Pretty like a rosary pea.

For the record the only medication I stopped was the newest one, which has done nothing but make me so dizzy I wanted to vomit every time I looked down and after three weeks and being told to keep taking it I said fuck that and I stopped a few days ago and I felt a million times better (physically) almost at once.

Emotionally it's been a long, rough week and I said things that are not fair but most certainly true and I warned them, they knew and now everyone panics, freaking out because I shouldn't still be in this place and why didn't anyone notice all this three months ago?

I sent Ben away. Far away from my heart and my troubles and he didn't want to go but I reminded him I'm not fair. I reminded him it wouldn't be easy and maybe we had our brief moment and it was so sweet but in the long run, I'm not the girl for you.

And no, I didn't see Caleb, we've been warring on the phone. The odd part being he's been the most objective, rational person to ever weigh in on a question asked that I have spoken to yet. Very much like Cole with using a dry, straightforward approach. Am I projecting? No, in spite of what you think. I've had a lot of correspondence from Caleb in the past month, he doesn't care as much about what I have on him as he does not putting a permanent rift between himself and his brother's family. That he is considering retiring early as it is (he'll be forty-five next year) and his career doesn't mean as much to him as it once did. That he has had time and therapy to come to terms with how he behaves around me and he wants to make amends, at whatever pace I set for him.

I took it with a grain of salt and a heaping dose of envy, for it must be nice to sort yourself out so quickly. If only it were that easy for the rest of us.

Personally I think he fell under my curse. Or maybe I fell under his. It's pretty difficult to be objective at this point, either way. He just seems so good at it. He always has been.

Especially since I've gone from being locked in my glass turret, knight standing at the ready to standing in a field surrounded by the enemy and down to my hapless wits and wiles to save myself, probably a position I should have taken up long before I even met Jacob. And didn't.

Dammit, I didn't.

What would I like now? I'd like Caleb to be normal, a warm but slightly professional uncle who sends presents and calls the kids regularly, keeps in touch without any of our history in the way. I'd like Ben to not be gone half the time so that we could have a chance because if there is one person who ever resisted a curse and lived to tell about it, that would be Ben. The only guy to ever figure out how to be around me without his own feelings coming between us. We managed to exist as friends for a damn long time before we complicated things. I would have killed for another shot but that's up to him. If I were him, I'd take off at a dead run in the other direction. I wouldn't blame him a bit.

I would like Jacob to burn his trump card and let me grieve for him but in my head I am sorry to admit, yeah, I'm waiting. I am at that awful, horribly painful part where I let my imagination protect my heart and I pretend he's coming back. As if all those awful things never took place. As if nothing else ever mattered but him wanting me. I haven't grieved for him and I don't know how to and I won't and that is what's messing me up.

I'd like for my other friends to keep on going forward. Christian has found some happiness and I daresay it doesn't appear to be a distraction or gapfiller. PJ works so hard and is the best friend and uncle in the universe. Joel has been great, a never-ending asshole to my face and a sweetheart behind my back making sure I have appointments and connections required to stay on top of all this mess. He's going to be making some changes in his life though. He failed one of the most important tests in his career with me and he may switch gears himself. The other guys are doing well, always calling to check in or stopping by, bringing hugs, little funny gifts for the kids or spending an hour with us doing nothing at all. When they leave I get a list of reminders to call me if you need me or just want company, let's make some plans, keep going, you're doing great and then they hold me too long and I let them because I want that.

In other words, hi, my name is poison.

They will tell you different. This is just me rambling at nine in the morning with half a cup of coffee lubricating my brain and a message on my phone that warmed me up much more efficiently than the bad coffee I make for myself:

    I'll see you at 3. Stop it.

Which means Ben isn't going to put much weight in my doubts or my setbacks or my dumb moves and self-sabotage. He's coming home for a night and he's not going to play fair either and for some reason this makes me strangely glad.

Off with her meds.

I did it again.

I didn't go to him, he called and I answered, only because when it hurts I'll do anything for a way out. Sometimes it hurts so much the only answers lie in certain death, deliberate cautiousless actions that take me far from where I'm supposed to be.

I don't have any answers and currently my status is not caring. Unmedicated not caring, that is. Oh shit.

I don't. I don't care. I feel nothing and as long as it stays this way I'm fine. Fine because Caleb says he has answers for me.

Truth and consequences.

If I had a choice, I would take the little copper box with the bluebird and I would carefully pour out the contents, away from the wind and with glue and hope and tears I would make a paste and put him back together and have Jacob back, fucked up or not. Maybe now I see that he loved me whether I was fucked up or fine and if I could pick any one of the men I have loved and get any kind of second or third chance or whatever number we were on, I would pick Jacob in a heartbeat.

