What I did today.

    Masquerading as a man with a reason
    My charade is the event of the season
    And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely
    means that I don't know

You would almost expect to find Jacob walking around singing those lyrics, wouldn't you? Yes, I would too. He is, nonstop.

Loch pointed out in a phone call that I never write about what I'm doing.

I don't get how you can write three pages of how you feel without once pointing out a single action. Oh, aside from him kissing you. Christ, Bridge.
Loch is gently kidding me. But it might be true anyway because I rarely talk about how I'm spending my time. Maybe it's a omission in error, maybe it's on purpose. I have no idea. But since it's not a mommy blog, or a family blog, or even a therapy blog, it seems to be a tiny bit of everything, leaning very heavily on the aspect of a very personal place for me in which I can say and do say..anything. Everything. I sit down and something winds up here. I wish I could plan it a little better but it plans me.

And I don't care who reads it and I'm no longer so concerned about what you think of it. If I want to explore the incredible news that I feel better for eighteen weeks in a row then oh boy, will you ever be bored.

If it all turns to porn, well, aren't you lucky.

(Of course it will, don't be silly.)

Christian said Jacob's entry from seven years back made him sound like a gentleman stalker. If so, then he was the most unproductive stalker ever born, because never once did he stand outside my window in the pouring rain looking at my house, like the guy in that Maroon 5 song. That guy was a stalker.

I have a laundry list of similar things for him, romantic gestures he hasn't made (yet), like rowing a boat for me or having my name tattoed on his chest. It's a fun joke between us. I've also never picked him up at work wearing only a trench coat with nothing underneath, something he teases me about. Usually because when I used to walk down to meet him I would either have the kids with me or wind up taking off a coat for an hour to answer phones, do some filing or water plants. Or the fact that I don't own a trench coat. Or the fact that his office is a church but hey, we've already christened it so did it matter if I started in a dress anyway?

He laughed and said it didn't, and besides, had he stood outside our house in the rain as some sort of sentry yearning for my heart, Cole would have come out and started swinging.

No, instead Jacob was always warmly welcomed in, so maybe he did do that, starting out. It was a brief stand then, and he is off the hook.

And please, every man I know inhales a woman as she comes within a certain closeness. Men do that. Women don't do it until they are holding a man. It's a fundamental difference, but it's there.

Did you want me to write that we play Mystery Tea in the evenings now? I have fifty teabags I can't identify. I must have been seriously loopy the day I took them all out of their boxes and put them into a large square tin so that I would have everything together, being a serial organizer. Only the earl grey had tags, the rest are a motley bunch. So each night after dinner I make us each a cup of tea and then Jacob will take a sip and contemplate it for a few moments and then exclaim something silly like,

Oh! This would be green.

Or,

This is the spicy chai, I do believe.

In an Irish-Newfie accent.

And so I laugh and the next night follows suit with cinnamon or Chinese black. We have rhythms and routines and lover's rituals and near sexual satisfaction now and no, I didn't write about sex with cracked ribs because it was a given that we became experts at Bridget-injured sex almost a year ago and so we picked up familiar patterns and it's a little frustrating but I'm going to save that for another day. It needs a separate post. The progress, not some detailed paragraph on how we manage, no worries.

Of course...this is Bridget's journal so I shy away from nothing. No apologies for that, you know me better than that by now.

In the evenings over the winter we would put the kids to bed and then pop in a movie and snuggle together and sometimes I would watch a movie alone if Jacob had work to do. Or we'd retire to the den to just talk, or sometimes hit the floor of the living room because he builds nice, perfect fires to lounge around and we'd talk some more. For some reason we can talk forever. We always could. There's been few examples of times where we had to search for things to say but being together has unleashed a verbal waterfall. Or perhaps we're making up for lost time, for all the things we couldn't say.

Now that the warmer weather has come we find ourselves sitting on the front steps so we can watch people stroll by with their dogs and their strollers (which is very very hard because I would be eight months..no, I'm not going there. Not now) and we speak for a few moments always and it's so nice to feel a warm breeze and watch the sky turn to fire and then lavender and then darkest blue.

And Jake is an incredibly hands-on dad. He asks the kids for help and input on so much. He lets them put bows in his beard. He gets down on his belly full-length on Ruth's floor with from the knees down hanging out into the hall and tries to put outfits on her Barbie dolls and then holds ballroom dancing sessions for them. For the record he does not know how to ballroom dance, so we are perfect for each other, because I have no use for that. I'll take my darkened-house midnight waltzes any old time. He and Henry spend hours building model planes and perfecting their jokes to tell the girls (Ruth and I). And they sneak through the kitchen stealing cookies or apples every chance they get. They call it snack-recon. It's a riot.

I'm usually a tornado, twisting through the house in the usual balancing act of meals, cleaning, laundry, budget, chores, disaster declarations, though now I have full-time help with everything. He was a capable bachelor, and so he never moved in expecting me to do anything, though I go and do it anyway because he didn't have time to do laundry or make a meal if he was in all-day meetings or double-booked counselling. Or certification testing. Or dedication rehearsals. Or the myriad of other stuff. When he opens the drawer in our bureau and finds a stack of clean hemp t-shirts he thanks me like I'm doing him a favor.

I simply remind him it's easy to do laundry while I write. I can do just about anything and write at the same time.

I want to take care of Jacob. Which is harder than I expected, because he is capable with a capital C and that is no match for me. He says I do, but it's about more than shirts. He says I fill his heart and his soul and he sleeps at night and he does, he doesn't thrash all over the place anymore in his sleep, did you know that? No, because I didn't tell you but I fail to see sometimes how just being here is taking care of him. He insists.

And then he repeats it until I let it go.

And he has been my biggest fan. When I met Jacob I wasn't so much a writer, I was a white-collar banker smashing my head repeatedly on a glass ceiling that would never break. I was sexually harassed and overburdened and unpaid and when Ruth was born I realized I could never go back and so I started writing and Jacob was my first critic/editor. Yes, he is thanked in the acknowledgements, always. He wants to read everything I write, even if it's nothing special. He takes it seriously and personally. Sometimes it creates arguments, sometimes it gives him a new appreciation for who I am. Nothing impresses him more than this journal, maybe because it's about us, or maybe he enjoys seeing himself through my eyes. He won't confirm or deny. But I have no trepidation over taking anything I've written to him, good or bad, for first pickings, because he's been there since word one.

I like that, word one.

And today I have a headache, so will be diving into the mystery tea just as soon as this pot of coffee is gone.

Oh, and I have the shakes. Which is fun, a side-effect of the DTs from the medication leaving my body. I feel whole. I feel real. I feel pretty fucking good today. Even with the slight flutter.

I can't wait to tell Claus when I see him later this morning. He will be pleased.

    I don't mind spending everyday
    Out on your corner in the pouring rain
    Look for the girl with the broken smile
    Ask her if she wants to stay awhile


She will be loved. Oh yes, you bet she will.

Voyeurism Tuesday.

Because I love you, and I'm not kidding when I talk about how this was meant to be. A permitted excerpt from Jacob's old-fashioned paper journal (note the date because he went and dug it out after he read today's entry):

    Monday, April 10, 2000
    Halifax, Nova Scotia


    I think I have a new goal in life, her name is Bridget. She is difficult, impulsive, stubborn, beautiful. I spend enough time with her that I am surprised that I spend so much of our time apart with her still on my mind. She has a hold on me. I don't know what it is. We have settled into a platonic routine but I still covet every second I can touch her, smell her, be the recipient of her attention or her smile. She's been leaving me phone messages all week for fun-I can't even remember how many times I have listened to them just to hear her laugh at the end when she says goodbye. Being in love with my best friend is a curse. Having her know and do nothing about it is torture. It's agony knowing she loves me. This can't end well but I don't push her. It is a goal I could never follow up on and so I torture myself with inactivity, then I torture myself with regret. The only time she is mine is in my dreams and dreams so rarely come true.


It appears that dreams do come true, Jake. They did for me, too.

And...spooky!

Offroad girl.

    I'll beg for you
    You know I'll beg for you
    Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
    Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave
    If you should die before me
    Ask if you can bring a friend
    Pick a flower, hold your breath
    And drift away

No, I'm not about to unleash a torrent of admissions upon you. No, I am not falling into a low. No, I'm not having too difficult of a time coming down off the medications. No, I haven't done anything wrong.

In fact, everything is wonderful. Life has become the fairytale I wanted. The one that I was meant for. The one about me.

Minus the lingering doubts.

Last night I had one of those blisteringly cathartic sobfests. Usually my method of crying is a quivering lower lip and some giant tears that well up and spill over my cheeks and I'll wipe them away in an impatient haste on the back of my fist and keeping on fighting through it. But then sometimes I am reduced to the point where my whole face becomes pink and stained with so many tears as if water has been splashed on my skin and it becomes hard to breathe as I choke through endless sobs and shake all over. I simply laid my head against Jacob's chest and he wrapped his arms around me and tucked his head down beside mine and just squeezed and I let it all out until there was nothing left. One of those good cries.

I wake up in the mornings not believing my luck, relishing the shiver of anticipation when he touches me and sleepily smiles at me, so full of love and he wants nothing else ever. He has relaxed, he has unwound just enough and he is now fully immersed in his self-induced caretaker vacation in order to see me better once and for all and the only thing that will take him away for any length of time will be his chaplain shifts and anytime he goes out with the guys, to pick up wood or help someone with their truck repairs or go out for lunch, or to his own therapy sessions, separate from mine and from our joint ones, to deal with his temper, to find balance between his obsessiveness and his distance, to help him be a better person as if that were somehow possible. That would be like trying to perfect the smoothness of an egg to me.

I said that and was treated to that loud goofy guffaw laugh that he punctuates with his dimples.

