Jacob regularly points to a flaw that I'm not sure is a flaw so much as a bad habit. To me a flaw is a defect that cannot be altered or fixed easily. This could be fixed with a little effort, a drive to not do it, like most bad habits.
I suppose I could let him hypnotize me too but I've demurred thus far.
My bad habit in private? Self-disparagement.
I talk very poorly of myself but only when it's just the two of us and it's late at night or we're alone. As if I'm looking for confirmation that I'm wrong, somehow. That maybe I am perfect after all even though I don't see it. That I maybe could be exactly what he wants even though I'm not sure if I am. I'm too thin, too pale. My hair is straw, my skin is bruised, my eyes are tired and emotionally, I'm a natural disaster. I shine a light on it, only the bad. Brightly lit for all to see the ugliness that is me.
He hates that. Despises it. He can't understand why I do it.
It makes two of us.
It makes no sense at all. My ego is relentlessly stroked, backed up and duplicated in threes. I get a daily if not hourly confirmation that assures me I'm amazing, that I'm wanted, needed, valued and admired.
I'm special. Unique even. They've all wanted me. If not for my terribly unstable emotions, they wanted a piece of me.
Bridget's wild streak hears it, her heart hears it and her soul wants it but her brain completely ignores it.
One more fault for the earthquake, one more anomaly to keep me grounded, one more strange and wonderful flaw for my husband to marvel over.
Like warmth, it would be nice to save up and use when you need it most. But we don't have the power to do that, we only have the power to fake it. Artificial heat and artificial self confidence.
An illusion.
One that would be fixed. I can be told I am special, I'm perfect, I'm exactly what they, no...exactly what he wants. I can see it in his eyes but I can't internalize it and so it waits like a tide to come in, just offshore while Bridget plays on the sand and pretends that she is nothing.
Which is hard because I am everything.
Sometimes.