I would resurrect him and ignore the ashes in his hair and the powdered bones within his skin and the hollows where his beautiful pale blue eyes once smiled at me and I would love him for the rest of my days.

And this, THIS is why Bridget lying through her teeth to get through things is so much better than just facing them head-on. She is a trainwreck.

Twitter.

An extra-long walk with Butterfield in the bleak snow-swept ravines that run between the train tracks brought some much needed perspective today.

I wish I was the girl in that episode of The Twilight Zone. You know, the one with no mouth. Then I would never have to worry about sending all my misdirected and projected and unprotected words out into the wild blue where they immediately stab those around me with indelible marks of pain, leaving everyone for dead.

That's what I wish for today. An un-do.

Blowing smoke.

Well, shit. Apparently all I had to do was step backwards into the snow to my previous bootprints and whore that I am, receive in trade one single begrudged and forbidden cigarette from Joel in exchange for a hastily scheduled appointment because missing them means you're flung right off the face of the earth, Bridget.

There is a mountain in front of me. I need to either climb it, get around it or erode it little by little until it changes the landscape. Every morning when I wake up I face the mountain and I know there will be a long day of climbing ahead. Some days I wake up and I don't want to climb, but the walk around it is even longer.

Some days I turn my back on it and pretend it isn't there, and some days I go running at it headlong, shovel raised over my head and I dig until I can no longer hold the shovel and I look, and there's a big hole dug out of it and I nod and think, progress. I'll beat you yet.

Some days I just sit at the bottom of it and resign myself to staying right here, with no way over, around or through my mountain, forced to spend the rest of my days in a claustrophobic landlocked valley of shadows I can't keep count of.

And through the nights I dream that on the other side of this mountain, the sea waits for me.

She is so very patient. And I am nothing of the kind.

February stars.

    Hanging on here until I'm gone
    right where I belong
    just hanging on

    Even though I pass this time alone
    somewhere so unknown
    it heals the soul

There are only three writing days in this week. I've cleared them and will be spending them alone, ensconced high in my house in the glass room at the end of the hall. The terrarium. The observatory. Everyone has a different name for it, the creepy glass Victorian half-greenhouse that sticks out the back of the house that I love so. In that room are some plants and a table and a chair. One chair, just for me. From what I understand it was an open balcony at one point and someone glassed it in in the most gothic and wonderful way. This little cold cracked room is why I wanted this house.

Yesterday was a holiday in it's infancy, Friday is a half-day of school for Ruth and Henry and so I have today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to get some work done.

This morning I put on a long black and white sweater and a pair of incredibly baggy army-green cords, tied a messy bun with a pencil at the nape of my neck, found my mocs and brought up my laptop with me, a huge steaming mug of coffee, a piece of carrot cake and a silent mental lament, why on earth would anyone put cake together with vegetables and I know I'm awful but I actually canceled every last therapy appointment I had this week, mostly because last week there were a few doubles anyway and Joel is always a phone call away, I could bend his ears. He'd prefer it, actually.

Wait until he doesn't see me walk past his office today.

Ben woke me up this morning with a call, his voice sounding rawer by the minute. He asked me how my cold was and I said it was ravaging me beautifully, that I was vaguely foggy-headed and a little drippy and raspy and then I sneezed all over my phone and he laughed softly and suggested I drink tea instead of the coffee today. I asked him how he was feeling and he lied and said fine even though twice he held the phone away and coughed into his sleeve.

He asked if I was wearing the ring and I pointed out that since it was six in the morning that I was wearing absolutely nothing and it was so warm under the blankets I hated to leave them, but I did leave them shortly after we hung up, anxious to catch a shower and get the laundry started before I got the kids up for school so I can have less time running up and down three flights of stairs to the dryer in the basement.

He asked if I would wear the ring when I got dressed. I asked him if that would make him happy. He said only if it was done as an answer to his question. I said I didn't have an answer yet because the man who gave me the ring said he didn't care how long I took and I need a long time. He said he wished he could see into the future and I told him he didn't want to do that.

Reminders. Memories everywhere, covering everything with an inch of heartache and a layer of fresh pain. He stirred all of it up where it was settling. I had backed into a corner and slid down so I was hidden from view, obscured under the leaf of an old, peeling-paint table, sitting on the floor with my knees drawn up, my arms around them, hugging myself so I wouldn't be cold but I would be alone but Ben thinks the curtains should be open and the window up and the lights on and the leaf down so that there are no shadows, nowhere to hide, nothing to keep secret, nowhere to go to get away from life with it's relentless march forward. Not as a way to fix a thing, but just to keep going because if you don't keep going then you are dead.

