What Would You Do?

If you could go back and  change any one thing in your life, what would it be?

Now wait, before you answer, let's think hard about it.  Whatever you change, will change everything that takes place after it.  Everything that you have now, that you are now, would be different.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  The 'butterfly effect' if you will.

Me?

Would I go back to the phone call that changed my life?

Would I go back and leave him the very first time he hit me?  Maybe to a few months before that, when I found out that he had met his 'soul mate', and that it wasn't me.

Would I go back to the very first time he asked me to go hang out with him after work, when he gave me his number and said that if I ever wanted to hang out...

Perhaps even before that, to before I met him.  I still remember that night when he came into the bar and gave me that look and part of me melted.  When he helped himself to the drinks on my tray and laughed and told me he would pay for them later.  When I looked for my then-current boyfriend over my shoulder to come and distract me from this long-blond-haired fun-loving-looking guy.

Would I go back to the night that I looked through the classified section of the paper because I needed to get the rent paid and put groceries in the fridge.  The ad that promised lots of money and anonymity and caused me to take that painfully cold walk to the payphone and agree to sell my soul for a huge sum of $700 a week, plus tips.

How about I turn back the clocks to the day that I left college, my job, and the comfort of my mother's home (for the third time), with my son in tow to go live 'my own life'.

Maybe even before that,to my 16 year old self, moving out (for the second time) to follow my then best friend to some small town because my then boyfriend and I wanted to be together and be free and I thought I had a clue what the hell I was doing.

Who knows what would have happened, what my life would have been if I could go back to any of those moments.  Who knows how different the lives of those close to me might have been.  My mother's, my son's father, the people in their lives.

So now I write my life.  My confessions, apologies, my shattered hopes, my biggest fears.  My 'note', as it were.  For all the world to see.

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Some of my earliest memories are of my life in small towns in Northern Alberta.  I remember brief glimpses of day care, kindergarten.  I remember my step father picking me up on my fifth birthday and driving me home to my birthday party in my pretty blue dress.  I remember the Cabbage Patch Doll that my favorite cousin gave to me, and my Cabbage Patch Doll birthday cake that my mum's friend Frances's mom made. 

I remember being accident prone, and tripping and falling and stitches and Christmas's and birthdays and step-dads and school and new friends and moving all the time.

I remember 13 different public schools and always saying good-bye and always being the new girl and having to start over and over and over.

I remember being made fun of because I looked different, and I remember crying and my mum fanning Cosmos out all over the room and telling me to look at them and  asking me what all of these cover-models had in common.  They all had the same features that I was made fun of for.  The big lips.  The big hair.  The thick eyebrows.  I remember her telling me that one day I would be thankful for these things, and I remember thinking that she didn't understand.

I remember her anger.  Her rage.  I remember not understanding why she was the way she was.  When she hit me, not understanding how she could say that she loved me.  I remember once, late one night, walking into the hallway when I could hear my mother walking to the washroom, coming out to see her and asking her why she didn't like me.

I remember being very, very unhappy.

Funny the things that we remember.

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I always used to say that I didn't have regrets.  That it was the things in my past, bad and good, that made me the person that I am today.  Back then I truly believed that I was a good person.  That opinion however, has flown out the window.

I have so many regrets now it is actually hard to keep them straight.  I regret dropping out of high school. 

And college.

I regret that I didn't try harder to have a relationship with my father, even if he is as big a loser as his unbelievably big loser girlfriend.

I regret not being able to give my son the life that he deserves, and thereby unknowingly sending him into a life that he certainly doesn't.

I regret losing my mind and therefore my daughter.

I regret that very first time I got onto a stage and took my clothes off, killing whatever was left of my self esteem and selling my heart for twenty bucks a song.   

I regret losing touch with my grandparents, and not reconnecting with them until it was too late.  My grandmother passed away and I never even got to tell her how much I loved her, and everything that she meant to me.

More than anything, I regret the lack of self-respect, self-esteem, well power and common sense that might have saved me from the mess that I am in now.

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I have just gotten out of a relationship that has caused me, my friends and my family more harm than I ever could have imagined.

The pain for me was physical, mental, emotional and absolutely unreal.  So, in an effort to 'cleanse', here it is.  The whole horrible story in black and white.  I hope that if anyone else ever reads this, it will give them the inspiration to get the fuck out before it's too late.


As I mentioned above, the first time I ever met him was in 2001, in a bar where I was selling shooters.  He walked in, colours and all, with a group of his friends, helped himself to a couple drinks off my tray, and told me that he would pay me later.  He never did, and that should have been my first friggen clue.

I was in another very caustic relationship at the time, with a man that would  up being good friends with Rob.  That being the case, I saw him from time to time, but rarely spoke to him, as within this 'group', it is frowned upon to be talking to the girlfriends of your friends.  Primitive, I know.

Fast forward a year or so.  The boyfriend and I have broken up (and by broken up I mean that he has left me for the third time to go back ti his psychotic ex), and after work one night I have gone out to have a few drinks and unwind.  Low and behold, who happens to be there but the infamous shooter-thief.  We sit and chat for a while and he manages to talk (a clearly still very naive) me into some fooling around.  Bad move.

Nothing comes of that.  We see each other on occasion and exchange pleasantries, nothing more.

A few years later, am out having some drinks at my very upscale old place of employment, and Rob is there having drinks with some mutual friends.  The asshole ex and I have recently broke up for the 100th time, and Rob invites a few of us back for some drinks to a little after hours he is familiar with.  I go.  Because clearly, I am a moron.  He tells me that he has recently let go of his housekeeper, I tell him that this is something I do on the side, and that if he needs someone, well hell, I need the money.  We drink, we fool around, he gives me his number.

Two days.  I wait two whole days before calling him.  I believe that the affected topic of conversation was a trade show that we would both be attending in a few weeks time, and what we would each be doing there.  He asked if I wanted to come over and watch some TV.  It was a Sunday afternoon, I had nothing else planned, and must admit, was intrigued by him.