Everytime a bell rings.

A few weeks ago, while in therapy I was asked a very interesting question.... one that I think we should all ask ourselves.

If you had to chose one... and only one which would it be.

To care for... or be taken care of by your partner.

Right there....

I know you think your answer just popped in your head

So did I.

I was wrong.

Let's see if you were too.

At first my gut said "to care for". Because that's me.

That is what I do. I care for those around me.

My therapist stopped me when I tried to answer.

She told me to give it time. Two whole weeks in fact.

So I did.

Until Today.

I kept my feet firmly planted in the "care for" column for about 3 days.

Then I wavered.

I started to think about all of my past relationships and why they never worked.

Mostly I thought about the one I just got out of.

I have "cared for" in every serious relationship I have ever been in.

I don't remember a relationship that I have been in that I have been "taken care of".

I think most of it stems from the fact I have a really hard time giving up the control of what is going on around me.

Most of the time, I know I let myself think that I was being taken care of....

but being taken care of based on what someone else thinks you need is not really being taken care of.

I didn't make my voice heard, I accepted what someone else thought I needed as fact and continued to let myself believe that I getting all I needed.

When really I was just accepting what someone else thought was enough to give.

I need to be taken care of.

Bottom line.

It is difficult and almost shameful for me to admit, but I do.

I am told that the more I say it the less shameful it becomes.

I need to be taken care of... NO, still feels shameful.

Collectively my family and I love the movie "It's a Wonderful Life",

That movie is so full of love, strength, faith and friendship.. that I try to watch it a few times a year, Not just at Christmas.

We called it "looking for your Mary".

Trying to find that one true person that will walk with you through the fire.

George needed his Mary. Just as Mary needed her George.

I need to find my George.

127 includes 2 swears.

I wonder what she dreams about at night.

Sometimes late at night I wake up to her talking to herself.

I roll over and watch her on the video monitor with amazement.

Some nights she will lay there and talk to her self for twenty minutes before she falls back asleep.

I love this.... more than I could ever explain.

With each day more words come.... and so do some of the most profound... yet simple moments of my life.

A few nights ago, when I was tucking her into bed... without being prompted she said "love you mummy" as I was closing her door.

I told her I loved her and ran back in to give her another kiss.

After I shut the door that night, I sat at the top of the stairs and cried.

I honestly never imagined those words having any affect on me ever again.

Because "i love you" had become something that had been so callously said to me.

Just words, with nothing behind them.

But hearing them from her, my beautiful little girl was enough to melt my "cold dead heart".

There is a word that she doesn't say all that often.

Dad.

She still sees him once a week and every other weekend.... but he is just not a subject that comes up when she is with me.

It's odd to me that at two, maybe she knows he is not something I am ready to talk to her about.

I pray for the strength and the restraint when the questions come.

As recently as three weeks ago, he said to me in a heated argument

"you have no clue what it's like-- to be dealing with my life"

He is right.

I don't.

I have no clue what it must be like to not know all 127 words(yes i keep track) that she says off by heart... or that she jumped off the edge of the pool at swimming into my arms last week.

I have no clue what it must be like watch her grow up right before your eyes and not get to be a part of it daily.

So yeah.... I don't have a clue.

Thank god for that.

As I began to pack tonight I was filled with a sense of closure.

This close to last step of the puzzle is finally taking shape.

We are closing in on the last lap in our journey to get back home.

We can't wait.