And I want nothing else ever, just him. This is sort of like the moment in your life (if you've ever had this moment you'll understand what I mean) when you pick up your Life Goals list and cross off the big one at the top, you know, the one that you wrote down for fits and giggles, knowing full well that you'd never achieve it, but wouldn't it be nice.

And then you do.

Suddenly I'm faced with needing a few new goals, I've worked my way through a lofty assortment of them and my list is now a clean slate, almost, I'm just waiting for my man in the white coat to come along with his dustpan and sweep away the remaining particles of the waning stress, the grit of dealing with a life that had so many hairpin curves for a while there, I wound up carsick and then crushed, wrapped around tree somewhere down the embankment, far out of sight of rescue.

And then I dug my fingers into the crumbling dirt on the side of that hill and pulled myself back up and noticed the rest of the road was straight. I wiped the trickle of blood off my temple and felt around for all my pieces. I looked behind me and saw that I was pushed up, helped, pulled and dragged by my hands. He has traction in life, guys.

And do you know something? Bridget is still intact. Whole.

Complete, even.

Fully intact and only slightly dented and misshapen and bruised, on the inside, fading now, and it does absolutely nothing to counteract the brimming love that just spills over and over and is a fountain inside my soul.

This is very good. Cheer for me, would you? Just the tiniest of hurrahs would suffice and I will be ever so grateful.

Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't believe it was Jacob's goal in life to ever wind up with a wife so fragile and weak, that his strength would dissolve like ice in hot water when confronted with a princess made of glass, his resolve crumbling, unable to resist. I take my place in history as the one weakness of his magnificent design. The one goal he ever had. The one person he ever wanted so badly that he would shove everything else to one side to get it, taking risks he wouldn't normally take, acting out in ways so uncharacteristic of the sweet and goofy handsome preacher boy, making promises that he has woven into the finest silk, goals rubbed and polished to a shine so bright we went blind somewhere along that long, dangerous road.

Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't think I deserve this, him, anything good. Sometimes I want to scream with frustration at not doing things better, not acting faster, not trying harder.

Not being tougher.

Sometimes I want to point out that I may never live up to the image of me that he keeps in his mind. I'm still sure he sees her, not me. The potential of who I could be, instead of the mess that I am.

And when I tell him that, he simply smiles and kisses my face and tells me to hush, and reminds me that we're two now, we're together, we're it, and I am everything to him, whole or fractured. And that we will fix it and if we don't that's okay too, because he can hold me in his arms without guilt, and I can be in his arms without fear. And that the whole mess is wrapped in love and love can fix anything.

Just wait and see, princess.

I will.

That's good. Because I love you.

I love you too.

Cryptic comes in small packages too.

    Just hear me out
    If it's not perfect I'll perfect it till my heart explodes
    I highly doubt
    I can make it through another of your episodes
    Lashing out
    One of the petty moves you pull before you lose control
    You wear me out
    But it's all right now

Henry is fine, for the record. He ate a light lunch and then a normal dinner and was running around on his mini-skateboard like an animal by 3 pm yesterday, and so yesterday was redeemed.

I never pointed out how much the easter bunny resembles our tooth fairy.

I never told you a lot of things.

Maybe I should.

Maybe I will.

A change in schedule.

A note that next year I won't be so generous and let Henry eat a 'few' chocolate eggs before church, since he threw up all over the sidewalk (and me) halfway down the road. I carried him home and we're going to miss the morning. I think I strained myself. Jacob simply has too much to do today and so Ruth will be brought home by the neighbors, and we'll just play it by the hour.

My poor baby.

Lay your weary head to rest, Bridget.

I'm going to paint you a picture of my living room last night, circa oh....midnight.

Jacob and I had a four-hour Guitar Hero II marathon.

Yes, alone, just the two of us, because we're goofy like that. We went through far too much of root beer and the songs kept getting better and better. Because Kiss! Then Van Halen!

And oh my God, Kansas.

(Caffeine. Far too much caffeine.)

Carry On Wayward Son is a very old favorite song of ours. I consider us extra talented for being able to sing along with the words and use our 'star power' at the same time. I think I topped out at 83% and Jacob 90%. He's more coordinated. Playing this game to me was like when I learned to drive a standard. I remember telling Cole I didn't think I would ever be coordinated enough to work both feet and both hands at the same time but I did it, eventually and I will master this too.

But maybe not with any more marathons because I am so sleepy this morning and we have a busy day ahead. The Easter bunny has been here and so I'll have two chocolate monsters to keep busy this morning too. Who eats chocolate before 9 a.m.? I'm not sure if Jacob's foreboding facial expression will be enough to quiet the kids should he need to deploy it during services (he is assisting today and doing a reading) but it will have to do.

Happy Easter. Because I rock!

Well, according to Guitar Hero II I do, so there.

How much for your wings?

It must be Saturday. He's singing.

    Twenty-five pounds of pure cane sugar
    She's got in each and every kiss
    You wouldn't know what I'm talking 'bout
    If you never had a love like this
    Well, I don't mean to be frank with you all
    It's a natural fact
    Good things come wrapped up in small, small packages now
    Well you can't argue with that
    Ninety-nine pounds of natural born goodness
    Ninety-nine pounds of soul
    Ninety-nine pounds of natural born goodness
    Ninety-nine pounds of soul

Aw. I like days that begin this way. I also like days that start off with noticing new muscles on my husband while we're in the shower. His calf muscles have muscles on their muscles now. He claims it's from all the running we were doing.

Well then shouldn't I have those too?

I don't.

Ninety-nine pounds of fluff.

But my cold is waning, so that is a good thing. Sneezing with cracked ribs makes me want to bind myself up with duct tape and hope for the best. Owies. Today I'm going to wear my new jeans as I run around doing errands that I put off all week long. Winter is still raging here in the north and it's become incredibly difficult to find the want to leave the house unless it's absolutely necessary.

It's a good excuse to treat myself to some new reads and so I shall add the bookstore to my list. I think I have exhausted the library, truth be told. I didn't think that was possible in a city this big. Of course, the day the library snugs a Starbucks in betwixt their rows of words is the day I grab my stuff and go move right in. I'm hooked. I'll admit. But my habit runs once a week or less so I can still justify a designer coffee without being branded a fanatic.

I swear.

One of these days.

I was told to stay in bed this morning.

I didn't listen.

One of my new commitments is that I keep going. Even if I have to phone it in effort-wise, I have to fight through every day and not cop out, opt-out or give up.

Today I couldn't give up if I tried. When the alarm went off this morning, Jacob reached past me and turned it off and then pushed himself against me. The part of him that sometimes wakes him up first was wide awake, and I was treated to a long, slow, gentle, very good Friday morning. And an even longer kiss that I finally had to tap out of, because my nose was so stuffed up I couldn't catch my breath. Jacob laughed softly and pressed the tip of his nose to mine and I sneezed on him for good measure.

A hot shower does wonders for post-sex and sneeze episodes. Plus I think it cleared my head. Then I took some Dayquil and drank a pot of coffee and burned my fingers on the toaster and now I'm halfway into my favorite winter dress, which is a cute little vintage plaid wool jumper that Jacob feels might be too short to wear to church and so I've worn it often and demurely press my knees together in the pew.

I'm serving tea and coffee after today's services and comfort is paramount.

But as soon as we get home, I'm switching to my jammies. And locking the door and turning off the phone and maybe making a pot of tea with honey and not sharing any of it.

If only I had cake, the day would be perfect.

Thursday feels like Friday.

In my haste to rush out to lunch, I didn't expound on anything at all. Sometimes it's better that way, count yourself lucky.

This morning's progress concerned my feelings about Cole and how it's so fucking easy to fake the accolades for him around the children (because I have to, for their sake, and because he was a good father) and around his family and better friends but then I have a hard time accepting that he wasn't what I would like to see him as. A monster. My shadows. My fears. The personification of every fragility I hold now. And likely he is a huge part of that, but Cole had demons of his own and it's a long way back to the place where I can comprehend in my little pea brain that his monsters ate him alive, but he was not a monster.

You know what? I would spend all night here trying to summarize two hours of intensive reconstruction of my thought processes here, so maybe I'll stop with that. I can't make you see.

And believe it or not, this has little to do with the earlier admissions that my depression is as good as it's ever going to get. We simply have to learn to ride and deal with the waves as they break. Chemical and nurturing causes mean I'll never have a free pass to a permanent happy place. It's okay. I dealt with it before unmedicated, and I'm about to do it again. Only this time there's no one waiting to sabotage my efforts. Quite the opposite in my loving Jacob.

Just enjoy the wild loopy ride with me while I take a few weeks to get the medicine out of my system. Because now I'm awake. Finally.

And weird.

In any case, Loch was here just for the morning, to take us out to lunch and have a quick visit on his way out west and now Christian and PJ are here hanging out and hogging the X-box while I help Jacob iron his clothes for the weekend. And these boys are trying to teach me to love Death in Vegas as much as they do.

Blissful, blissful mediocrity.

Not a monster anymore.

    He had alot to say.
    He had alot of nothing to say.
    We'll miss him.

    So long.
    We wish you well.
    You told us how you weren't afraid to die.
    Well then, so long.
    Don't cry.
    Or feel too down.
    Not all martyrs see divinity.
    But at least you tried.

    Standing above the crowd,
    He had a voice that was strong and loud.
    We'll miss him.
    Ranting and pointing his finger
    At everything but his heart.
    We'll miss him.
A good day is a day that I emerge squinting into the sun, breathing deeply from the stale freshly-scrubbed air of a familiar office building, smiling softly at a phenomenal amount of progress made and run straight into the arms of all four of my guys, who take turns kissing the top of my head and telling me that they are proud of me, the big one in particular.

Yay me, especially since I've been medication-free for one week today.

Magical mystery tour.

Every now and then I make a reference to running away to join the circus (Examples everywhere in case you missed the subtle year-long running metaphor).