It's a logic that is simple and flawless and slays every attempt to excuse my behavior. It's a plea. This time for Bridget, taken with a grain of salt as big as the chip on her bony shoulder is a promise that a man will have patience and a generous encouragement to take time that is needed all the while he walks behind me telling me to hurry up, can't he just have everything and he promises it will be awesome just hurry. But Bridget feels the sting of the salt and the grind of the weight of that chip and she knows better. She's touched by the efforts and the passion and the sweetness and even sometimes the haste and she recognizes the pattern and she knows that he won't wait, that he'll sometimes be frustrated and sometimes be angry but she's going to take whatever she needs and do this not to make him happy but to make her better.

Sometimes she is so close and sometimes so far. Sometimes things seem so normal and it's like falling into a trap. But always, always know that now, she knows what to look for and to stand her ground.

I asked Ben if he would not ask about the ring each morning, that soon I was going to resent it and then he would resent me, and that when I was ready I would just put it on and it was so beautiful he wouldn't miss it when I did, but that for now it was going to stay in the box and I might not look at it for five days or five years and if that wasn't okay with him he needed to speak up now before I finished falling, or hiding, or making a mistake because I have to be careful now, I'm operating without a complete heart, so any more heartache would finish me off.

He said fifty years was just fine, as long as I am his.

And I said I was.

And when he sniffed I asked him if he was crying.

And he said only a little. And somehow it's more than enough to warm me as I sit in this little glass room in the sky. A turret for the princess, but oh, such a fragile one. Made of glass and iron. Just like me.

Tall, dark and absent-minded.

    The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.
    ~Francis Quarles

The phone calls ended Friday afternoon via PJ who acted as the supreme go-between, sandwiching me into a chair and sitting on me while I was forced to hear what I thought was going to be a massive campaign of retribution by Ben but turned out to be two-separate conference calls from a whole bunch of higher-ups that I didn't know but they sure as hell know who I am now and they were incredibly and deeply embarrassed for the behavior of several people who were present at an impromptu party.

Ben's phone was there because he had left it on the table and gone up to his own room and someone's girlfriend got a hold of it and had a little fun. He leaves his phone everywhere.

The apologies were formal and profuse.

Like I said, it's happened before but usually it was one of Ben's girlfriends trying to get her hooks in or increase the odds in her favor. In this case he didn't even know who had his phone until he woke up and went to call me and had to go get it.

Then the shit hit the fan. He quit. They sorted it out. He was equally impressed with the phone call I had received earlier telling me not to expect him back alot, and the whole thing smacked of underhanded trouble-stirring so I took the apologies with a grain of salt, mostly because I really don't feeling like dealing with people I don't even know and also because we've been keeping things private and I'd like them to stay that way. No one save for the guys knew he went out there with a girlfriend at home this time.

When PJ finally got off me and let me breathe, he suggested we find some major distractions for the weekend, as in leave the house, get away, keep the kids busy because honestly, while I believed that what happened was the truth, him being out there is still hard. I don't like it. Fine, I said it.

I woke up Sunday morning and Ben was standing in the door of my room. He was ashen, positively exhausted and looking as if he were about to cry. He didn't say a word, he was waiting for me to go first.

So I did.

My skin isn't thick enough for this, Ben.

He closed his eyes and made a face. He leaned back against the side of the doorway in a physical interpretation of the wind going out of someone's sails.

Keep them away from me.

He nodded, eyes still closed, as if he were afraid that he might see something he didn't want to see. And I don't know if I was just handed the party-line of placating the wives back home 101 or if they meant it when they said that Ben would garner more respect this time out and that they would work harder to keep the riffraff away and keep his personal property secured, which basically means if Mark finds Ben's phone he's to pocket it, but I chose to believe that he didn't know it was happening, corroborated by virtually everyone present and so I chose to forgive him and only him. Because he threatened to abandon what he lived for and breathed for rather than lose me, something he also now seems to live and breathe for. Huh.

I love you.

He cocked one eye open at me and winced.

Seriously?

I never say it lightly anymore, Benny.

Oh, dear God, I love you. How badly did you eviscerate me to everyone?

Thoroughly.

Great.

I'm sorry too, Ben.

Don't be, I wouldn't want to be sitting at home. Well, I would now. I want to be, here, that is.

You will be soon enough.

Not soon enough for me, Bee.

