importance.

The word shots being screamed at me from across the room used to mean something different.

It used to mean get "get your ass over here, we are going to drink something that is going to make us sick later"

Now, it means "get your ass over here.... you need to get in the net so I can take shots on you with my pink mini stick"

I will willingly admit, that my life had been about christian louboutin shoes and my gucci purse.... about the nice things I had or the nice things I wanted.

Now, it has become about the ways I can make her life better, the things I can do to make her happier.

My girl is demanding. My girl is impatient. My girl is the 3 foot version of me.

Before you have kids people constantly tell you "having a child changes you". They warn you how tired and how busy you will be....

But no one warns you about what happens to your heart.

This girl has changed me from the inside out.

Some where along the way it happened, I can't pinpoint the time exact time......

all I know is it did.

From a distance I witness love differently now.

I see it so clearly in the smallest things... that I would have never noticed before.

As I sat and talked to a friend of mine she described to me how her husband took two hours to shave her head before her first chemo treatment.

Her hair is curly, and he took so long to do it because he didn't want to hurt her.

That is love.

It is strange to me that it took this little girl in my life to change my perspective on just about everything.

Things that I never would have noticed before seem so important now.....

She is the answer to the questions I have always had in my mind.

She is the answer to me.

The one about the polysporin

Months ago before I had moved back home, there was a moment.

A moment that stopped me dead in my tracks.

Apple took a small fall.

It was nothing major. All she had done was scrape her knee.

I went to grab the polysporin... and realized that she was too young for me to use the adult kind... I would have to go get some of the kids kind......

and with that, I was done for.

That was the moment.

The first moment in my life that I could not just go to a store and buy what I needed.

Financially, it was over for me.

I had used every ounce of savings, I had used every credit card.... I had used everything.

I had nothing.

I sat on the step in my living room and cried.

My brain told me to call my parents, to tell them.... to ask them for help.

But my pride as usual got in the way.

They had no clue how bad it was. No one had any clue how bad it had gotten.

I was carrying the weight of the bills on my own most months, with no job and no source of income.

Things with my support had not been going easily, and I was not receiving regular payments.

I had already started to work part time at my new job, but it wasn't enough.... I had yet to miss a payment but I knew that would only be a few short days away.

That night I laid awake in my bed for hours, hoping for a miracle.

Wishing that something would change.

Words he had said to me earlier that day echoed in my mind..... "no ones coming to save you"

"no one" he kept repeating.

What he said lit some sort of fire in me.....

I started to think to myself.... No one might be coming.... but I will save her and I.

I will fix this.

No one would ever again tell me I couldn't.

The next morning, I went through my normal routine--- but two huge things happened.

I got an email from a friend, just a random forward that I would normally delete, It was one of those email this to three people and something good will happen.... but that is not what caught my eye.

It was a line at the end that read... "You must be the change you wish to see in the world"

I thought about that for a long time... that I had to become the change.

I realized that you can't just sit back and wait for the change, you have to take charge and see what you want out there and go and get it.

That morning I decided that for good, I would be in charge of what was going to happen to us.... and that the best way to do this was easy.... to simply DO IT.

Get out there and get it done.

I did not forward the email for the "good thing to happen"

I just knew it would.

Minutes later I did what I always do, and checked my banking online.

There had been a rather large deposit, from my former employer.

I checked and re checked and called human resources to make sure it was mine.

It was.. infact mine, Some holiday pay that had gotten lost in the shuffle... something that I had not been expecting.

I could breathe.

For the first time in weeks.

I got myself and my best girl ready for the day and we headed out to shoppers.

Where I bought 2 tubes of polysporin, the kids kind.... that we probably didn't need at that point, but I needed it to feel safe.

I still have the two tubes of polysporin.

Each time I use one, I remember.....

I remember that I had to stop wishing for a miracle and make one of my own.

I'll Promise you this.

There are cracks in my mind formed from all of this.

Cracks where one story starts and another begins.

Cracks where I have pushed a memory so deep inside me that it is hard to recall. But it is there, waiting patiently until I am ready.

Day three of being left by him I got myself to the doctors.

