Why Do People Get Drunk And Fight?

Well, I survived the night at the bar. I cross my heart and promise that I only had one beer which was bought for me by a guy that goes to school here with us from Louisiana, we'll call him Mr. Cajun. Mr. Cajun is 24 years old, about 3 inches shorter than me and tiny, when he gets drunk he apparently thinks he's Casanova, and a billy bad ass all together. You can say ass on a pg-13 blog right?

Anyway, Mr. Cajun and Mr. Cup almost got into a fight over me and it's not what you think. I had asked Mr. Cup to dance because he is my only dance partner, I don't ask anyone else to dance. Mr. Cup may dance with a couple other girls, but I only dance with him. Last night I danced with one other guy twice that was very drunk and kept telling me he lives on a ranch and only comes to the bar once per month over and over. He even forgot my name as soon as I told him it. Anyway, back to the fight. Mr. Cup told me he didn't want to dance just yet because he was tired. I didn't blame him, we both had been dancing a lot. He'd had eight dances, four of which were mine.

So I tell Mr. Cup that it was okay, we'd just find another song later, no big deal. Mr. Cajun jumps up and grabs my hand, so I thought he was trying to get me to dance with him. Instead he pulls me off the bench I'm sitting on next to Mr. Cup and grabs Mr. Cup and tells him he needs to go dance with me. Both Mr. Cup and I tell him it's no big deal, we've already handled it, and we'll dance a little later. Well, even though we both told him it was fine, Mr. Cajun took it upon himself to tell Mr. Cup that he was being rude to me and that he was disrespecting me by not dancing with me the minute I asked.

Well, the next thing I know, Mr. Cajun is in Mr. Cup's face, yelling at him about not dancing with me. I have one hand on Mr. Cup's arm saying, "It's okay sweetheart, don't worry about it, it's not worth it," and another hand on Mr. Cajun's chest saying, "You need to calm down. We've already discussed it, it's no big deal, he's just tired." I'm shoving Mr. Cajun back, Mr. Cup is looking up at me with those eyes that tell me he's about to get up and go off. Then tiny Mr. Cajun decided to shove against my hand to try to get closer to Mr. Cup.

Mr. Cup did not like that at all and got up, despite me telling him I'm okay and it's nothing to get upset about. So now I'm standing between both of them, my hand still on Mr. Cup's arm, the other hand still on Mr. Cajun's chest. Now there are no more words, just those looks that people get in their eyes when their either going to kick someone's ass or have their ass handed to them. I start speaking low soothing words to Mr. Cup, handling him like I would a spooked horse, my hand stroking his cheek, his arm, all the time talking, talking, "It's okay sweetheart, calm down, it's not worth it, just let it go," low and calm. As I'm talking and working my hands, I slowly start moving Mr. Cup backwards away from Mr. Cajun. I'd almost succeeded then Mr. Cajun said and did something really stupid.

I had been completely focused on Mr. Cup because to be completely honest if anyone was going to lose it was going to be Mr. Cajun and I wanted to dissuade Mr. Cup from basically beating up a midget. I shouldn't have done that, I should have at least kept some of my attention on Mr. Cajun and not had my back to him but I always thought he was the kind of guy that wouldn't charge at someone with their back turned. Anyway, Mr. Cup is starting to calm down, he's still angry but that look is now almost completely gone, then right as I'm watching, the look slams right back into place, that's the only way I can explain it, just like BAM! Ass kickin' eyes. I turn to see what he's so angry about and Mr. Cajun is right behind me and about to hit Mr. Cup over my head screaming, "Bring it on mother effer," insert the correct bad word there, I'm pretty sure that one's unacceptable for a PG-13 blog.

Thankfully, some other guy came up and grabbed Mr. Cajun because I still had Mr. Cup and that stopped the fight altogether. However, I almost hit Mr. Cajun myself. Mr. Cajun should not have tried to hit Mr. Cup with me standing between them. In my eyes, that's disrespectful and cause for me to get into the fight too, instead of trying to stop it. Thankfully the guy that helped came in at just the right time and no one got hit.

A little while after the fight Mr. Cup apologized to me for it. I wasn't even mad at Mr. Cup. I also told him I almost hit Mr. Cajun myself, but then again, Mr. Cup knows I always have his back in any kind of fight. I told Mr. Cup if anyone needed to apologize to me it was Mr. Cajun. After that we were sitting on the bench, me between his legs, with my head on his knee, and I looked at him and told him that I really do love him and that I really am going to marry him one of these days. He said, "Yeah, one of these days," and I told him I was just trying to let him get his wildness out and he agreed there too. I just hope that he knows I was serious. But that was the craziness of my St. Patrick's Day.

Finding Beauty

Recently I started reading a lovely blog called Domesticated Gypsy and the most recent post was called Women Who Find Beauty. In this post she speaks of associating herself with women who find beauty. I was inspired by this blog and wanted to post something about it.

Finding beauty is never hard, however, some people become so disenchanted with their lives that they cannot see the beauty in anything. I've been there, I know how that feels. Even the brightest, prettiest day can be ugly if you look at things with the wrong point of view. Well wait, I don't want to say "wrong" point of view because even negativity isn't wrong, it's just the opposite of positivity. So let me rephrase that and say even the prettiest day can be ugly if you look at things in a negative light.

Sometimes people become so covered up in negativity it's hard to see why anything is worth your time. Getting out of bed becomes a chore, bathing, taking care of your family, loving your family, all these things become the hardest things you could ever do. But when you change your mindset and decide to think a little more positively, finding beauty is as easy as opening your eyes and taking in your surroundings.