Ben asked me to know that he's working as hard as he can to have a future with the one girl who never turned her heart on him and that he wasn't about to watch me turn it now. That he's never wanted to marry anyone before in his entire life and when the thought of only being with one girl would have given him hives before, now it makes him happy, it gives him something to look forward to while he's out there pretending to be someone he'll never be.

That all he wants is what's in front of him and that now he has to leave again and for fuck's sakes we're going to get this right.

He asked me to keep the ring and the chip and that when he returns things are going to be a lot different. No, before he comes back. Starting now. Starting with trust, getting it, keeping it, invoking it and not needing to worry about it at all. And then he said Happy Valentine's Day and I burst into tears.

He flew out this morning. Here's hoping for that quiet spring I wished for.

Isolated flurries.

This morning outside my window here at Nolan's the woods were deep, quiet, buffered with a layer of white cold, muted in their sunrise song. Few birds, a wild bunny or two and three big guys clomping around outside, headed for an early ride to check the creek and see if it was running yet in the warmer winter day.

I opted to stay snuggled in flannel and that old grey sweater and keep my memories close and my children closer, ignoring their oatmeal and fruit while they do mazes in the activity books we brought.

John and Duncan are here, they spend most weekends and Nolan loves the company, missing his own sons, who are up North making their fortunes.

And Ben, Ben is here too. He quit.

Then he went back.

Long story. I'll tell it in a day or two. Right now I just want to enjoy this, it...him.

I have plans now anyway.

I'm going to spend the weekend at Nolan's with the kids. If you need me you know how to reach me.

If you know how to reach me but don't need me then that's fine too. As soon as this call is done and I can pick up the kids from school I'm out of this city.

The drowning pool.

Yesterday was a softly-cushioned fall from an artificial high. I wasn't really up, so I didn't really fall down. It was just...well, one of those times where I expected the stars to align and life to go exactly as I expected it now should and it didn't. I get snobbish and insular and the whole world revolves around me, weren't you aware?

The coldness creeps back in and now the ever-present abandonment gets to join the party for one, because he isn't coming back and I played all my cards and I'm out. He said before he left, don't cry, I'll be back soon enough and then soon we'll be at our circled date and everything is going to be fine because you're doing great and you don't need me for that.

Oh, God. Please don't suffocate me with logic. I'm still standing here with the phone jammed against my ear, huge tears threatening to drown me in a self-made puddle and finding incredible outrage and unfairness all around me, in words meant to be delivered gently, but instead all I hear is a message telling me the person I'm trying to call is unavailable.

Ben had ticked through the litany of reasons I shouldn't care about the time he will be away and don't need to take it personally but I should maybe see if PJ wants to take you and the kids to see Spiderwick, anything, please just don't fall into the pool and for heaven's sake just don't drown because there, you see?

I won't let you.

In this position, so close to the edge, without a gate or a fence or hell, even a warning sign it's so very hard not to fall in. It's almost as if I'm pushed. I don't understand the difference between obligation and rejection, I can't differentiate love from addiction, I don't have thick skin or a thick line drawn between passion and loathing and I'm not even going to pretend that I'm clear-headed enough to weather the kinds of storms borne out of hope.

I'm not.

Fine.

Call it a tantrum, call it immaturity, call it unfair. Or just call it mental illness and moods most completely unstabilized and we'll hide behind a fucking label for once. Because everyone else gets away with it, I may as well just sit down and join the growing crowd.

I've been asked by Ben's highest-up boss to join several people in a conference call at 2 pm local time today. I can't wait to hear what he has to say. I don't even know why he would be involved. It should be interesting, then.

It can just be Thursday for me.

Valentine's Day is for children.

The kids went off excited, balancing envelopes stuffed with paper valentines for their classmates and wrapped plates of brownies for their afternoon parties. They both wore red and said the day was about love.

Ironically it should be, shouldn't it? While every day should be a vested interest in celebrating your love for someone, it is nice to have a day dedicated to it entirely.

It would be so much nicer if people embraced that instead of choosing this day to make a huge mistake. But it's okay, I spent the first part of this day blocking all kinds of numbers, including very familiar ones known by heart because I'm not interested in half-assed efforts, I need to make my own efforts with everything I've got.

I'm not interested in trophies and markers and being used.

I'm not interested in being used, I said. I'm not your curiosity or your conquest. Maybe that's why today's Valentine will be one that is completely different. Maybe because I had no sleep after five fucked up phone calls in the middle of the night and then however many I didn't get because I started blocking numbers, if any were even made at all after that. I doubt it.

Inside the tiny box sitting on my kitchen table was a red medallion with "5 Months" written on it.

