Yesterday we went for a walk.
The wind bit into my bones, it was so chilling, the bare trees scratched their limbs endlessly along the sky once more as we strolled briskly around the neighborhood, hand in hand, in an effort to keep Bridget alert. The kids ran ahead a few squares of sidewalk, tagging each other, oblivious to the mild overdose of prescription antidepressants in their mother's bloodstream and Jacob affected that lovely scared-out-of-his-wits concerned look that he wears while he tries to pretend everything is fine when we damn well know it isn't.
Beautiful lush pale peach-colored roses arrived to herald the end of Valentine's week and the completion of a rose rainbow for Princess Bridget, who was asleep at the wheel and missed the festivities.
I had coffee all afternoon and coffee with dinner and I was given a lot of food to eat with the admission via being forced to step on a scale so that Jacob could see exactly how frighteningly low my weight has dropped again, and then we did active things all evening, like reorder the bookshelves, and he suddenly decided he wanted the 600 CDs we own between us in alphabetical order, and we should really do the laundry instead of waiting until tomorrow, and
There's a good girl, fold the towels, okay?
and
Bridge! You with me, princess?
And I would look around with my lips in a little 'O' and my hands clasped in my lap because they were so very heavy and I let my hair fall in my eyes which were also very heavy while I tried to focus on stories he was telling me and conversations he would start and it came very hard but at last it was finally too late to talk anymore and I had skipped all my pills for the day so he figured it was safe after checking with two more doctor friends that he knows and so at last we slept. I slept hard and long and I didn't get up until 11 am and Christian was sitting in the kitchen reading and Jacob and the kids had left for church and I decided to stay in my pajamas. Christian made me eat breakfast and then retreated to the living room to keep reading while I went in search of my laptop and I did, I wrote the future.
The only thing I can say about it is that eventually it ended happily ever after.
And then I pressed delete.
Because it isn't a gift to write what hasn't happened yet, it was a story and it isn't done yet, we've only just started and sometime last night in my fog I looked at Jacob and tried to convince him that he would grow tired of Bridget and her mental problems and he laughed with disappointment, regaining one of his most touching habits, twirling my necklace around my neck as I lay in his arms and he shook his head and assured me that he will be here forever, as he has done every time I voice my doubts.
When he and the kids returned home a short while ago he got them settled with a game and then he gathered me up into his arms and told me I looked like I had slept and that my eyes were clear, lucid green that reassured him that I was in a better place than I began yesterday in.
And then he told me he has taken leave from the church. With six months to go before he was to leave anyway, he's chosen to step down now, effectively putting me first which is something he has struggled with from the night we met. He held it together right up until he got the words out and then we cried. This is big.
I'm not concerned with financial implications, for there are few right now and we are fortunate in that regard. What I'm concerned with is that this feels like a last-ditch effort to get me better on his part and I'm not sure I like that.
Bridget isn't well.
I could hear the defeat in his voice as he worked his way through his professional contacts and family members and it hurts because I know. I know I'm not well and I know this is an endless loop and something has to give but we don't know what it is. And so this magnificent gesture of putting me before God had better reveal itself in a solution or a path that works and doesn't keep shoving us back to the beginning every single time like a cruel joke.
He told me I need him and I need him to not only be strong but to be here and that I need to gain some strength and catch a break and that we are going to make it because we want to, because we believe we will and that he loves me and he knew I was fucked up a long time ago and it didn't deter him then and it certainly won't deter him now, and that my recent constant remarks on this being Groundhog Day, the same day lived over and over again, led him to act when he realized I was right and none of this is working.
Nothing is working, and no, Bridget isn't well.
Today is rest. All rest and eating and talking gently and keeping the kids in their routine above all and tomorrow we'll figure out the rest of it. Or at least now we can begin. Because Groundhog Day is over but Bridget is just beginning.
Or something like that. Forgive me, I'm still slightly foggy and making that face with the 'O'. But it's whole heaps better than being facedown in a plate of toast. Don't you think? Either way it really hasn't sunk in that he is free from bonds that he loved and it's my fault and that he finally threw in the towel and put me first and the implications that this is going to have for Jacob, because he loves God and this isn't a choice he ever thought he would have to make. But now it's done and he said he is relieved and I'm not sure if he's telling me that so that I don't fall apart or if he's telling me that so that he doesn't fall apart but I hope God doesn't harbour grudges and sticks around to help out because I think we both need him right now.
I ramble, don't I? I'm sorry. It's not a matter of falling into a valley of lows again, please understand, it's about trying different avenues and discovering they don't work or I didn't give them enough of an effort. It's about finding what works to become who I think I was and who I know I could be, and it's about a very young and wanted marriage in danger of failing only because we struggle so mightily with obstacles we never expected to face in our lives.
But we'll make it. And someday Bridget will be well.
I'm taking a few days off from writing here, I hope you understand. I'll be back midweek. Not because we're running anywhere and no, I'm not being hospitalized or anything dramatic and gossipy, I just need to catch my breath and I have a shitload of appointments over the next two days and not much free time in there for work, let alone journal-writing. Especially journal-writing that is essentially the same days written over and over again.
See you Wednesday maybe, keep well and keep us in your prayers. We might need them more than ever now.