Shhhh. What's that? It's the sound of Bridget getting comfortable in her own skin. That rarely happens. Usually I wish I was less full of regret. That always happens.

Circus people to me mean friendlies. Kind, accepting people who tolerate everyone and everything. They are the freaks, the fringe, zealots. People with beautiful souls unbound by modern constraints of time, expectations and the mindfuck of radiant cityesque urban suburbia. They only care if you are well and if you are happy, and they care very deeply for one another. It's not much different from Jacob's idea of perfect organized worship.

I'm going to be a circus performer when I grow up.

No, seriously. That was the plan and I made it, for a time. But I am not the only freak in this homemade urban circus. Jacob is a magician. He can pull quarters out of people's ears. We used to joke about him shaking down the congregation with his tricks and becoming a millionaire.

Today was a rare treat. We were outside cleaning up the parking lot and the yard at the church and based on my injuries I was holding the garbage bag and not doing a whole lot aside from following Jacob or Sam around in the searing cold wind and feeling as if I might possibly sell my soul for a hot cup of tea.

Treasures we compiled included three condoms (please don't ask me if they were used but hurrah for safe sex, right? Not so hurrah for the goth teens using the churchyard as their spooky boudoir) and a fork. Jacob stuck the fork in his back pocket and when we were finished he brought it in and proceeded to trot out his favorite mindblowing trick of all:

Telekinesis. The power to move objects with your mind.

He bent the fork into a wavy mess of stainless steel.

I jump out of my goosebumped skin every time he does it. Then I told him he had to show the kids today. He used to only do it late at night at dinner parties after a couple of drinks. So when the kids came home for lunch he showed them and they positively squealed.

Do it again! became the rally cry of the noon hour.

When I came back from walking them back to school, I counted seventeen bent spoons on the kitchen table. I gathered them up and took them in and dumped them in front of Jake on the desk in the study.

Okay, smartiepants, bend them back.

Oh shit.

What?

I can't. Once they're bent I can't bend the same spoon again, princess.

Then I guess you're going to the store because we don't have any spoons left.

Well then, let me get some money.

He stuck his hand down into my shirt and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Lochlan can do it too but you'd expect it from him, not from Jake.

And I am still laughing. Because this morning I realized when he bent that fork that he was capable of using his powers on people too, it just took him almost ten years to perfect it.

Witness protection.

Oops. My friends are holding me at arms length this afternoon. Not because I publically shared a profoundly intimate moment with Jacob (who holds his words more sacred than his flesh just like I do) but because I admitted that I'm still listening to a song that came out when I was thirteen years old.

I know.

Then you won't be surprised either if I told you I keep Kansas, Bad Company and Bon Jovi in heavy rotation too.

And I didn't grow up to be embarrassed of my pictures in off the shoulder shirts and parachute pants and giant plastic neon jewelry, oh no. My wardrobe was a heavy rotation of Metallica t-shirts and incredibly tight jeans. Black high heels, eyeliner and a whole lot of hair. My dream? To follow in Tawny Kitaen's footsteps and get paid to roll around on the hood of a car.

Go big or go home, Bridget.

(As you can see, I went home.)

And pretty range wildly between gypsy lovechild and metal queen now. Okay. Shut up.

Because it's twosday and I have a lot on my mind.

I apologize. I'm prone to wax poetic when faced with old, bad, familiar news. I also posted half an entry, but you can't tell, because I spin. And here, I might even get personal.

Bridget cannot be fixed.

Like anyone had any doubt. Okay, one person did and I feel bad for him. He's so idealistic, so innocent in his plans to conquer the universe. My God.

He's awesome.

And naive.

And he never listened when Cole laughed seven years ago one night and told Jacob that he made sure he broke me good. I didn't listen either, instead attempting to take full responsibility for myself and my problems. A losing battle that made it that much worse.

But hearing that we've gotten just as far as we're ever going to get here just sucks monumentally because I watched Jacob, I watched his expressions unfold as they pinned him to his chair with pessimistic prognoses that he had thus far refused to sit for or acknowledge. He gave no weight to them before, preferring to enjoy a false levity, a gamut of second and third and fourth opinions that merely served to grind it in, salt in a wound. Clarity was never a more unwelcome revelation in our presence as he realized with total and utter grief that he's not going to be able to undo it by galloping in on his white horse to save this princess from certain danger.

The time has passed now.

    Time is slipping away, passing us by,
    You're wondering why but it's gone,
    Gone forever my friend,
    and it won't come again
    So don't try to pretend you feel fine
    Killing time,
    killing time

It's a fucking joke, really. I didn't start out this way. And I'll blame Cole until the day I die. I'm going to give myself that, right or wrong. Chemical, my ass. The simple fact is that Cole had twenty years of me all to himself to beat me into this frame of mind, and it will probably take Jacob twenty years to love it right out again.

Which is okay. We've got time.

When we came back home he put his arms around me and he told me I had it wrong. But instead of berating me with further attempts to find ways to get inside my head and tinker with the parts that aren't working, he instead gave me a gift that I don't think I know quite what to do with but it left me speechless in his generosity and total surrender all the same.

He asked me if I would take care of him.

I could never make you understand what that means to me, for us. You'll never fully understand what lies between us and surrounds us. With all my stupid words, I could never sufficiently describe it. It goes to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

That I will do, Jacob.

Base jumper.

Jacob has done it and so this can be for him.

    Put me somewhere I don't wanna be.
    Seeing someplace I don't wanna see.
    Never wanna see that place again.

    Saw that gap again today
    As you were begging me to stay.
    Managed to push myself away,
    And you, as well.

    If, when I say I may fade like a sigh if I stay,
    You minimize my movement anyway,
    I must persuade you another way.
    There's no love in fear.

    Staring down the hole again.
    Hands upon my back again.
    Survival is my only friend.
    Terrified of what may come.

    Remember I will always love you,
    Even as I claw your fucking throat away.
    But it will end no other way.
Petulance achieved today in self-destructive historically significant songs in my personal soundtrack.

Pay me no mind, it's proven to be a tough morning from the get-go. And I'm mad at myself for talking about shoes and books and inside jokes and home renovations here when I want to talk about things that are going on in my head and in my heart and sometimes on my flesh itself and instead I distract you with my cuteness, as Jacob calls it. It's the ugliest cuteness ever, if that's true, because it's a dangerous space for me to occupy, a hazardous cliff on which I stand, directly at the edge, to the point where your audible sharp intake of breath exposes your own fear at how close I really am.

But your eyes wear the colors of rationality and calm, and you rightly begin to speak in soothing, relaxed tones, words of warmth and remembrance, memories and promises of good, light and gentle, oh so gentle admonitions, almost canonical and comical at once in their desperation to reclaim my soul.

It's not failing, you just don't understand. There is a point to which I will come away from the edge, a line drawn that I don't seem to have permission to cross, and then when you aren't looking, when you aren't paying attention, I cross my fingers behind my back and take three very big steps back, sometimes landing on an unsure footing that puts my own heart in my throat and gives me a tiny thrill of anticipation at what it will feel like to fly, but the fear is greater and I grab the strong hands that reach out almost too late but not quite.

This is as beautiful and as fucked up as I am ever going to be. This is as good as things ever will be for me, and I'm okay with that.

Just don't take away the memories I have made away from the edge. And don't look too closely, for if you do you'll see I don't have a parachute.

Rarities and B-sides: A girl who doesn't like to buy shoes.

One of the more cringeworthy running jokes in my circle is how incredibly difficult it is for me to buy shoes. Some say now that it's as hard for me to decide on a pair of shoes as it is for me to decide on husbands. And then once I find something I like, I wear them into the ground.

Oh, let's face it. I'll make the off-color joke and spare you from feeling guilty.

So, yes, those pretty new Earth shoes are awesome.

The previously loved ones by Demonia are toast, the four-inch platform I can no longer depend on, and I fit right under Jacob's armpit again (yes, that man who doesn't like shoes much either).

Now if this isn't a metaphor for something, I really don't know what is.

This is the house that Jake built.

    Throw the rocks and break the glass
    I'll get down on my knees and kiss your ass
    'Cause you're the one to be in my dreams
    It never was
    It isn't what it seems

Good morning. My apologies to Caldecott for stealing his title and changing it to suit my whims.

I have new Earth Shoes and a fresh outlook. I feel like a million dollars.

Shhh. It might be the Vicodin.

I haven't run, the last day being with Loch who is the most impatient, quietest, most dedicated non-runner ever. He doesn't run, he prefers to do strength training in a sweaty gym somewhere, standing still (pffft) but by the time he left here he was talking about maybe starting a daily run. Ha! And, must be nice.

Consensus is definitely that something is going to be taken away here, therapy-wise. The pills seem to have little effect, what's having effect is the brutal honesty with which I can finally confess to Jacob exactly how many times a day, a night, an hour I think of Cole, or remember something about him, and exactly how many times a day it's a positive or a negative thought. I didn't think I could tell him, and I told him that and he floored me by being able to take that. God forbid if our roles were reversed, I wouldn't want to know.

My God, I love this man.

And the wall came down yesterday, the wall in the kitchen that was my target as the human flying machine, a wall full of shelves and dishes that shattered brilliantly in the evening light as every bone in my body flexed magically and only 3 out of 206 broke. I should have kept count of exactly how many dishes Cole broke over the course of our lives together.

Jacob had taken what was left of the shelves down and repaired the wall itself from the outline my head and shoulders embossed into it but we never put the shelves back up and now the whole wall is gone, a beautiful archway in it's place, a new door opens, literally and figuratively, and we made the old opening into a wall. The house flows better and I don't stand and look at that wall anymore, swearing I can still see my outline because there is no wall to look at. It's one less proverbial wall to climb over in search of memories that don't hurt.