Ben's anniversary milestone from Alcoholics Anonymous, small but significant because he repeatedly fell off and was run over by the wagon.

He gave it to me. I'll give it back to him but just the simple fact that he was acknowledging it in my presence is very important to me. It isn't something we've really talked about much. He was messed up. He drank a lot, he took a lot of drugs. He was losing it.

The biggest motivator for him getting help was the night he attacked me (I'm not linking, it's there) and finally understood what sort of dangerous drunk he was. It took him the rest of the summer to figure out for himself that even one drink put him back on that path to destruction and he was incredibly proactive with his sobriety, a difficult road to hold in his field, with these friends.

He takes a mild antidepressant even. He was scared to death of the hit being sober would land on his lucid liquid creativity. He has few outlets other than talk and distractions to deal with his fears but he was doing it anyway.

Five months was huge. This is a guy that couldn't skip a day at one point and I was scared for him, as much as I was scared of him at one point. Both of those feelings are gone, thankfully, as he was doing really well and I had hoped he would continue to do so.

Except thanks to last night I don't think it's even valid any more. You see, Ben is different from everyone and so much like Cole in one regard. If you put something in front of his face he picks it up. He has no ability to walk away. He has no self-restraint. One of his people called early last night to give me a hard time, telling me his head wasn't where it needed to be, that he wasn't going to be popping in and out of town this time, that he needed to stay focused and be present. That I wasn't good for him.

Four hours later some completely wasted girl called me to tell me she was going through his phone and calling every girl's name to let them know he was now off the market, because they were hooking up and she was going to do whatever she had to do to keep him so back off bitch.

Yes. Happy Valentine's Day to you too, motherfucker.

And now you know why I won't marry the guy. He couldn't be serious if he tried. But no worries. I'm okay. I expected that. It's actually happened before but it was funnier the last time because I didn't love him like this that. This time it just stung so badly my only recourse is to block the damned number and distract myself. Thankfully I am able to do both and my dance card is full. I asked Joel if he still wanted to have dinner after all (crow, maybe) and I made a lunch date with Nolan and PJ will be here tonight to hang out and do babysitting duty so we'll have a little time together and I'll just push everything else out of my head.

I replaced the medal in the box along with his beautiful ring. And to those who called earlier who didn't hear about this it was because I was embarrassed so just do me a favor and just don't try to fix it. Don't call him, don't put a price on his head and don't mention it to me. I'm begging you.

I'll be fine, really, I will. I walked into this with my eyes wide open, knowing who I was falling for and the risk involved and so that helps. A little, anyway.

The fucking vultures will love this, I'm sure. Don't email me with your glee. Not today. Today I'm going to go have fun with my brownies and paper valentines strung on a line to remind me that we're children too.

We choose our destiny.

Not only did PJ opt to let me keep my SD card in my phone for music but he helpfully pointed out he missed the shelf right above the stereo, on which rests my entire collections of Deep Purple, Molly Hatchet and the Allman Brothers.

I will rock the seventies for a bit, then. Who's coming with?

Henry, that's who. He is home today fighting off a cough and fever once again and it may be that the penicillin was no match for this strep or it might be a whole new germ, in any case unless there's a huge improvement we go back to the doctor this weekend.

We're making brownies and he's learning the lyrics to Flirtin' with Disaster so when he feels better he can take over singing duties from Mommy when we play Rock Band. He's air-strumming along with his lucky guitar pick from Ben, flush from being sick, happy to be home and the center of attention.

I think the feeling is mutual.

Daysleepers.

    So why does it always seem
    That every time I turn around
    Somebody falls in love with me

Therapy already today, like aloe on a stinging burn, a relief for me today with lots to work through and bountiful, gloriously expensive minutes in which to do it. Then a very early lunch with Joel, a block from his office at the diner that makes designs in your coffee with cream and a spoon. I eat little and listen as he waxes intellect over living by beauty.

I took my beauty and turned it inside out, swearing him down softly and he ignored me. I cancelled Thursday night cruelly in favor of the hope of Ben making it home, and if not, another night alone. Ben doesn't like Joel, finding him far too much like Jake, too professional, too invested in my recovery to have even a hint of understanding when it comes to living all the while. As if living just stops while people get better. I learned, it doesn't.

In Joel's universe, existing in that space between moving forward and dealing with trauma, there's a quiet stasis that would lead one to believe that no, you can't go forward and sideways at the same time.

Only you can and I'm proving it every day. I might not get anywhere sometimes, and then at other times you'll spin around and focus and I'm already gone.

