You Can Only Fight It For So Long.

Atlantic City was an entirely different world than Tarboro or New York City.

I thought I was getting closer to where I wanted to be, but in all actuality, I was getting further away from who I really loved.

Stephen, the saint he is, supported me to the very end, and when I would cry at night alone in a bed in a smelly apartment in Ventnor, he would tell me that everything would be o.k.

I wouldn’t trade the friendships I made at Borgata for anything in the world, and the experience was truly an invaluable one.

I learned how to oversee multiple beverage programs, work with an amazing amount of chiefs and interact with a receiving department to order wine.

The biggest thing I learned, however, was that I was destined to go back to Tarboro and make my own destiny doing what I loved and being with those who had loved me since the beginning.

But how was that going to happen?

Borgata and I got along famously. We were really great friends. I adored my bosses. I loved what I was doing. And, of course, there were frequent trips to New York City to get my fix anytime I desired.

You can imagine the shock I felt when every fear I had ever imagined became confirmed in a split second.

All of a sudden, my glass of wine didn’t taste right.

Not only did it not taste correct, it tasted yucky.

Yucky to the point I couldn’t drink it.

Yucky to the point it made me sick.

Yucky to the point I didn’t crave it.

Ironically, I had always told my friends I would never be able to have a child because I couldn’t stop drinking for 9 months.

But all of a sudden, the wine wasn’t my bff.

In fact, it seemed I needed a real break.

What in the world is wrong with me?

And now you know, the only thing that could keep me from drinking for seven straight months.

And she turns eight on Wednesday.

I found out I was pregnant on February 5th, 2004, exactly five days after the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson debacle.

The doctor game me a due date of September 11th.

Completely shocked, I realized immediately what was happening.

It was time.

It was time to stop running and time to start doing what I was destined to do all along.

It was time to go back to Tarboro to start a family and run a restaurant.