Sparing Jacob's feelings, sparing Bridget's, it's sweet but it doesn't fix Bridget, what's fixing her is the time. He keeps pointing out how much time has passed and how quickly it's slipping through our fingers. And I don't know anyone as strong as Jacob. I never will again. He is it. Strongest man I ever met. Strongest man you'll ever meet, should you be so lucky. A man convinced that no matter how much I think it might be hard for him to hear things or for me to say things, or for him to have to rebuild an entire room to change the past, then the step forward is worth the harmful part, if only as a means to an end.

He wanted it down before a year was up and so he did it.

It's our house now.

I cheered. And he grinned and I noticed his dimples filled that new doorway.

Two fools, early on a snowy Sunday morning.

When I woke up Jacob whispered to me that it was raining. It was soft, muffled by the snowflakes falling too, I couldn't hear it, but I closed my eyes again and tried to drift back into my dream. He wouldn't allow for that, instead he put his arms around me in his customary protective cage that he makes for me and he put his hand gently around my neck and felt, with his nose, for the soft place directly under my left earlobe that he likes to kiss when he wakes up.

Then he told me we had to get up and get ready because he had to do the service this morning. Oh wonderful. I love to watch him so I started to get up (still gingerly) and he frowned and stopped me, pulling me back into his arms and pulling the quilts up over our heads.

April Fools, princess.

Aw, I was actually hoping to hear you today.

You're my fanclub, I can do a home version for you today.

Okay, maybe later.

Can we go back to sleep now?

Just for a bit. I need extra time to get ready today for eleven.

I'll help you. Goodnight, princess.
We did go back to sleep for a bit. And in my dreams, I traveled back a year in time to the Sunday before Easter, in which I put on my rose-print dress and went to church by myself, Cole hardly ever went, and I sat mid-sanctuary and watched Jacob and wondered what a week from then was going to bring for us all

If it's chipped do you keep it?

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.

I will follow you home

I should do a weekly entry telling you about my amazing nightstand, now stacked to four feet off the ground with things to read. Things we pass around, things from people I know who tell me I have to have a look or should take time out to check this or that. And though most weeks I get about a half hour at the end of every day to read for pleasure, I take it like medicine.

However, reviews are rare from me. I love what I love for my own reasons and I find people's individual tastes and subjective love of music, movies, television and books far too esoteric to be able to share most of the time. What makes you love Modest Mouse leaves me vaguely confused and I will never be able to explain my intense, overwhelming love of Tool.

So forgive me but I want to talk about something.

I mentioned a while back on a painful day that I was obsessed with being an ungracious widow and I said I was reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King.

Those of you literary-type folks who will nod approval of my mentions of Hemingway or Stevenson will now turn up your nose as if Mr. King, purveyor of fine horror novels that marked most of my adolescent reading jaunts, is a lesser writer somehow. Christine, anyone?

You would be wrong.

Read his offbeat novels-Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, Stand by Me, or one of my favorites of all time (of his), The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon.

And yet, Stephen King outdid himself here, with Lisey. And while I knew when I picked this up in Chapters that this widow, like all the others I have encountered, was happily married when her husband died, Lisey struck a chord in me that resonated and I can still feel the vibrations.

Her husband was mentally ill, destroyed by a terrible childhood that left him mostly crazy. I identified with the character of Scott Landon because he wrote his dreams, he harnessed his baggage and turned it into his lifelong work through his writing, all the while well aware that he was merely outrunning his pain.

Which is kinda sorta how Bridget lives.

Granted Scott was a multi-million dollar bestselling author and I might never be and that's okay, it was refreshing to read of their love through the eyes of his strong and adoring wife, who simply loved him, as Jacob does me, maybe in spite of and because of our demons.

There was even a bad guy, named Gerd Allen Cole. I'd be lying if I didn't choke when I saw that. But damned if I didn't sob like a baby through the final pages of that book, wishing it would never end and positively struck by the beauty with which Lisey found her closure for her life with Scott. And it was a little scary too. But like Tom Gordon, the scariness of the threats never manages to overshadow the emotional map drawn of the central character.

There's something to be said for just letting the words out, and not worrying about whether they will sound cheesy or if anyone will really understand them. Is it too deep, too feeling, too honest or too revealing? Mr. King managed to let it out, he let the words flow over the page and he spun an incredibly moving river of a tale of love and loss and he did it with such aplomb. Or maybe I was in the right place at the right time to be able to find a personal theme in this book and so perhaps it touched me more. I'll never know any different, so here you go.

Well done. It's now one of only three works of fiction that have literally brought me to tears in my life and it's by far the most compelling.

Now I'm back to reading college review mags because Thorn is so much more bitter and harder to swallow.

The part where PJ tries his hand at a lecture.

Boy, you really are Jacob's 'main squeeze'.

I always knew he had a 'crush' on you.

And those were the ones I can repeat, as the boys weigh in on the latest news. The unrepeatable ones were references to the friendly giant's commanding size and how girls should watch out, lest he rearrange their innards, or some such depravity.

I said I love my friends, right? Does that mean I can tell them to fuck off?

Secretly I love it but not today. Today Jacob is still rather sensitive. Today he sees how easily I wind up with dents and knocks and also how accidents happen and oh my God I wish he would smile. Just once. Ben poked him in the shoulder and made some crack yesterday and Jake didn't even move his head but shifted his eyes sideways and Ben actually made some excuse and left shortly after, never wanting to be on the bad side of Jacob. No one does and thankfully they're mostly sparing him the digs while I try not to laugh because it hurts but oh fuck me, it's so hard not to.

If all injuries came as a result of such fun. And I kept going! Which is scary because the more time passes the more babyish I'm getting about my ribcage.

But it's time to move on, to greener pastures, better topics and more excitement because life demands it. Life is to be grabbed and squeezed and emptied out and refilled and dammit, do it with gusto.

PJ took me out for coffee last night and we took the truck since I wasn't going to walk and I played Eulogy loud. Then I remembered I won't be lapdancing for a long while which made me sad and so I turned off the stereo because that's one of my favorite songs to get into.

PJ eyed me curiously.

What's up, Bridge. You okay?

Yes, just tired.

That's because you're a freak.

Nice.

Well it's true. Maybe you should slow down.

We were.

You aren't twenty-five anymore.

Well fuck you too, Padraig.

Listen, Bridget, Jake can't handle you getting hurt. He hasn't been able to yet.

We didn't mean for this to happen.

No, but maybe if you two had a normal sex life you wouldn't have gotten hurt.

I'm not having this conversation with you, Peej.

Then just take it easy. Very few things upset Jake to that extent and one of them is you and injuries, he doesn't care how they originate. The guy needs a break.

We all need a break.

Right, so just cool it.

I cannot believe you're lecturing me on Jacob.

Oh don't worry, I talked to him too.

About?

Ruining you with his giant schlong.

You DID NOT.

I did. I reminded him that princesses are delicate.

Fuck right off with that. Did you really?

No, I just said I hoped it was going to be funny in the future, because it's a good kind of disaster. Especially moving that desk.

What are you talking about?

He said the desk moved a good foot.

No way.

You hit the corner of the desk, Bridge.

I did?

Bruised livers don't come from being squished by 200 pounds of love machine.

Ah. I didn't notice but it explains a lot.

Yes, since it took both of us to push it back.

Cheese and crackers, peej!

So no more monkey business.

Right. I'll get right on that.

Bridge, you're a riot. I'm just glad it's a happy thing for you. I worry about you.

You do?

All the time. But I worry about Jacob more.

Gee, thanks.

We laughed and he turned Tool back on and put the volume on eleven, so that the next time Jacob starts the truck he'll get blown out of his seat. PJ's fun like that.

Tender mercies.

I'm not giving up. You might.

A trip to the ER yesterday afternoon netted me a handful of painkillers and advice to take it easy. We managed to crack two of my ribs and they never really decided if my liver was bruised or not so they went with a yes, just in case. Fuck.

I'm fine, it just hurts when I try to breathe super deeply or flex my torso at all.

Or move at all but really let's just gloss for Jacob's sake. Mkay?

So hi! Radioactive Vicodin girl makes her unwelcome return to the house.

Which is really great, she's a perfect match for Guilt-Laden Husband Shouldering All The Blame, who isn't welcome. I'll take the blame, hell, I walked into the study knowing exactly how the night was going to go down, and he can't resist me. He thinks he is my guardian angel superman, somehow able to pluck me out of thin air and save me from harm. We have this fight weekly because I still wipe out on the ice and fall down the basement steps just about every second trip.

He sees zero humor in this so I brought him with me to see Claus today because for once I attack a situation as well-adjusted which is always just in time for him to fall apart. Christ, we're a perfect match. Jacob pointed out that support from me is like building a house on broken stilts and hoping for the best. He'd like to keep moping while I bounce off the walls.

I reminded him that if I am glass then he needn't insult me when I try to help and he lost it.

He has this magnificent ability to cut me down and yet he wouldn't let go of my hand. He has barely let go of it since he got home yesterday afternoon, which is fine because my solace comes from him. But I had to ask him to release me so I could go to the bathroom at one point. Sweet and frightening.

Hey, wait, that's my description.

God, we're so fucking well-adjusted. Just when we had begun to finally put fragile miss to rest once and for all. Just as we were beginning to make some progress on our joint obsessive issues with each other. Just as we approached normal. Sexually and otherwise.

It figures.

But this is not going to be a setback. Maybe a very brief delay but that's all I'm going to allow for.

When we were looking at antiques on Monday Jacob held up a horseshoe and we were cracking jokes about wedging it firmly up my ass to see if our luck might change. We got sidetracked and never actually bought it.

I asked him if we could go back and get it and oh, the bitter laugh that came out of him practically curled my hair.

I am glass. Handle with care, angel boy.

Burden in his hand.