I love Joel, I do. In spite of Ben. In the days right after Jacob walked away from us but while he was still alive Joel was here for me, keeping me busy, using friend-tools instead of psychoanalyst tools, hanging out, playing hockey games on the TV, making sure I didn't slide too far away, playing the now-infamous game of finding Bridget sitting in the pantry and joining her, other things, the ever present arm tucked around my shoulders while he sat hunched down into his perfect white collar with his tie hanging untied but still around his neck. The running partner that put up with long jaunts along the river in dead silence.

And a lot of people would say if Joel is your friend and you made plans with him you can't break those plans just because you got a better offer. I didn't.

Joel and I had agreed to just stop. Stop hanging out, stop speaking, stop getting together for a while because his concern with certain aspects of my issues overstepped our friendship boundaries. We had agreed to be friends and not patient/doctor a long time ago and he's had trouble living like that. I don't have enough patience to stick him out and yes, Ben gets to pull rank because I have known and loved him longer.

And so when Joel called to make amends and pick up wherever we were when we left off I suggested we move our Thursday plans to lunch today and go from there and he agreed.

Graciously.

So there is no problem.

While I sipped from the cream-heart in my coffee, he reached out and I shrank back and he made a face and then pulled a bobby pin from a curl, one that had tried to escape and he held it up for me to take and when I reacted it was to take it and my eyes swam out of focus and he was Jacob for just a moment.

Just for that one moment and it was a gentle reminder that I have so much further to go, and so much help to get me there. I just need to keep living, keeping fighting, keeping sipping coffee while my world plays the same actions over and over again in a neverending loop.

Until I can get it right.

The part where Ben and PJ pull off what Joel's been trying to do for months.

(Repeat after me, Bridget. I love my friends. I love my friends...)

This morning after playing driver, PJ came inside with me and stood there watching while I took off my mittens, hat, scarf, coat and boots. Then he grabbed me and ran back outside, where he held me out eight inches above the snowbank and he asked if I wanted to be really cold. I shrieked and squealed and swore at him, begging him to take me back in. He made me promise not to listen to anymore sad songs or any more Jake-songs for a while.

Okay! Fine! Jesus, Peej! This isn't funny anymore! Okay! I PROMISE!

His mission accomplished, I was deposited back inside. I was shivering and went to get a blanket as he asked me for a box. I reminded him where they were and he was back in thirty seconds and went straight to the living room, taking my hard drive from Cole's computer, taking roughly eighty percent of my CDs off their shelves and putting them in the box, which he then took out to his truck, amid great protest. He came back and deleted iTunes off my machines and wiped Media Player, for good measure. He said I could listen to the radio but only the fast songs, and he did leave a few CDs.

Huh.

Let's see. Rush, AC/DC, The Police and Iron Maiden. Oh, and his entire collection of Scandinavian death metal.

Woo.

He promised me I could have everything back later and we would do what was done with Phish when Cole died-send it away until I could deal with it a little better. Then he gave me a good hard hug and asked if I would feed him dinner tonight.

I said he could have dinner here every night for the rest of the month if he liked. He smiled and then said he had to make a few calls and then if I wanted he'd walk Butters and I could come too. I said sure and he went off down the hall, pulling out his phone.

One of the joys of being this tiny is being able to hide in the guys' footsteps and shadows. I walked right behind PJ as he dialed and waited for the pick up.

Yeah, Ben? I've got everything, brother. Good plan....yeah....okay, talk to you later...bye.

(PS. Dear Padraig. You're so busted! Also-you missed all the songs on my phone. Love, Bridget XOX.)

Damn you, Jacob.

     I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes
    All the sights that I have seen
    I can't believe that I believed I wished
    That you could see
    There's a new planet in the solar system
    There is nothing up my sleeve

    I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
    I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
    Over my shoulder a piano falls
    Crashing to the ground

    In all this talk of time
    Talk is fine
    But I don't want to stay around
    Why can't we pantomime, just close our eyes
    And sleep sweet dreams
    Me and you with wings on our feet

    I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
    I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
    Over my shoulder a piano falls
    Crashing to the ground

    I'm breaking through
    I'm bending spoons
    I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
    I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

    I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
    Sweetest dreams of you
    I look into the stars
    I look into the moon

Not never but now.

Oh! Daniel and Schuyler are coming over tonight to watch the Grammy Awards and snarf at the fashions and the weirdness of celebrity with me. If you'll recall, a few of my friends once expressed concern at being blogged so I would simply leave them out. Now years later they act offended that I never mention them. So here you go.

I think some of you already know that Daniel is Ben's little brother, Schuyler is Daniel's partner of the past four years. They're very happy, thanks for asking.

