In a moment, it shifts.

I shower as quietly as I can off of the master bedroom where my wife and daughter are asleep together. Tracy holds Shea in her arms, propped up by pillows, and her eyes are closed. It's become a ritual, to watch them sleep as I brush my teeth, put on deodorant and get dressed. When I am dressed and ready to leave for another day I kiss them both on the forehead. Tracy stirs as I press my lips against the warmth of her skin. Her eyelids flutter and she will open them for the briefest of moments and mutter, "I love you," in a near incomprehensible whisper. I turn then to my daughter, my beautiful Shea, and I brush my lips against her forehead and her cheek. Today, for the first time, she smiles at me. She does not open her eyes, but she gives me a huge open-mouth smile that almost brings me to tears.

The last two weeks have been terrible. Work has become more and more demanding of my time, depleting my energy reserves to almost imperceptible levels. I have been riddled with guilt over the lack of time I have with my family and, through misunderstanding, went through two days of hell where I thought my family felt I was abandoning them, or at least neglecting them. In the midst of this, I got a cold. I feel like crap at work and, because of my program requiring so much of my vacation time, I am unable to take a sick day. I burned the one extra day I had on Friday and came down with the cold on Monday.

I've been feeling like the hamster on the wheel lately, running with a singular focus and getting no where. I am going to have to make some changes here soon in regards to my employment because I don't think I can withstand it.

My job recently changed to where I have to make 200 phone calls a day. I am basically a glorified telemarketer. It is terrible. I have had people hang up on me multiple times every day. I have people talk to me in ways that I wouldn't dare talk to a stranger. It's fatiguing.

The semester is almost over and I feel like I haven't written a single story that will make it into my thesis. I'm not sure if any of them are salvageable. It's frustrating. So, I'm left again in the place where self-doubt calls my education into question. Am I passionate enough about my art to continue? Can I survive this period in my life which is so fraught with conflicting pressures and deadlines? I'm not sure.

So, this morning, carrying the weight of the cold in my chest and the dread of another day spent on the phone making 200 phone calls, I'm met with the toothless smile of my wonderful daughter who makes me feel like I have to do it. I have to do it for her. If there is anything in this world worth fighting for, worth becoming a better man for, it is her. It is for her and her mother that I fight on. It is because of their love that I want to acheive the elevation of my soul and the opening of my heart. I want to be good. For them, I want to be good.