Leave it all to chance.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
~DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

We're home a bit early. Quietly planning Ruth's birthday and Lochlan's too. Making amends. Trying to straighten out a giant tangle of feelings and people, expectations and plans. I guess sometimes I let my brain skip ahead, through the daisies and over the rocks, making plans, expecting things to happen, envisioning my future without taking into account the fact that that's what everybody else is doing too.

It makes things hard and I'll be the first one to confess, admitting guilt that I can paint a romantic picture in my brain, a storybook life with all the lovely wonderful declarations of affection firmly pushed into their places and ideas for how to spend the day or when to make plans to escape to make a memory or two and which paint colors I would like best only to discover that not only am I not on the same page and everyone else, I am reading a different book. Maybe in a different genre, even.

What the FUCK, Bridget.

A counselor once called it my Princess Complex.

Clearly it doesn't go away, it just goes into dormancy every once in a while. Everyone seems to be okay with that for the time being. I was shown a place on a page and I've turned down the corner and stuck a feather in between and I will try to keep my place as my finger follows the words vertically and my mouth sets in a curved line of concentration.

I'm trying to learn from this, really working to stay in that moment instead of existing as far into the future as my arms can reach, fingers fully extended, shoulder dislocated, holding on to that big heavy book they gave me, keeping it squeezed tightly closed, to keep the feather in place in order to pick up where I left off.

This is a full-time job for me and I am trying to remain accountable and transparent and respectful, mindful of my friends and lovers and my readers too. I will expect nothing less in return.