 Words you say never seem
    To live up to the ones inside your head
    The lives we make never seem
    To ever get us anywhere but dead

I'll defer to the biggest Soundgarden fan in this house for today's musical inspiration, his delight at a lapdance with The Day I tried to Live as accompaniment faring nicely for me last night because it...er, okay, I was doable. When am I not doable?

Shortest lap dance in the history of the universe. I climbed onto his legs in his chair to face him while he was on the phone, and he wrapped up his call at once and pulled me down right into his lap and that was that. No wind up, no grind out, just straight-up sex in his lap.

He's a very strong man.

Who knows what he wants. And waiting was not something he wanted to do last night. And so he didn't.

And the next office chair I buy will not be on wheels.

The visual on being that out of control and the chair tipping over but tipping forward meant I bore the full brunt of Jacob's weight as he fought to cradle me with one hand and break our fall with the other, failing at both when he landed on top of me and he knocked the wind right out of me, along with a few assorted internal organs, and I think he might have displaced my whole uterus but I was laughing and crying and Chris Cornell was howling and it really wasn't a very pretty sight at all.

Kind of a mood-killer when you have to take stock of what hurts before you get up. The look on his face was half-hilarity and half-concern because he's still fourteen inches taller than I am as much as we try to ignore that fact. I managed to stand up and breathe at the same time.

First thing out of his mouth?

We should stick to the bed for that kind of thing.

While I was saying,

We need a chair without wheels.

We looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

And then finished the night in the middle of our bed, where no one can get hurt.

I want to write very much anyway. But I didn't. Oh, I did. Nevermind, another story for some other day.

I still think an x-ray or two might be a good idea. I have aches in strange places this morning.

The thought of attempting to explain to my doctor exactly how much torque Jacob is capable of putting into sex just does nothing for me today. I'm just going to breathe through it and take some more ibuprophen.

Keeping promises I haven't made.

Sometimes I'm not as dumb or as blindly led as I seem to be.

    I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
    Watch you smile while you are sleeping
    While you're far away dreaming
    I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
    I could stay lost in this moment forever
    Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

Yesterday turned out to be a much needed family day for us. With a languid start to the morning we took our time, drinking extra coffee and juice and replacing snowboots with wellies for the puddles and warmer air, and lighter insulated jackets and knit gloves for the kids. I wore a fisherman knit sweater and jeans and a vintage scarf and Jacob smiled when he saw me.

He said I looked like I was ready for a Sunday drive. An inside joke, I think Mondays will forever be our Sundays. He pulled on his midweight suit jacket over a green button-down shirt and there was the CD. I thought he had left it in the old truck when it went to truck heaven but he didn't after all.

We headed for the highway and I was singing about pilots and he was smiling, one of those happy smiles people have when everything is going well.

Of course. It was a set up.

We spent the morning poking through an old barn that had four floors packed to the rafters, but they turned out not to have anything we couldn't go home without. Then we got some lunch and took it outside to the park next to the diner, so the kids could eat and and then run around to blow off steam. It's hard to keep their hands to themselves when we're in a environment that seems fully breakable.

And Jacob turned to me and let his smile die away and asked me if I was ready to try something new.

I stared at him and didn't say anything.

Hmm?

New, Jake? What did you have in mind?

Going back to no pills, Bridge.

Oh, no, can we just have this because this is better.

You're not you, Bridge, you're someone else and it concerns me.

Gee, thanks, honey.

You've said it yourself.

If I recall correctly you also said better I stay on them and be here than be off them and lose what's left.

That was before everything else got so much better so quickly.

Right, we're rushing again, Jake.

No, I don't think we are.

Wait until-

I already talked to Claus and a few others about it. You had such a good balance before, and you did pretty well without pills. They're on board with a test run, with tapering off.

Jake, have you forgotten what life was like? I was so high strung. I wasn't doing well, I was trying to survive and hating every second of everything.

You didn't appear to have as hard a time.

Jacob, you can't be serious.

Oh geez, now I'm panicking and trying to keep my voice down and he put his hand on my face and it was so warm and he looked at me and I believed somehow he could snap his fingers and gold would just fall out of the sky. My beanstock giant.

You found a way.

No, Jacob, I was held together with a cool breeze and the weight of a thousand threats. Fear kept me going. My God, I can't believe you've forgotten.

No, I didn't forget, princess. But what if you did what you did then but without the fear? Picture it, everything as before but no Cole. All support, everything you need, plus the routine and therapy and fresh air and all of it but no pills. So you wouldn't have to be half-asleep. So you could stop taking the drugs.

I think we should leave it, Jake.

But you don't like it.

No, what I don't like is any more changes right now. I just got used to them again. I can stay awake, I can write a little, and things are going well. Stopping now would be asking for trouble.

So you don't want to stop.

No, I don't. Everyone is happy.

Are you happy?

I'm not suicidal, and that's all that matters.

But are you happy, princess?

Yes.

He looked so doubtful.

I don't want to mess it up, Jake. I don't want you to have any regrets.

The only regret I have is that my wife is perpetually drugged and all the enthusiasm has left her eyes and she has to work so hard to smile it makes me want to scream.

I'm sorry.

It isn't your fault, Bridge, so don't say that.

Of course it is. My accountability, remember?

Fuck the accountability. I don't think the drugs are doing anything for you.

No, but they make everyone else happy. You're happy.

I'm happy because you're with me.

I'm happy for that too.

With effort, Bridge.

Life is an effort, Jacob.

So what would you chose to do?

Stop taking them.

What?

I would want to stop taking them if I could chose, Jacob.

Let's.

Jacob, if I-

You won't. Your life will never be that hopeless again I promise.

Even with-

No matter what, princess.

I nodded, still not convinced but not willing to risk spoiling the rest of the day with a big blowup. I didn't sing on the way home, Jacob played Anima and kept looking at me, but I chose to ignore the music, ignore the looks and instead I just looked out my window with my own defeated expression. I don't want to go back there, or anywhere else where the lights aren't on. Not now. God, I got shivers reading that entry again.

We did have a nice rest of the day, heading to the library on the way home where I got a mystery novel and he got some guitar-making books and the kids filled up on Franklin and Critter books. We came home and barbecued steak and baked potatoes. I had a destructive glass of wine to finish off a bottle from Loch's visit. One glass puts me on the floor now, for the record.

    Lying close to you feeling your heart beating
    And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
    Wondering if it's me you're seeing
    Then I kiss your eyes
    And thank God we're together
    I just want to stay with you in this moment forever
    Forever and ever

Jacob didn't broach the subject again until the kids were asleep and we were settled in front of the fire. And by that time I had respawned my strength.

I don't want to push you, princess. I'm just so proud of your hard work.

That's good, because I'm staying on the pills, Jake.

Really?

For now.

You're sure?

No, but I'm not taking any chances yet. It's too soon.

If that's what you want most, princess.

I do.

Good for you.

I'm still me, you know.

You're everything, you always were and you always will be.

Then we need to keep going slow, we've got forever, you know.

He looked positively shocked.

You're absolutely right. We do. We've got forever.

He shook his head in disbelief and smiled, like it was something he had never considered before and then he repeated himself, because in his head I had just made him a promise that I could never make out loud. I let him have it, because it's the only thing he ever wanted from me.

We've got forever, princess.

Life is a gift to us all, you know. One of the reasons that I'm doing better and doing well at all is because we've dropped our pretenses and turned to each other instead of turning away. He hasn't abandoned me and I don't shut him out of my feelings out of some misguided attempt to spare him from feeling like a interloper. It's done wonders for finally putting Cole's ghost to rest once and for all. Despite the continued lack of ability on my part to voice promises I'm obviously not in charge of making.

And for some reason Jacob holds me so much harder now. Longer, too. This morning he handed me my pill and my coffee and smiled and told me I was beautiful. Probably because he just realized that maybe I'm not as dumb as I look. Or maybe it was because I think he finally realizes I'm giving him everything I have to give, whether I confirm that out loud, or not.

Maybe it's finally enough. For both of us.

The late bloomer.

This is not my entry.

I got waylaid by the Rude Cactus this morning, reading his post and finding myself welling up over his words today when he usually makes me laugh. He's usually my internet lift, I enjoy just about everything except for his unpronounceable Friday post about current events because I have my head in the ground and fail to keep up with American news, my fault, not his by any means. I'd just rather read his words about his family, the job he seems to dislike or just about anything that rolls through his freaky brain.

His post today was about a journey to the town where his grandmother lives to celebrate her ninetieth birthday, and he talked about his close family ties and how it made him feel. I'm paraphrasing badly, go and read instead, I'll wait. I'll get coffee.

Ready to continue?

I apologize in advance, I didn't plan to go here, I'm on my way to the doctor shortly but my brain runs a billion miles an hour on days like these, and this is eye-bleedingly esoteric at Bridget's finest.

It made me think. I don't really have that. That small town stuff, the closeness. I never have. This isn't a woe-is-me rough childhood post, hell, I've had my thrills and my knocks too. Typically average. Just like everyone else.

Or not.

I spent my childhood talking to the Atlantic Ocean. She holds all my secrets, my hopes and my fears and my dreams. I was monitored intermittently through the window as I grew up alone on a beach, to fend for myself in the changing tides, bleached and then burned to a crisp by the sun, content to prattle on as children do, and never expecting the reply, only the comfort of that sea that goes on forever and is always going to be right where I left it. Then I went straight to the freak circuit with Loch and it may have finished me off. I'm about as mature as a lollipop, stuck in your hair.

Maybe that's why I can write for hours and hours without feedback, I can talk to my doctors and not feel the least bit self-conscious about the lack of appropriate response.

Jacob really cannot fathom the exact depth of my emotions regarding this. He only ever hit the tip of the iceberg with his penchant for taking me to the beach as an adult. I was usually headed there anyway. I believe I'm acquainted intimately with every single wave. The ocean has tasted me and I have tasted it right back. We've been lovers.