Schuyler told me he is bringing a big chocolate cake and we will put it in the oven and then eat the whole thing.

Squee!

I love these boys, truly I do. They seem to know just what I need. And Daniel, he's just like a pocket-sized Ben that I could carry around if I wanted to. Or eat. Yes, he's that sweet, I would totally eat him up with a spoon.

Or I could just set my outfit on fire.

It's fucking FREEZING outside today. It's actually less cold than yesterday but yesterday I was preoccupied and didn't really notice. This morning when I threw on a robe and slippers over my birthday suit and ran downstairs to let Butterfield out I got a good heaping serving of cold on my bare legs. I haven't sworn that much in a very long time.

I wish the rim of the coffeepot were just a little wider, just enough so I could dip my knees or my shoulders in and warm them just a little. The furnace might be set higher than it's ever been before. I keep yelling at the kids to go put on slippers and sweaters and possibly hats because I feel cold. They look at me like I have six heads.

The dog looks inviting. Too bad he sleeps in Ben's bed and not mine. I could use the body heat.

The only things that are warm today are my ears, filled with the crystal clear reception of Ben's voice this morning on the phone, wishing me a good day, telling me he spent a miserable night trying to sleep without unconscious-Bridget-sighs and t-shirt sheets. I smiled and I couldn't say anything at all, and the gap was so long between words he thought we got cut off and he hung up and called back. When he did his voice was softer. He said he didn't want me to cry, he didn't want me to miss him, he just wanted me to look forward to when he comes home. I nodded and he said I had to answer out loud and we laughed. He loves me. I responded in kind and then he understood where the silence came from.

A bit of a shaky laugh at the end of our call, this seems so much harder than it should be. And this time I have planned for a relatively quiet month ahead. I'll be here by myself getting us through the days and nights until spring break, until Ben's homecoming. It won't be difficult, it will just be quiet. The boys are mostly entrenched in work and life and I have pulled away a tiny bit to take the pressure off of all of them, they have gone so far above and beyond the call in our friendships.

I'm standing on my own two feet and they work, I can take steps and it isn't an agony of effort on my part. Very mild and optimistic progress.

I sound like I have spring fever, don't I? Maybe I do. Maybe I know that on the other side of the next month, Ben comes home. I know that on the other side of being lonely is being loved. I know that on the other side of this goddamned cold there will be warmth. And if I distract myself and stay busy and keep working as hard as I can, eventually we'll be there. With Ben, in love and warm.

It isn't much to ask for. Perhaps it's just the right amount.

Test for echo.

The weather managed to overshadow the doubts that weighed us down, and Ben's plane finally got out before lunch.

I only had to buy an extra fifteen minutes of parking time after sitting in the lot alone in his truck sobbing after he left. Then I wiped the mascara off my chin and gave a mighty sniff and drove myself home in the blizzard we're having to a house that now most certainly does seem less full, less warm and less content than it did only a few short hours ago when the howling wind woke us up and Ben pulled me under him for one final chance to make it count before we had to kiss each other's skin goodbye for a while.

The kids and I circled his return date on the calendar and will mark off days as they end until we reach that magic one in March when he comes home tired and happy and worn out and ready for a vacation. Hopefully when he comes back it will be with the same desires he took with him, rolled tightly and packed in amongst his notebooks and his clothes.

This is a good break. A perfect opportunity to see what happens now, when we're apart. To see if everything means as much, to see if we still have the same feelings after a few weeks of distractions and life alone. To see if parting on good terms, on the best terms leaves our hearts as fond and barren as they did when we'd fight to the death. We're cautiously optimistic and optimistically cautious for once.

And for once, I hope the time flies.

Icing.

See this box?

Yes.

Don't open it. You can guess what it is but you're not allowed to open it.

Okay.

Well?

Well, what?

Aren't you going to guess at what it is?

Okay. Is it a Sigur Ros CD?

Little small for that, don't you think?

Well, then is it a grizzly bear?

Brid-get. Be serious, now.

Is it a marshmallow?

Wrong, all wrong. Guess you'll have to wait until the fourteenth to find out.

You're not going to leave it on the table all week like that, are you?

Yes, I am, actually.

Oh, well, that's just mean.

So was guessing that I was going to give you a bear or a marshmallow for Valentine's Day. Or a Sigur Ros CD, of all things.

Huh?

I keep getting picture messages of Snoopy valentines. I think he is proud indeed. That or he's trapped in the Hallmark store and the pictures are actually cries for help.

Bridget and the little green monster.

