Hi, fresh out of therapy, maybe you want to skip today.
I don't think life affords much time for the most important aspects of itself, ironically. My own is a perfect example. In between running the kids to school and skating and hockey and doctors' appointments and getting new glasses and groceries and vet visits and work and phone calls and endless meal-making and laundry lies a few precious hours in which to write, sleep and visit my therapist. Fuck, if you want to boil the days down into their fundamentals, there remains very little time to simply sit and think, to heal and to steal precious bountiful remnants of affection from the one you love.
Don't you think?
So this is it. My healing time, here on this page. And when read it paints a picture of the girl in the corner who appears to be incredibly self-centered and egotistical. As if everyone stands on those eggshells and waits for me to decide how the day is going to be.
And that's not how it works. Gee, wouldn't it be nice. No, instead I made a sword out of hopes and a paper shield and I don't know how to use either one but I made a stab at creating a defense in order to protect these three and it finally crumbled right in front of me.
Stop reading, okay, please?
They're alright, no worries. The kids won't really get it until they're grown up. Last Wednesday I would have written a whole bunch more but I'm still finding my way around how I would like to be presented now that everything has changed again, and we're fighting again because he is disappointed in me and angry at himself and Claus is possibly a bigger miracle worker than ever and it would have been the one and only day in my life where it was the worst time ever for Caleb to show up.
And yesterday even. We fought, bitterly and loudly. My voice is hoarse from this sickness. Jacob's is hoarse from talking, yelling and crying too. He ripped a door right off the hinges and now he has something that is easier to fix than his wife.
He took off last night and went down to the church and sat on the steps at the front of the sanctuary in the dark with only the moon coming through the windows and I finally went down very late after getting someone to come to the house for the kids and I found Jacob there and we held each other and didn't talk. He prayed, I listened.
I think God was out.
But it's only the beginning because once again I tried to pretend that everything was fine and I tried to keep going with my secrets intact and once again I failed.
I should know better but I'm not learning. I lied. Again. Surprise.
I said Cole didn't hurt me. I lied. And I'm sorry.
Jacob has saved my life more than once and for some reason this whole experience is one that I can't hide from. Into truths that I can't hide from, and into the expectations of a man who has given up everything so that I don't hide from him. So that he can hold me. And love me.
He knew, he suspected, he had already decided that something else was there but the longer I let it go, the easier it became for all of us to hide it. And last week with Claus' help I managed to tell Jacob of so many burdens I never wanted him to bear and then suddenly before I could help it I was spilling secrets I never planned to tell and it was all out at last and Claus was satisfied and he actually said to me,
And now we can begin.
Didn't I say that before?
And Jacob sat there clutching my hand and staring at me like a stranger until I swore at him and then he yelled at me. All of his fears came out, all of his promises over the years that I had pushed aside.
The broken dishes. Christ, I knew I should have found him and killed him then.
I'm sorry.
Don't you ever apologize to me. My God, Bridge. Why? What were you protecting him for?
I wasn't protecting him, I was protecting you.
I don't need protection. What were you saving me from?
This.
What is this, Bridget? TELL ME WHAT THIS IS!
Me.
We went back today, together, and Claus and Jake are confident now that the truth is on the table at last and we can work at this. That now we finally might get through this. Me.
I hope so. I feel lighter. I also feel stripped and exposed and just...lighter somehow. And yet there are still layers buried so far underground, someday someone will find oil.
You said, 'Jesus, please forgive me of my crimes
Sanctify this withered heart of mine'.
*(This post has been edited slightly for privacy since first being posted. Thank you for your understanding.)