But as a grownup there is nowhere to go now. And so I made my own family out of my male friends who serve as brothers, uncles, babysitters, heavy lifters, confidants and sounding boards. I would call any one of five or ten of them in an emergency first, before my family.

Let's just say I've always been an outsider, content to keep in touch, whatever that may be, but really I'm not close to anyone I was born related to. Sometimes it feels weird. I had an average suburban seventies childhood and eighties adolescence. I was alternately spoiled and deprived. I was often ignored and so maybe when I grew up it was an unconscious payback. Now I find them stifling, suffocating and judgemental, absent when they should have closed ranks, stonefaced when sought out for advice, never once venturing out of their ivory towers until it was too late, and then they looked around and decided I would keep my secrets because they were perfect and life would go on. This is the same flesh and blood who refused to acknowledge my hearing issues which led to a lifetime of shame on my part, hiding it and adding insult to injury as I try to manage getting used to hearing aids on top of everything else I'm trying to deal with.

Cole was a perfect fit, in their eyes, finding perfection at the expense of comfort. And while they love Jacob, it's mostly because he cleans up nicely and they can say there is a minister in the family. I don't think they don't know a thing about him.

They don't know a thing about me.

And oddly, I'm not bitter anymore. Sometimes, like when I read that post today, there's a twinge. But looking back it's mostly wistfulness. Instead of being permitted to thrive and bloom I was permitted to exist.

And they'll read this and not understand. And I don't really care.

I made my own family, one that brings up all of those feelings now, and I'm grateful for it. I think that God puts all the people together who don't have that, and they make their own little families. That's what we've done, because as I said before, I'm no different than anyone else that I know. It was less of a commune, and more of an effort to fulfill all of our needs. So those of you who capitalized your obscenities at me for still being close to Loch or anyone else shouldn't bother, because you probably have relatives you can go to in a crisis, family you love without hesitation, without having to skip a beat and then make your affirmation because it's the right thing to do. I never hesitate when I say how much I love my friends.

Never.

Congratulations, you are blessed and apparently so much better of a human bean than I am.

Did I ever once argue that point with you?

I'm not sure if writing this out makes me sad or makes me feel better.

My pilot is here.

    She can't remember a time when she felt needed
    If love was red then she was color blind
    All her friends they've been tried for treason
    And crimes that were never defined

    She's saying love is like a barren place
    And reaching out for human faith
    Is like a journey I just don't have a map for
    So baby's gonna take a dive and push the shift to overdrive
    Send a signal that she's hanging all her hopes on the stars

Guess what CD I found this morning in one of Jacob's spring suit jacket pockets? Was it that long ago that we listened to that song? I was sure he wore that jacket since July but I guess a lot of things got missed.

Nice to have the tunes, we're hitting the road today to go antiquing down south. I have decided I'd like a hutch/cabinet/thing for the bathroom and he likes to poke through old tools.

It's quaint in it's normalcy, I know. Embrace it, Bridget.

House of fog and pie.

I am agitated. I even skipped talking about cake, but there's a pie in here somewhere.

Today was gloomy, dark and rainy, foggy and silent and very reminiscent of days back home where the ocean ruled the weather patterns and it changed by the moment.

Kind of like moods do.

None of that was missed by the three adults coming from the far eastern edge of the country, all now stuck somewhere along the middle like Christmas lights on a string. One blows up, the others all go out, it's a group effort to keep the fucking lights on sometimes.

God I love that comparison. So so much.

Loch is on his way home as we speak. I tried not to cry at the airport but it was inevitable. He's the only fixture I have left from my former life and it seems sometimes he leaves me in a strange land that I'm never quite comfortable in, which is not an insult to my husband, just an observation in that it's taking so long to get used to this. I still pinch myself because Jacob will always be my too-good-to-be-true dream. I still talk to Cole. I still talk to Lochlan in terms of Cole not going away easily, the way friends can talk, the way husbands can't. Jacob no longer retains enough objectivity to talk about a few things. Bless his heart he has fixed everything else, but somethings he cannot touch.

Like the history Loch and I share. Kiera (his girlfriend of five years) asked him not to come back out here again so he broke up with her.

He's an idiot, yes, I know.

He told us that she wasn't his Bridget, which briefly ruffled feathers and so Jacob jumped the gun. Lochlan only meant that he wanted his soulmate much the way Jacob and I are soulmates and that he hadn't found that with her.

Jacob and Loch sorted that out before coming to blows. Thank God.

They also sorted out a few other things that concern me, like the affection I pass out like slices of pie to my friends, which Jacob never liked to see unless he was the recipient, and yet it's been a hard habit for me to break. I love hugs, I love kisses. I love kisses on the lips and hands to hold and backs to scratch and an arm to stay warm in and frankly, mistakenly, I never cared who it came from, if Cole was absent (mostly he was) and Jacob was busy, there was pecking order and I would go off down the line finding someone to snuggle with, or lie on or hang out with. This will help clarify how Ben got so far off track last fall.

And I've been good about not seeking out my other friends for physical comfort anymore but Lochlan was still a welcome target and I never even considered Jacob's feelings, but I realize now that Loch would have been a sort of public enemy number one for Jake in that regard and so we've just stopped cold. It was easier than I expected, and it doesn't hurt that Jacob is as much of an affection-giver as I am, so we just keep it tuned on each other. I won't look back again.

And Lochlan wanted the breakdown (ha, what a WORD!) on how I am really doing. Jacob may be the expert, but Loch is impartial, unbiased and just as involved in my mental health and so they had a few heated conversations about how and what and why, but I won't go into it, let's just say everyone is updated and in agreement. At last.

And hell, I'm masterfully fucked up and unhealthy. I have so many flaws I'm literally bits and pieces of a whole human being. Flaky pie crust. Flaky indeed. Berries and sugar and spills and a broken crust. Still sweet though. Who can get enough of it? Of me?

Well, I'm working on it, aren't I?

And Loch has gone back with instructions to keep his eyes and his heart open to find his own Bridget, like all of my friends have, because Jacob stole the original and he won't be giving her back. He won't be sharing either. Not anymore. Loch is fine with that, he always has been.

God, I just cringed as I wrote, I hardly ever do that but maybe the whole former whore-designation is really starting to be glaringly obvious, like dark circles under fluorescent lighting. Ugly and harsh.

I'm done with the ugliness. I can't even believe it sometimes how goddamn messed up I was.

Whoops, how messed up I am.

And now I'm relieved it all got sorted out. I'm happy that Jacob and Loch have dealt with everything openly and honestly and we're not going to cause any more hurt here. There's been enough. Loch can rest easy knowing I'm almost okay (as okay as I can be) again and Jacob can rest easy knowing he's no longer fighting for a piece of my affection, he's got the whole pie.

The pie that turned out rather messy, if I do say so myself.

The one that's far too sweet and might make you sick but you want it anyways.

Which is far better than the blown-up string of Christmas lights, because they're out of season now.

Comfort in Beta.

I'm actually all talked out today.

Something incredibly sweet and grown up about last night. I fell asleep in Loch's arm, turned away from him but he was there and we were talking and the next thing I knew he slid away and Jacob was there asking me to come to bed now and I could barely move or open my eyes but it felt good to have my two closest men there and getting along and being friends.

Loch laughs with a sad smile and says he misses his Bridget-time. He only tolerated Cole in the end for me. Cole let Loch get away with murder to spite Jake. Now no one even tries. There are no head games, no hurt feelings, no winners or losers, no stakes in Bridget anymore.

It's somewhat healthier.

Loch's trying to quit smoking so Jacob is going to hypnotize him. He also broke up with Kiera, who decided being grownups isn't enough to overcome the history here. Loch said his standards were high. We knew what he meant and vigorously objected, but he said they can't fill my shoes. I pointed out that I couldn't fill those shoes and he smiled sadly again and said,

I'm fucked, Bridge. Fucked.

No you aren't.

Yeah, pretty much, baby.

Oh Jacob didn't like that and he frowned with narrow eyes and got needlessly protective. A reflex, for he and the world think Loch and I have changed. A reflex after which he relaxed. Now they've gone off to go look at climbing gear and I get a break from all this masculinity.

More later in which I explain. Since I didn't, not really.

About a girl.

I've lived a strange existence. You would see the sharp contrasts within moments. I am rather proper, a little uptight even, reigned in and expectant that manners and morals (snort) and respect for one another take priority over how one feels. Part of it is a throwback to growing up knowing what was expected, a bourgeoisie/gypsy balanced existence in which you tempered your whims to suit society. So I could maintain my benign monarchist, logical wife and mother persona and then only relax among friends, still demanding that level of respect be present but not, a more freewheeling way to let my hair down, to uncoil my strung-up nerves and embrace my enthusiasm for making mistakes.

I'll be the first one to go, I've made so many. Let me just walk the plank and when I get to the end you can give me a hard push and blow me a kiss goodbye.

Loch is coming out for the weekend. Under the guise of seeing the children and catching up, but really because he and Jacob have been at odds for too long now and we promised, all of us, that this would not destroy any more friendships. This being my supreme unraveling, and all that has passed in the last year.

And honestly I told him I wish he would stay away. Curse these single guys with disposable incomes who can spend thousands of dollars on last-minute flights in order to conduct arguments in person.

But don't curse Loch because he has been there through twenty-five years (or more) of me. Uptight and not uptight at all.

Damn, he should get a medal.

Barry, Robin, Maurice and Jake.

All evidence of normal brain activity has been suspended because I have fallen in love. With the man who woke me up singing the Bee Gees this morning while I stirred oh so slowly in his arms.

Aw man, you know how everyone has guilty pleasures? Like all my uptight friends who love my pornographic entries? Or how people will duck into a store and eat a caramilk bar and then lie about it? (shhh, I've NEVER done that.)

