Do I make a clunking sound like the washing machine?
The request for weekly written barometers has become standing (weekly? Try daily). A lovely little way for everyone to see inside Bridget's head so she doesn't run off with any sharp implements and dangerous epiphanies. Or any really really sad songs and a bottle of...oh, geez, I'll stop right there.
I'm like my very own three-minute tornado warning. A first for humankind. I'll be the test subject, God knows they couldn't have picked a fiercer, tinier tornado. I'm almost handleable. The post-apocalyptic cyclone girl, now with qualified supervision!
Firstly, I'm proud to say the kids are all registered for the fall at school. Still in elementary school, but Henry will be trading in his half days for a full day and I really won't know what to do with myself. I've had two extra little shadows for the past seven and a half years and really I'm finding now I can crawl so far inside myself when I'm alone that it's hard to crawl out when the kids get home. I'm going to get a lot done, but the kids are thriving and happy and this is very good for them. They continue to adjust amazingly well and I wish I could take cues from them in how to feel, sometimes.
On singing. Yes, every time I walk past Jacob he pulls me into his lap and sings come waste your time with me, he's possibly more happy to be enjoying our full spectrum of music than I am, though I wind up getting nothing done at all when he does that, instead I get done.
Snort.
That is not a complaint, by the way.
He also confided to me during one of our silly 3 am conversations last night that he absolutely loves the way I call his name when he's out of the room.
Jaaaaaay cub!
Aw. I'm the only person who doesn't shorten his name very often when I say it out loud. Everyone calls him Jake. I tend not to shorten people's names. It's one of my more uptight quirks.
In other also unrelated things, I'm very relieved to be out of the beginning rock climbing torture class. I got a refund with a doctor's note, because heavily medicated people with stress issues shouldn't climb. Maybe next year. Jacob loves his extra-super adrenaline junkie ice climb class. They're going on a field trip in a week and he's like Henry was when they went to the train station. Excited! Five years old! Maybe I should pack him a lunch.
Also unrelated-I have a new cellphone. A Motorola one. It's going to take me forever to figure it out because I'm not great with new interfaces, but my Samsung was not repairable. Probably because in my fog of grief and shock I sat at the table one night and fed the pieces to a full vase of green water and dead roses that I forgot about after Valentine's week.
And lastly, Cole's letters. Did I appear to be stalling?
Heavens, yes.
The damn unread letters. Jacob played bad guy and asked me what I would do if I had been able to read them and if they had been awful, mean, hurtful words.
I said I would be sad but I would expect no less, really.
Then he asked me what I would do if they had contained apologies and reminders that some of our time together was good, that I mattered.
I said I would be vindicated and that I would know for sure that he didn't hate me and that he wasn't a monster, that he was still the Cole I fell in love with on the inside.
Then Jacob looked at me pointedly and in his dry, impatient manner said,
Well, then what in the hell would you do different as a result, Bridge?
I didn't have an answer for that, and this issue was resolved. He's right. In the grand scheme that is my life it wouldn't change a thing now. Cole is ashes and dust and the 7200 days and nights I spent with him are a memory that is unique to me. No one shares them because the only other person who spent them is gone.
Sometimes Jacob knows exactly how to retrain my brain in the logic required to make a little progress. By the time he and I will have spent 7200 days and nights together we'll be in our mid-fifties and kids will be grown and hopefully have families of their own and we'll be on our own together.
I'm hoping that we'll downsize a lot, minimize most of our belongings and that he will take me to see the world he knows outside of here, the world he was exploring while I was spending the final 3500 days I had remaining with Cole.
I feel like I'm in an okay place. My sanity has covered the price for my heart and I still have a shred to hold on to. Bridget's a safe kind of crazy, content to take her pills as required, charm people to bits and chase a little drama here and there and I've found I talk to Cole just a little too much as if he's some sort of demon angel watching over me, warring for my heart against the guardian angel Jacob, but not in a negative way. As I talk to him now it's almost a quiet boastfulness, a gentle thumbing of my nose at him for the way it all turned out. Possibly the very same way God speaks to me, I bet. I wouldn't doubt it for a moment.
Shout your name into the wind
And sometimes I will think of you
Shout your name into the wind
And if you ever think of me
Kneel down and kiss the earth
And show me what this thought is worth
I'll never hear your voice again
So the forecast is clear, no tornadoes in my immediate future, just a hell of a lot of ground and time to make up, because life is now and I missed the first tornado forecast but now I've built the cellar and it's fully stocked for emergencies and we're down to just trying to stay calm in hopes that Bridget isn't simply winding herself up into a funnel once again.
It'll blow over. It always does.
Right before the sun comes out.