I was a mess, I had not slept in days, I had not eaten in days and all I could do was sob uncontrollably.

He was kind and immediately gave the guidance that I so desperately needed.

Since I had yet to tell most of the people in my life, he encouraged me to reach out..... the help I was going to need with apple beyond important.

I needed rest, and I needed to eat.

I could handle most of that.

It was rational.

I could still be rational. I just needed a plan.

We put a plan in place for the next few and agreed to meet up the next week.

It was going to be ok.

When I stood up to leave... he quickly with one hand on my shoulder sat me back down.

Looking me dead in the eyes, he said " you are both going to need to be tested for stds"

I shrugged it off and told him, " I will, but you will have to talk to him about getting one for himself"

"No, not him he said... Apple. You will have to get Apple tested for aids. She was breast fed"

A whole new kind of rage filled up inside me.

It was never something that crossed my mind.

Ever.

I fought him on it.

I rejected the very thought of it.

No, No way would I do this to her.

No way would I put my baby... my beautiful 9 month of baby girl through this.

But he reasoned with me. He explained to me that it was what was best for her, that without question it would need to be done.

I told no one.

I said nothing.

But we went.

I held my daughter down for more than 4 minutes while they drew the deepest purple color blood I have ever seen.

It took 4 minutes.

4 minutes that felt like 6 hours.

She screamed and cried and stared at me with her big worried eyes.

She would try to them stop by rolling on to her tummy and reaching out for me... all the while I could do nothing but hold her down.

It killed me.

I put my head next to hers and told her over and over again how sorry I was.

I promised her .... that this moment would be her worst.

That everything after this would be better, everything after this would be ok.

When they were finished we sat together on the chair.

I stroked her hair, and she slowly settled.... when she became calm enough to get back home

I put her in her car seat and sat in the parking lot of the medical clinic and sobbed.

Our tests came back clear of any problems.... and for that I am grateful.

Those 4 moments broke something in me that will never be fixed.

They changed me.

But those 4 moments also gave me the strength I needed to complete the rest of the journey,

To keep the promise to her.

"That moment" will be her worst.

Everything. Means, Everything.

When I was about nine I broke a china doll, I shattered her face while trying to give her a tighter pony tail.

I was scared for my life.

I knew my parents were going to kill me.

I had been warned not to play with the china doll, but I had a hard time with rules even then.

I was so ashamed.

I worried constantly that I would be found out, that my parents would actually kill me and bury me in the backyard by the birch tree.

Months later my dad and I took our first solo trip to Toronto to see the Leafs play.

We took the train and talked the whole way down, I probably annoyed the crap out of him with my questions and my stories but he sat there and listened patiently with his arm around me the entire time.

I was so happy and so comfortable with him.

It was my nine year old heaven.

As we got closer to Toronto, I can clearly remember thinking......

"this is it, this is my chance to tell him... he can't kill me with all these people around"

The confession started with the words no parent ever wants to hear:

"I have to tell you something really really bad"

It came out in the same sort of "verbal diarehha" way I speak today.

In haste I also copped to the fact I was the one that had called the WWF hotline to hear the macho man randy savage tell me to have a good day.... several times actually... over the corse of a single day.

I know I cried and he held me for a long time and promised me that as soon as we got home we would fix that china doll together and that he nor my mother would not actually kill me and bury me out by the birch tree.

He wasn't kidding either.

The next day he and I went and bought the glue and sat out at the kitchen table and piece by piece glued the china doll back together, all the while my mum stood in kitchen telling me how everything was always fixable."Everything" she kept repeating.

The relief I felt was overwhelming.

I knew it was going to be ok.

I have spent most of my life reliving the same cycle with those closest to me.

My actions are typical when things aren't ok.

I push.

and I push.

and I push.

I live in a dark world alone, with brief phone calls and quick bullshit email updates, and excuses of why I can't come or how tired I am.

But, it's no longer just my parents that can spot this happening.

It is those closest to me.

They know.

They always know.

They know when my mind starts to fade to that dark black part that I can't seem to shake some days.

And what I've learned is that they collectively push harder than I do.