One of Bridget's guilty pleasures would be hauling out the Bee Gees vinyl, baby. But only for one song. And this all was gloriously remembered last night when we were debating the value of whether or not I embarrassed Jacob with telling people he does yoga. For the record, he's not the least bit embarrassed. All the hockey players here do yoga, it's more manly than girly. Go figure.

So it's a bit of a blessing and a curse when people know these things about us, isn't it? A funny existence when those close to you know you can love the sweeter and the hardcore music all at once. I still remember the night he made this discovery, I was playing the song and cleaning up from a party. I thought he had left but he had forgotten his jacket and so there I was singing How Deep Is Your Love at the top of my lungs. He watched until I was done and then clapped. Cole rolled his eyes but Jacob was fascinated.

I thought you were Metallica all the way.

No, it's Tool, actually.

That's not Tool.

No, it's not.

You're so busted, Bridget.

Please. This is a masterpiece.

It's a piece of something all right.

Admit it, you like this song.

I can do that.

Aha!

When I was ten I was going to be a Bee Gee.

You would have made a great fourth.

Yeah. Funny how things work out.

It is.

But did he make fun of me? Or make it into a joke this morning?

Oh, no, he gave it his all. He sang with his characteristic passion, since that's what he does. And I have asked him to sing it every morning to me for the rest of my life.

    I know your eyes in the morning sun
    I feel you touch me in the pouring rain
    And the moment that you wander far from me
    I wanna feel you in my arms again

    And you come to me on a summer breeze
    Keep me warm in your love and then softly leave
    And its me you need to show

    How deep is your love
    I really need to learn
    cause were living in a world of fools
    Breaking us down
    When they all should let us be
    We belong to you and me

Pokey the possum girl.

Sometimes late at night Jacob will come in to where I am ensconced cozily on the couch with a blanket and a movie and a fire crackling and he'll sit on the edge in front of me and watch a few minutes of whatever movie I have found. Sometimes he'll repeatedly turn around and give me terrifically comical what the fuck? expressions while I enjoy Ichi the Killer or Thirteen Ghosts, or sometimes he'll wind up engrossed in the movie too (like The Great Escape). I have found when he sits in front of me I keep watching the movie but my fingers will start to poke their way into his sweater, through the stitches to gently needle his back. He loves it. Like a massage conducted by a possum, he says.

I've never seen a possum, Jacob.

Me neither, Bridge.

Then how do you know?

I don't. But I'm guessing that must be what they would feel like.

We're weird, aren't we?

Yes, princess. But it's a good weird.

The very best kind.

Postscript.

And CAKE!

I didn't even tell you there's a cake here.

And it looks very yummy.

You're still thinking about the yoga stud, aren't you?

Naughty.

Parables of Bridget.

Good morning planet.

Bridget is happy today.

With one eyebrow up as the polite boyfight continues. You should see the restrained emails and phonecalls between Lochlan and Jacob as they both struggle to point out how much they are helping me. Me? I refuse to get involved because that choice I will never make. Loch's been near forever and he's never going anywhere unless it's his choice and so he feels very comfortable making his opinions known. Jacob is being so gracious, he's more familiar with the territory, i.e. Bridget's mental health and is nicely deflecting the opinionated rants. Loch's being a tad childish, life isn't that simple and he knows it, I think, no, I know he misses my presence in his life as much as I miss him. So he takes it out on Jake. Which is not fair, but understood.

But for once I'm happy for a little hands-off, and the distance that prevents Jacob and Loch from going down swinging with each other, though Jacob insists he doesn't do that, please. They are boys, and boys fight.

Even when they grow up and know better.

But hey! I have happy news of the most decadent kind.

Therapies that I will talk about, healing engineered to reduce me to jellyfish texture and prevent me from being capable of feeling poorly about fuck-all. Healing that relaxes me, and is good for me in a way that gives instant gratification. Jacob says I leave these with a smile on my face that makes him fall to his knees to thank God for one small light, me and a happiest version of me. Not the hesitant fluttering skeletal elf who flits through his world with barely a murmur.

Because, yeah that was a painful but strangely apt description made at one point.

We're doing co-ed yoga too. Which helps in a surprising way. In a room that feels like a sauna. With about eight other couples who all appear very well-adjusted and in some kind of competition to see who is the crunchiest, earthiest of us all, but I just close my eyes and breathe and work through the classes and every now and then I steal a glimpse of my husband who, like the other guys, have taken to attending in just baggy yoga pants. No shirt, bare feet. In a room that's forty degrees. Flexing every muscle he has and there are a lot of them.

Shall I give you a moment alone with that image?

Yes, I thought so. Snort.

That alone makes it a worthwhile endeavour. If I could take a picture I would but my phone stays home because it would steam up anyhow.

And the massages, though those are only once a week. Those leave me slipping out of my chair and barely able to think past feeeeels sooo goooood. Sort of an all-day orgasm of the most beautiful sort.

And the best part is that all of it is indefinite, a schedule blissfully permanent as Jacob continues to let go of his work obligations, having gone from fifteen meetings a week to about four, and putting us before everything else, and me at home before me in some sort of inpatient treatment, which was where I was headed headlong, running at full-speed into self-destruction.

And it's not working because he spoils me. Lord knows, I spoil him too and by the grace of God he's a very happy man, when most would have run screaming for the hills after deliberating choosing a life with someone like me.

It's working because we're taking our time again. Everything works better when you give things time to work. When you slow life down and start with the basics, only adding things in as you can handle them. As Bridget feels ready, has become the mantra.

There are still days of total despair when I write about marshmallows and poets and you know something is wrong but I won't admit it and days when I'd like to point out the pills sometimes aren't working and sometimes I'm tired of people and industrial places and hearing aids and appointments and days where it's very difficult to get out bed but I'm pushed out anyways and I land on the floor with a thud and Jacob laughs and helps me through the hard parts and he says that I reward him daily not with a smile or a kiss or a promise but with a continued and welcomed effort into getting better. For us, for me.

    So familiar and overwhelmingly warm
    This one, this form I hold now.
    Embracing you, this reality here,
    This one, this form I hold now, so
    Wide eyed and hopeful.

    Wide eyed and hopefully wild.
    We barely remember what came before this precious moment,
    Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...
    This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in
    This body makes me feel eternal.
    All this pain is an illusion.

Weathering and worn.

There is a hole in my favorite vintage wool car coat.

Not a huge one, but noticeable nevertheless. I noticed it on my sleeve when I lifted my cup in the coffeeshop downtown after yet another random shuffle of a schedule which has gone all to hell now, and what was going to be my therapy day yesterday with Christian playing chauffeur became a Tuesday visit with Jacob by my side. Jacob, who always tempts me with a suggestion of a late breakfast stop at the coffee shop around that corner from the office building that holds so many of my secrets it's become like a second home. Or at least a diary made of columns and cornerstones only I don't have the key.

So there I sit, depleted and exhausted and somewhat satisfied with how the day went as I chattered and listened with Jacob while we sipped good coffee and he ate a cinnamon bun the size of my head and I picked at a butter tart and he pointed to my sleeve and said I needed a new coat.

This coat was purchased at a terrific little vintage store in Vancouver and made it through four decades intact, I wear it for a few winters and it disintegrates right off my bones.

I do that. I ruin things. Just by being near them.

But sometimes things are fixable. Even people. They're sometimes fixable too.

I agree to Jacob's offer and then I sit and study him while he describes something he is working on and I notice the lines around his eyes, what we call squint lines from living in the sun for so long that are very noticeable now. I see also a few strands of white in the strawberry blonde beard he is growing back and his hands, his huge hands which have always shown his age first. Their rough, battered covering of skin stretched tight and strong over his big bones. Capable and knowledgeable, his hands show that he hasn't forged a life of leisure. He could build a house or end a life with those hands and yet he is able to fasten the most delicate bracelet around my wrist or pick up seed beads from the cracks between the boards of the floor, or to trace my flesh and make me tremble with the softest touch ever.

What are you doing, princess?

Just looking at you.

Then why do you look so sad? I thought you said I was okay-looking?
I shook my head and spoke softly, No, I actually find you incredibly beautiful, Jacob.

Then why the long face?

I've made you look tired.

I think everyone looks tired. It's been a long winter, princess.

Yes it has.
He smiled at me with love brimming in his eyes, sometimes we don't have to say a whole lot to understand each other.

So how about the new coat now?

No, I think I'd like to just wear this one for a bit longer.

He looked at me a little funny but he didn't say any more on the subject, and being as tiny as I am, the sleeves were long enough on me to turn under and re-hem in order to hide the hole.

If only I could re-hem Bridget. You know, to hide the places that show the most wear.

Too big, too little and just right.

The shortcut across the ball field proved to be a mistake on a bitterly cold windy morning on the way home from the school. I walked lightly across the frozen crust of snow and ice that sat on top of the layers of softer snow, the result of a brief melt that was cut off by a new storm, a new cold front. Jacob forged ahead with equal ease, despite dropping down through the ice with every step, sinking almost halfway to his knees, making me taller than he is for the first and last time ever, which I pointed out with glee. He just grinned and kept going, hands jammed deep in corduroy pockets, scarf up around his ears, hat flaps down and a curse to grow his hair back as long as it was before.

When we finally made it back, we decided to skip coffee and make hot chocolate instead. I dragged the step stool over to the counter, but he beat me to it, and easily reached the top shelf in the cupboard. He passed me the jar and smiled and I made two cups, with baby marshmallows floating in the tops, and fixed a plate of graham crackers and grapes, and we retired to the study to sit on either side of his big desk, he in his big chair and me on my knees in the Windsor chair halfway across the desk so I can see what he's writing.

Almost at the same time we both felt the need to point out we wanted to stay home for March Break and just do kid stuff. We laughed. We've been tossing short trip ideas around for a few weeks but neither once of us want to really go anywhere. Instead we're going to spend next week schlepping the kids to the library, the museum, the planetarium and probably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Jacob the lionhearted.

