I thought today's ramblings were going to run the gamut of waffles and Pink Floyd. I guess not.
Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun
I hope Loch never calls looking for his copy of The Division Bell. I'm going to wear it out. It's the theme for today's thoughts.
Somewhere there's a list of major stresses, by degree, starting with death at the top. A scale, with two last names I no longer recall. Claus showed me this list once and I saw it again this morning. Things that would usually send people off the brink no longer phase me. I've become numb to everything, having ticked off just about everything short of retirement and foreclosure.
So I am re-sensitizing what I have put aside.
My meds have been readjusted yet again. It's become a comfortable high-wire act in itself. I go for tests to monitor the levels in my blood. I haven't fought it.
I go to counseling twice a week now. One psychiatrist and one therapist who specializes in adult sexual abuse. Both are working miracles and I'm committed to not being a total freak forever. I also have Joel and August (casually) to help talk and disperse the stress on Jacob. I'll write about that part tomorrow.
If there's one underlying theme to your emails, it's that I am 'strong' to have withstood so much in such a short time. I think all of it was inevitable. Life's been rocky and tumultuous underneath a facade of fine forever. Things were accidents waiting to happen. It's just a pileup. All of it I could have predicted, thinking back. All of it eventual.
I'm not strong. Maybe I'm just patient. I will be strong.
Bulletproof glass, perhaps. Oxymoronic.
The only thing I didn't see coming were Cole's suicide attempt and his sudden death that wasn't even sudden, taking days. His suicide attempt was a farce. A half-assed show to pull me down. He took enough pills to scare everyone but not enough to do much more than make himself vomit. He was famously sarcastic and uncaring about the subject of my own attempts and had pointed out people who commit suicide have choices, but they're cowards who won't help themselves or drama queens. I can't sit here today and believe that he was reduced to despair over the loss of his family to another man. I really can't. Reading his letters to Loch, Ben and Jake, he tells me different and I'm not ready for that.
Just not.
Can't.
I'm not ready for him to be dead yet. I keep dancing around it. I call his phone, disconnected long ago and I talk to the dead air after the automated message telling me the number you have dialed is not in service. I talk to him in my dreams, unconsciously, sharing secrets with him that I shouldn't. Telling him things that are none of his business.
I do that, you know. He's a huge part of me.
I'm trying to fix the memories. To keep the good ones and let the bad ones go. I want good things. I want a good life. I want to remember the good in him, for my sake as well as for Ruth and Henry.
It's coming. Things are falling into place.
This morning saw the arrival of a couriered package from Caleb's law firm. It contained a letter that outlines his promise not to sue my husband in civil court or contact us further. A promise, and a confirmation that he is going to fade away and become yet another memory for us. A professional, courteous send-off confirming what we hoped but never counted on. That he isn't going to continue, that I've been through enough. That as long as I don't contact him he won't bother us. A witnessed letter that is signed by several other partners, showing clearly that he came clean, admitted to his colleagues that he had developed designs on his dead brother's messed-up wife based on their previous relationship and he, for the sake of his career and his reputation, was going to put an end to our relationship. It's a very incredibly formal version of the send off that I gave to Loch and Ben. What goes around comes around. I can't blame Caleb for everything, I exploited him thoroughly and Jacob exacted a price for the return of my attentions. It's technically lip service that might be illegal thanks to the order of protection but the fact that he has done this has given us, given Jacob a relief beyond words today.
Long overdue relief that all of his real enemies have surrendered. Now if we can just get the imaginary ones to follow suit, maybe we'll be somewhere finally.
Onward and upward, Reilly family. Up you go.
