My moods are a fat kid on a trampoline. I don't know if I blame hormones, circumstances, or mental instability. 2 days ago I was giddy-giddy. I had excitement and happiness bubbling inside me. You could not bring me down. I wore a smile that stretched ear to ear. I'd realize I was smiling in places no one else smiled, like the bus and metro, and that would just make me laugh thinking how out of place my happiness was, which would only make me more out of place, a person smiling to herself is one thing, but a person laughing to herself, well that's just crazy. Montreal people don't smile, they look at you, they study you, but they don't smile. That day I worked, I was having a blast with myself, my tables loved me, I had people wanting to be my friend, I had people buying everything I suggested, from drinks to appys to desserts. My tip percentage was over 25.

The day previous I couldn't have been any lower. I had just moved into my new apartment in Old Montreal. It's beautiful really. A studio, so small, but the location can't be beat. I have stainless steel appliances, granite counters, a curvy shower curtain rod, and instead of a wall, I have windows.

But I was scared. I was discouraged. Even-though I was paying $300/month less than what it normally rents, I was still paying $600 more than my previous room-mate situation. Because it was a lease transfer, I had to deal with the fact that the previous tenant was allergic to cleaning and the Pepto-Bismal-coloured spill splashed all over the kitchen floor initially thought to be yogurt refused to be wiped up. (Only after hours of chiseling away at it with my only knife has my floor returned to the beige (now somewhat scratched) ceramic tile it is meant to be-still can't figure out how something so pink could be so ridiculously hard to remove).

I was having a temper tantrum. My cabinets and wood floors are cherry-wood coloured, vs the more chic and preferred espresso-(I would have also taken white. Those that know me know my love for insane-asylum all-over white colour schemes). My stainless-steel appliances are mis-matched-a Frigidaire fridge and stove, but GE microwave and dishwasher; my kitchen faucet-boring; my light fixture missing it's cover; closet space-non-existent. My wall of windows, instead of looking out into Montreal's gorgeous skyline from the 17th floor, I look into a disheveled court-yard of 2-year-old construction paraphernalia and neighboring 17th floor apartments and offices.

I sound like a spoiled rotten brat, and perhaps I am, but here's my justification: I gave my life, every thought, every dollar into my houses. I own houses. I own nice things-in BC. I lost my 20's to hard work and shoulder breaking responsibility better matched for a 40 year old. I owned businesses, I made a fool of myself in-front of bankers and realtors not taking no for an answer. I moon-lighted as a waitress, I worked 7 days a week for years straight. Pushing forward my husbands dream of being a real-estate mogul, and rich. My part of the deal, my share in this was the buying power. I had no buying power outside of the houses, no freedom for a specialty coffee, or new shoes. But I was able to make somewhat convincing arguments on my apron-front fire-clay sink, my industrial kitchen faucet, my vintage light fixtures purchased from flea markets. And now here I am in my executive studio apartment only 2 years old on the 17th floor above the Hilton in the Old Port of Old Montreal, powerless again. I have no control over this unexciting floor plan, the cheap expensive-looking appliances, the cabinet colour which was out-dated at-least 7 years ago. I can't even sand down and repair the hardwood floor which seems to have been raped with scratches.

The worst of it all is that this stuff upsets me, that I'm bothered by such pettiness, that people live in the streets warmed by cardboard and I'm frustrated with the rust at the bottom of my fridge and dishwasher because the previous tenant didn't look after them, that my general "feelings" of happiness can be moved based on the style of my kitchen faucet.

I have so many reasons and excuses for why these superficial things bring me down. I blame my childhood home, a mere shack of 2 bedrooms for a family of 6, falling down and in constant disarray. I reason with my childhood, my adolescence and my young adulthood worth of summers lost due to the building of a house which would never see completion. My houses, my home, my style, I fought for my freedom to express through them. It took years to get to the place where I was willing to risk the consequences of spending my money, to exert my preferences, my opinion, to ask for what I wanted and to not quickly take it back with a mouthful of sorries to quiet a controlling and easily angered husband. Something so silly was so important. Something so silly represents everything though of who I am, and how I spent my life, the battles fought and lost and the few that were won. There's a sadness now as I stare at my naked windows, sitting on a borrowed air mattress-my only furniture, realizing that 6 provinces away in a storage room in a home I spent 5 years tearing out every nail every last piece of plaster and old electrical wire sits a decades worth of my things, dishes, furniture, curtains, my contribution to a marriage broken, to a partnership severed. To hopes, to dreams, to goals incomplete.

That day that I was happy, I don't know if I chose to be happy, or if my brain just decided to see things differently. But I was happy because I felt in control again. I felt the world was once again in my hands and the options endless. That circumstances and partners, and bosses no longer had control of me, that I was making the choices, and the choices were endless. I was free. I may have lost so much, half of me may have died even, but there was half of me living and that half part of me which was dead I was no longer going to let drag me down.