   Cowardly Lion: All right, I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch, guards or no guards, I'll tear them apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there. There's only one thing I want you fellows to do.

    Tin Woodsman: What's that?

    Cowardly Lion: Talk me out of it.

Last night we came home in a cab, without the truck and more than a little early. I won't drive medicated. He was half loaded and on a mission. It was the return of Jacob the Pooh.

Bridget, something very important has occurred and I think I would much like to go over it with you in so much as you need to hear this, I think. Listen way more carefully than usual for me, my princess and I'll begin to tell you all of it.

Jacob-

No, Bridget, I have figured all of it out. It's amazing, baby girl. I've got it.

Okay.

Shhh. Just let me while I have so much of this feeling of courage. I can meet you halfway.

Halfway.

Shhh. Yes. Halfway. If I bring the light in and shine it around we can see what we've got.

I waited, listening.

Are you with me? Say something.

I have no idea what you're talking about, Jacob.

You can show me what you want because I tuned you out and now I'm in the dark but I've got the light so you show me where you want to go and I'm open to trying it and I won't draw the line unless you're going to get hurt. Okay, princess, we need to go now before I change my minds. Because in a while I may have a difficult time with this and so it must be now.

Okay Hubbell.

What?

Nevermind. Jake, I don't think you're in any shape to make this kind of decision.

Well you know what I know already and that's that you're mine. You're mine and no one else's-they cannot have you! You're my girl now and I love you and I want you to have everything that I haven't given you yet and I think right about now is a time that would be good for that, don't you think and then you really would be all mine. That's all I ever wanted, princess, was for you to be mine of my own.

Oh hell, now he's slurring himself into incomprehensible whispers. And my eyes are watering from the whiskey fumes he is emanating and from trying to not cry at the generosity of his efforts.

Oh this is great, princess, the ceiling is turning. Come and see this view for ourselves.

Jacob, you're so fucked.

No, it's cool. Come here so I can hold you and I never want to be in another spot except for this one because this one is where I want to be.

He pulled down my jeans (that I opted to wear at the last minute instead of a dress) and then swore because I was still fully dressed while he fumbled with my clothes and his own and I opted not to help him because I never help him unless he asks, he likes it that way. Then he just stopped and lay flat on his back with his arms spread out.

Oh God, princess. Make it stop.

Jacob, it has to wear off.

Oh my God. This is horrible.

No, you know what's going to suck? Tomorrow. Ever heard the saying "The bigger they are the harder they fall?" You're going to fall, preacher boy and it's going to be from very high up.

Oh my God.

How much did you have?

Two drinks. Just two.

You've got to be kidding me. I'm totally ashamed of you right now.

There is not enough of your Irish in me tonight.

That's because I'm so much tougher than most people, Jacob. Right?

Oh my God, you are so fucking sweet. Come here.
He got his hands into my jeans again and promptly fell asleep.

Today is going to be long.

Love song.

Do you think Dorothy Parker knew Jacob in a past life?

I laughed so much this morning over coffee and Baileys while I read this out loud that I can be left with no other conclusion. It's all in jest though, because I wouldn't trade him for the world, but darn it if I don't see him all over this poem.

    My own dear love, he is strong and bold
    And he cares not what comes after.
    His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
    And his eyes are lit with laughter.
    He is jubilant as a flag unfurled
    Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
    My own dear love, he is all my world,
    And I wish I'd never met him.

    My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
    And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
    The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
    And the skies are sunlit for him.
    As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
    As the fragrance of acacia.
    My own dear love, he is all my dreams,
    And I wish he were in Asia.

    My love runs by like a day in June,
    And he makes no friends of sorrows.
    He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
    In the pathway of the morrows.
    He'll live his days where the sunbeams start,
    Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
    My own dear love, he is all my heart,
    And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
And to think, as I learn about Dorothy, I had no idea she was the author of a quote I use all the time, Brevity is the soul of lingerie. And little did I realize exactly how much we have in common. Somewhat fascinating and eerie all at once.

You can take a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
Indeed.

The Irish are coming.

Also, now would not be the best time to remind me that St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow and it's my most favorite day of the year and we've accepted a dinner party invite to Sam and Elisabeth's and had planned to have a whole bunch of very adult fun. Sitter is booked, new dress is ready to roll, green moebius shawl finished to match my eyes.

I get my Irish on very well. And I'm starting to feel a little better. Not a lot but I'll take it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day in advance, dear Bridget.

No follow.

Huh. When I went to sleep yesterday I didn't think I would sleep quite that long.

The quiet absence of exciting drama, romance, porn and general nonsense around here this week has been a blessing. I have been felled by the mother of all headaches and barricaded myself in the bedroom to sleep in one of you-know-who's big t-shirts and an ice pack, ignoring phones and doorbells and Jacob and Lochlan's newest boyfight. I'm still shaky and my head still hurts.

My absence means that my kitchen saw no action other than toast and coffee but all the take-out menus are stacked on top of the fridge with the cordless phone. So at least they ate.

Me, not so much. I would wake up and find plates that I would ignore and then go back to sleep and they'd be gone again. I've been rescheduled with Claus for Monday first thing because you don't even want to know what they say about sleeping this much and headaches and tension and stress and general apathy of this magnitude.

They say it's dangerous. Me? I don't care one way or another.

The irony.

It isn't lost on me now.

I really wish my brain would cooperate.

Forget me nots.

(Today's journal entry is from Loch, who wrote a new mermaid poem to cheer me up because winter isn't letting go and Bridget is having a rough day/week/month/life. Enjoy.)

    Way down deep where the lobsters sleep
    The mermaid waited for spring
    Encased in ice she moved so slow
    She couldn't do a thing

    The angel fluttered up so high
    warming just above
    the clouds that held the coldest air
    while he waited for his love

    Her hair snowflakes, her eyes green jewels
    Her lips were a frozen rose
    Her skin was brittle to the touch
    as was her button nose

    Rooted to the ocean floor
    in a prison of clear glass
    the mermaid held her lover's gaze
    her spell forever cast

    And then one day the sun rose high
    above the frozen earth
    the block of ice began to melt
    and he reached his lover's worth

    He stroked her skin while the icicles shrank
    and her skin began to warm
    He watched as her hair began to swirl
    and waves began to form

    Bursting forth from the winter's cage
    the lovers danced through spring
    Finally in each other's arms
    where together they could sing

    Though their love is strong and true
    the trials they must face
    to be together and at peace
    in this godforsaken place

    For when they are together
    and the world is to be seen
    they travel down to their beautiful house
    halfway in between

    And there the mermaid withers
    lost without her sea
    and the angel weighs a ton
    yearning to be free

    For she needs to swim and he must soar
    to be together is so tough
    Both the angel and his mermaid girl
    thought their love would be enough

    Since he is of the skies above
    and she is of the ocean
    All their kisses, all their love
    was going through the motions

    He never gave up his angel wings
    She hid her fins and tail
    defying the odds they made a vow
    their love would never fail

    They made a promise to themselves
    A new dance all their own
    They call it the cloud-and-ocean waltz
    And on them it has grown

    Now if you look out very far
    as far as your eyes can see
    You'll see them on the horizon now
    as close as close can be

    Watch them waltz together now
    a sight, our favorite pair
    but look closely or you will miss
    his kisses in her hair

    And now that she is free from the ice
    it's time to end this letter
    Their life at last is full of hope
    and will get even better.

Derailment.

Here's the part where I stomp my feet and frown and bite my tongue because once again, an emergency takes my beloved Claus away for the morning. As if other people are not allowed to melt down during my appointment time. The nerve.

And then two for the road, because Jacob also was called to hospice this morning which means he might be gone most of the day. But that's not a complaint because he is needed. I'm not the only one he comforts and I am grateful he is where he is needed most right now. I hate days that people die.

I'm salvaging the day, after I get Baby Ruth and Oh Henry through lunch (Ha! Bet you didn't know I secretly named my children after chocolate bars! No, I didn't, these are just more nicknames because everyone has to have seven) I'll run on the treadmill for an hour with some loud music and then make a nice big pot of spaghetti sauce and that way whenever Jacob gets home he can eat.

Petit four.

The newly-minted experimental optimist has a busy day amongst all the disappearing snow and drippy eaves. I had cake and coffee for breakfast, left over petit fours from a meeting at Jacob's church -they wrapped up the cake and sent it home for me because they are sweet and apparently now I can broadcast my cravings through the neighborhood on the wind.

No run today. It's cold and icy and dark and by the time I leave downtown after seeing Claus it will be just about time to pick up the kids and I'll probably be gluing myself back together with honey and paperclips in the car in an effort to appear just dandy so the kids can enjoy the status-quo fairytale they live in, the bubble I made for them so that they are less afffected by my issues than you would think.

Be grateful. I would crawl across broken glass before I would let them be affected by my problems. All they know is that sometimes I am a little sad and that I'm getting help to be a better person.

Whoops, my optimism hat blew off in the cake-crave wind. Let me fish it out of the snow and put it back on, pulling it down tightly over my eyes.

You can't see me.

Oh, wait, yes you can.

Princess edit.

For someone who doesn't mind me talking about the lap dances, he sure has one heck of a strong opinion about today's post, and I don't mind clarifying, to save the preacher a little embarrassment.

-He's really a very nice boy.

-Who doesn't so much think he is better than anyone.

-Who doesn't actually call people names.

-And has only made a few successful knock-out punches in his life because he doesn't think violence is the answer.

And the comment about him being able to work his penis properly maybe should not have ended "with all the readers I have." Because clearly he is not working it with the readers.

Oh shush. Keep your fantasies to yourself.

That is all. Pad Thai awaits, and your Bridget will try to be a little more lucid tomorrow. Last night was a long night. Ice falling, noises, dreams and the penis that worked very very well.