Now I've never lived in the city so I won't comment on trying to find beauty in the city because I have absolutely no experience with that. But I've bounced between living in town with my mom and on the ranch with my grandparents all my life so that's what I'm going to focus on. On the ranch, beauty surrounds us, even in the winter. Grandma mourns when the winter comes around because her beautiful flowers die but she always knows they'll come back in the spring whether because they rebloom (or whatever you call it ... This witch doesn't know a whole lot about gardening although I dearly wish to learn) or because she replants and reseeds. But you can look all around you, no matter what time of year it is and find something beautiful. A cardinal hanging out in the tree outside of our picture window in the kitchen, the horses coming in for feed at 4:30 every day just like clockwork, the dogs running and playing with each other, the hills that Granddad and I ride over almost everyday when I'm home covered in fog.

In town with Mom I have to admit it sometimes becomes a chore to find beauty there. The town she lives in is a little farming town and even in town if you look past our backyard you find a cotton field. There are also all kinds of pump jacks for pumping oil, and the land is absolutely flat ... It is my belief you could look towards the horizon and see forever. The land has been abused by oil field workers and there always seems to be more dirt than grass. But if you care to look you can find things of beauty. Gardens that the older women nurture and take care of each season, the birds that enjoy back and front yards filled with honeysuckle and many other plants, the clear blue sky, the sparkling night sky. My point is if a person takes joy in nature and in the beauty of Mother Nature, they will never be without beauty.

My favorite ways of finding beauty involve nature but it's easy to find beauty in people too. Sometimes that can be hard because like it or not, we do live in a world that has a lot of negativity in it, but there are many people out there that are beautiful. I'm not talking about superficial beauty, superficial beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I'm talking about a person's natural, personal, soul beauty. And yes that is spelled right, I do mean the beauty of a person's soul.

We've all met people that you instantly like because they are beautiful. A person who isn't sure what they are looking at won't  understand it but that kind of beauty isn't about what they look like or wear or anything superficial, it's all about how beautiful their soul is. These kinds of people smile a lot, always have open arms and hearts, and are always there to lend a helping hand. People with beautiful souls aren't that hard to find, just like in finding beauty in nature you just have to be open to it. That's the key to a lot of things in life, finding beauty in people and nature, finding love, finding true friends ... You have to open your heart to these things. I won't go into talking about opening your heart to things just yet because I plan on writing a blog specifically about that later, so all I will say is in order to find beauty in anything you have to open your heart to it and be willing to see it.

These are some of the ways I find beauty. How do you find beauty? What do you consider to be beauty?

Fear And It's Effect on Life

I have 2 months until I move into the dorms at my new University and to be completely honest I'm a little nervous. I guess everyone worries about things like these. I'll be 6 hours away from my mom's house and the only people I know down there I met in a bar (excluding my soon to be roommate). I'm sure everyone worries about making friends and hoping people like them and if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that's not my biggest worry. I worry the most about whether or not I can make it on my own. I allow my mind to worry about small things like the no candles rule in the dorms and how to decorate the living area of my dorm unit but those are just things to keep my mind occupied and away from what scares me the most. I don't want to be alone. I realize that I will probably meet a lot of people and make friends but in the very end I'm on my own, period end of sentence, and that scares the hell out of me.

Secretly, there have been times I've considered not even going. I've thought about just staying where I am and going to the junior college that I've been going to. Then I see the pride in my mom's face when she's telling everyone she knows about me going to the University I'll be going to and I hear the excitement in my soon to be roommate's voice and I can't just not go. Don't misconstrue this, I'm also excited about going, this University was my first choice and I got accepted no questions asked. I love the campus, I like the people that I met, the staff are uncommonly helpful and friendly, as are the students, and it's a great place for me to learn and thrive. It's also a great place for my horse... at least there I'll get to spend everyday with her and maybe I can join the rodeo team in the Spring, but despite all my excitement and joy, there's fear, always fear.

Thinking about fear brings me to a new subject. I've learned the hard way that fear, if you allow it, can keep you from living life altogether. Fear can lead to stupid choices. Fear keeps love out of your heart. My matron Goddess is Aphrodite, Goddess of love (and as such my patron is Adonis as her consort/other half) and love is a predominant force in my life. Love is what drives me. When I realized that fear was what was keeping me from being happy and meeting a guy that I could have a meaningful relationship with I realized that all the failed relationships in the past, and the one tantalizing first love that seemed to constantly tease me, were all lessons from Aphrodite. She wanted me to realize that I was sabotaging my own life and, hard-headed dolt that I am, I completely ignored her and continued stumbling along down the same path, crying to my friends trying to figure out what went wrong. When the answer to the lesson finally sank in through my thick skull, it hit like a ton of bricks. It was one of those moments where I looked at myself and said "Well dumb ass, if you had just listened maybe you wouldn't be in this damn boat!" And yes I really am that rough on myself.

From that lesson sprang my decision to go to the University I chose. It is time to face my fears. I need to learn to look my fears in the face and laugh at them. I'm not saying that I need to be fearless, just that I need not allow them to stop me from living my life. And that's what has been happening for a long time. I happily lived with either my grandparents or my mom and pretended everything was fine and that I was happy and complete. Then over time I started realizing that so many people were having fun and I was sitting at home being bored. I started yearning for that fun and care free way of life and realized that what was keeping me from being like everyone else was fear. An extreme fear of rejection, along with a deep well of anger and mistrust, had manifested many years ago and I allowed it to rule my life. But these things were against my nature... like my matron Goddess, I enjoy gaiety, mirth, smiles, passion, and love. The emotions that ruled my life were contrary to what I naturally embrace, and this hurt me deeper than anything any of my peers could have done to me. Because of that, this journey began, and I am fighting my fears the whole way. I pray that if the fears ever weigh down on my and start to break me again, Aphrodite will help fortify me and help me stand tall.