My Crooked Toe.

My whole life I've always had this wonky, deformed bent toe. (I also have a matching one on the other foot.) I was born with it. it runs in my family. Surprisingly though I've never really noticed it, thought much of it, or been bothered by it(I mean, feet are funny-looking anyway and who really scrutinizes their toes, right?) until I met my hubby and he started pointing it out and  mocking it and making fun of it, and calls it my Retarded Toe. For the past 31 years he's been  making fun of it and now I've become very self-conscious about it. He really has a way of making me feel badly about myself. I need someone who will see it as endearing and quirky and will love it because it's part of me, not someone who jeers at my deformity. The kids have all sadly inherited it too but it worked out well in one situation years ago when the kids were younger when the oldest was 10 and the now 24 year old(turning 25) was 5: the oldest teased him and told him that I wasn't his real mother and that I just adopted him off the street, making him sad and cry and he came running to me and I had to reassure him that it wasn't true and that I was indeed his real mother, and to prove it to him I showed him my crooked toe, that we both had the same matching crooked toe, proving we were related and that assured him so in that case it turned out to be handy.

I have always hated my body, my face,and my looks though but now I have come to realize that my body is amazing, strong, and powerful, no matter what it looks like; it has created, housed, nourished and given birth to 11 kids, produced milk to feed them, has endured several surgeries and even more heartaches,it is worn down by age, gravity, and illness, it has survived many battles and struggles and is scarred and beaten down but it has endured and survived;it is a warrior, and it's still standing.

As well, with the heavy rain yesterday and today our roof is leaking again and in the kitchen ceiling all I hear endlessly now over and over is drip,drip,drip... as the ceiling leaks drop by drop into the bucket and it already filled up an entire pail full of yucky dirty water that looks like pee. The ceiling's also all peeling and cracking and I expect it to come all crashing down any day now just like it did at our old house in Toronto from the upstairs bathroom down onto the kitchen when we had the hidden toilet leak. Shit.