They fight the way into that dark place and drag me out of it kicking and screaming the whole time.

They smother me like you would with a blanket when someone's on fire.

I love them for it. All of them, More than I could ever explain.

Because they know it's not "me".... and they want "me" to be here with them.

The support that I have in my life is not something that is easy to explain....

It had always been there, but a lot like my confession to my dad on the train that day, I just to learn that needed to say it all out loud.

I shake my head in disbelief most days that this is my life because things are good.

Really good.

The darkness still finds its way into my mind.

But they know.

They always know.

And they come to get me.........even when I push.

The Leafs lost the night my dad and I took our trip..... but I think you could have guessed that on your own.

A little bit older, A lot wiser.

I turned 33 on tuesday, and nothing changed.

But there is a change in me that I find hard to explain.

The changes came late on a wednesday night when I saw something clearly for the first time, or early on a sunday morning when I woke up to apple calling my name.

It was never as fast or as easy as I would have liked it to be, but it happened.

I became, however slowly... the person that sits here today.

More confident.

More settled.

More patient.

More alive.

More aware of what and who I want around me.

My birthday itself was a reminder of both the love that surrounds me and the loneliness inside me.

When I shut the door each time people left from a visit, the silence was still there.

It's not as loud as before, and it's manageable but it is still there inside me.

I wonder every single day if it will ever leave me.

If there is something that will change this.

I'm not sure.

I got a phone call from a friend to wish me happy father's day today.

It surprised me.

He explained to me that I'm both roles to my daughter, even if she may see her father....

I am the one daily that is both her mother and her father.

I cried a bit, like I always do when we talk... and realized he was right.

My girl is upstairs where she belongs, sleeping soundly after a day at the park with my parents and a golf lesson from my brother.

We had an amazing day together

Tonight, I don't hear the silence.

two years.

This weekend marked the two year anniversary of this mess starting.

Regardless of the time that has passed, anniversary's of events still get to me.

It is not as consuming as it used to be, but it weights on me. Like when you get a bad case of the chills that you can't get rid of.

I know how much things have changed in the last two years, and I am grateful for how far things have come.

But somedays.... well somedays it still hurts.

Some times I still lay awake at night and wonder how or why.

What upsets me is that i will never ever know the truth.

Recently I heard, you can't find peace until you find all the pieces.

I'm searching.

I am trying to fix what was wrong with me then, and what's wrong with me now.

I am coming to some sad conclusions about who I use to be.

That is the piece of the puzzle that I can fix-- the piece that I was never knew that was broken until two years ago.

I am working on this daily, sometimes by the minute, and when I have it sorted in my head, you'll be the first to know.

That chill that followed me around this weekend was warmed by that beautiful girl of mine.

We enjoyed the sun, and the rain but most of all our time together.

It's full sentences and meaningful conversations on a daily basis here. She likes to pick her own shoes and tell me the colour of elastics that go in her hair.

Lately when I am laughing or smiling Apple will look at me and say..

" look mommy...... your happy"

She sees it, which pushes me to not just look it, but to be it.

She can see my happiness even on the days I can't.

where we are.

Resentment is a dangerous thing.

I don't feel it everyday, but I feel it.

Alot.

Some days I feel it when I am racing home after work to pick her up from day care.

I am never fast enough.

I can never seem to get diner on the table or get changed out of my work clothes or do just anything..... with out a struggle.

Sometimes I feel it when I am doing a million things well, but nothing great.

Like I am never enough.

Sometimes I feel it when I am sitting at my desk at work, wishing I was at home with her.

But I had no choice.

Some days I feel it when he tells me he can't take her on his weekend.

He has a choice.

I don't.

I just need to make it all work.

I need to shuffle things around and back out on commitments.

The resentment builds frustration, anger and stress in me.

I can't stand it.

It is not who I am.

This week something very important dawned on me.

I truly believe that if you are not frustrated, angry or stressed sometimes as a parent, then you are probably not doing your job right.

Most parents are.

Most of us are constantly any or all of those three things at any given time.

What I am feeling is ok.

It's right.

It is where I am right now.

Recognizing this makes me hopeful.