NOTHING. Doesn't remember ignoring me, doesn't remember hitting on my friend, doesn't remember saying anything about Maddy or me following him home, doesn't remember talking to me on the phone after and his friend being rude to me...nothing.

He was genuinely apologetic and thanked me for containing his mishaps as best I could in front of his friends. He said sorry quite a few times and I could tell it was genuine. And the fact that he thanked me spoke volumes.

He also said something that stuck with me. "I really don't treat you as good as I should." and he told me he missed having me around at the house.

I am going to maintain my distance, seeing him maybe once a week or so, but it's so strange. Saturday night I was so hopeless, I was dead set on the fact that we were never going to be together and I was going to walk out of his life. But yesterday, I was renewed with hope... I don't know... I'm not going to give up on him, I never give up on anyone but for whatever reason, my hope for him and for us is endless despite all the shit that went on.

"Stupid boy, you can't fence that in..."

So surprise surprise M just called me. First words out of his mouth..."What happened last night?"

I told him "We need to talk. Can I come over after work?" and he said "Sure."

He's having lunch with the friend from last night...God only knows how that conversation is going to go. I'm going to tell Mike everything, I'm not going to sugarcoat shit and he can take it how he wants.

I just hope I'm strong enough to walk away from it like I need to. I do not want to walk away from him but I know that I need to. The thing is I don't know if it's him or the idea of him that I'm in love with. I constantly find myself focusing on what our relationship has the potential to be and not what the relationship is. It is dysfunctional. I'm in love with someone who "loves my personality" but can't bring me out in public because I'm too fat?? How did I let myself get sucked into this?? I keep hitting myself over the head and yet when the phone rang and I saw his name, my heart jumped.

As much as I want to hate him, I have nothing but affection for him. I defend him ENDLESSLY to my friends and it's screwed up because he's NEVER met my friends. He met Meghan last night because that's who I was with, he's never met Kristyn or Amanda or Jessica or Tonia, never met any of the people who I consider family in my life, hell, he's never met anyone even remotely connected to me. Because we don't go out! We have lived together and been seeing each other for three months and occasionally we'll go to the liquor or grocery store together, once we even went to Gamestop but we have never been out to eat or been on a "date" and last night was just a rare occasion when our plans interceded and we both intended on being in the same place at the same time and happened to see each other.

I remember one night I went out to eat with David. M had left me home alone to go out with his friends and David took me out to Chilli's and then we went to the gym and I remember David telling me a couple days later that M had asked him "How could you go out to eat with her? How did you deal with the people staring?' David defended me to the death, God love him. But M needs to realize that I am not some sort of monster, I am not morbidly obese and many men find my curves incrediably attractive...yet the one guy I choose to give my heart to is the one who thinks I need to lose 80lbs in order to be with me...how fucked is that? I have lost 70lbs in the past year and a half...I take diet pills, I drink endless amounts of water, I eat healthy and go to the gym everyday. I'm busing my ass to lose more weight and it's not for him, it's for me. I want to walk outside in a pair of size 8 or 10 pants and feel confident and sexy. I was so proud of myself for losing all the weight I've lost and I never questioned I was beautiful after that...well not at least until I met M.

I am so worried now, I have bubble guts and my heart is pounding...I don't know if I'm strong enough not to cave.

It's funny, I got a tattoo on my foot of the word "Brave"...I got that tattoo after M. and I got in a fight one night and I got it to remind me that I didn't need anyone but myself to get by, I got it to remind me especially that I didn't need M or any other man to validate my existance and that I am a brave and strong and intelligent woman...thing is, I believed it that night...I believed it for a few days after...I'm having a wicked hard time believing it right now.