    This won't break your heart
    But I just think it could
    Cause I haven't tried as hard as I should
    To separate you from everything I do
    But I would never want to come between us two

    I'll keep your memory vague
    So you won't feel bad about me
    I'll say the things that you said
    Sometimes so it reminds me

Here's a post that's going to make a lot of people happy.

For it's....er...honesty.

The white horse is a white truck, an F-150 that rarely sees dirt and carries the noblest of heroes. A guy in a black cowboy hat and an old army coat who never holds much of a grudge, thankfully.

A guy who smells like shaving cream and toothpaste and Marlboros.

The truck and the hero were waiting when I came out of the church, planning to head past the school, collect the kids and then come home and start dinner. I was hoping that my phone was found ( it was, in said army coat) and that I could give back the stupid blackberry, having grown weary of fielding the sheer number of female callers. Did he get that many calls a day? Did he still keep in touch with so many girls?

He wasn't surprised at the calls, he reminded me they come out of the woodwork just before he goes. He wanted to go to the school with me and then he said he'd take us out for dinner.

He asked me not to go see Joel next week, to just keep that night free and he would try his best to get back for it.

We went for dinner and the kids chatted about their days, still coughing a little but worlds better than the weekend. When we left the restaurant, close to six, he took my elbow and stopped me and pointed out the sky. It was still light out and I stopped dead in my tracks to watch the sunset and marvel that we are indeed almost halfway through February and into spring and this may have been the shortest winter of my life. I thought it would be the longest.

We came home, got the day cleaned up and stowed away as yet another entry logged in our history books and Ben asked me out of the blue not to mess with things. Not to mess with my getting better, not to experiment. That everything would be okay and that he would take his pills if I would continue to take mine. Taking a common and quiet bond and just asking me to think about not changing a thing right now despite the fact that everything is always changing.

It never stops changing.

I'm not looking forward to the weekend. I'm not looking forward to the next month of being alone again, he no longer wants to go at all and we're both a little hesitant to thrust him back into a situation of being on the road with it's own hazards and pitfalls.

And so he left the light on once again. Wanting to take in every moment, every second of us and whatever fledgling love is there. He found a deeper intensity and we rode it through until morning and when the sun rose, his hand slipped on my skin and my pearls ripped away from my neck. Several spilled on the floor, the necklace was old and it had broken in four places and he said he would buy a new one, forgetting who gave it to me and I didn't say a thing but I made a note that he now owes me a memory.

This morning the I love you exchanged in a hurry as he walks out the door wasn't the usual one we have said for years as we part. This one held the same letters but a completely different meaning and we both stared at each other for a long moment, wondering if the other meant what we meant, realizing that we both did, after all.

It felt a little weird. Sort of like falling in love with your brother. I can say that and be the little bitch because it keeps me from his hurt.

We're ignoring this elephant, him leaving. When I said I could never have a life with Ben, I wasn't being dramatic. He leaves, I feel abandoned. He used to go a lot more, perhaps it was a way to get back at me for casting him aside in favor of Jacob's attentions so long ago. Letting Jake slide into second place and Ben got pushed to the back burner to burn to the bottom of the pot.

He always said I was out of his league and I never understood that. I thought it was the other way around. And now I don't want him to go and it's less about the abandonment. The rest of the guys are here, Ben's gone before.

I'm jealous.

I don't want to know that girls are constantly calling him and following him and offering themselves to him. I am spoiled rotten. I like being the only one in his radar, the only one within reach. I like being the only one on his mind. And all the guys can tell me until they're blue that these girls aren't on their minds, and that they don't have names or personalities or memories for them but in the end it doesn't help.

I want to be the only one in his arms. I want him to know that I'm not out of his league, I think he might be out of mine.

I think my heart must be growing back. I've never been jealous like this. Vindictive, sure, just never jealous. What an awful, stupid, immature feeling.

Ben will be so proud.

Short and sweet.

I'm working at the church today so I'll be brief. Because Sam. Unorganized. Everything. I. did. last. time. and geez.

I don't own a Veyron. I picked a fast car to use as an example.

I said no, for the record. I always say no. The reasons are not what you think. Just because I tell you stuff doesn't mean I tell you everything.

Christian goes on his fifth date with Chloe tonight. No, I haven't met her but he never shuts up about her and I am so happy for him.

Valentine's Day is coming. As far as I know Joel and I are staging a mutiny against romance and will be at his place having an unromantic dinner and watching UFC highlights. It began as a joke and was put in place long before Ben and I got together and of course long before Joel and I stopped speaking to each other but he hasn't cancelled. In the event that he does cancel I am accepting offers so give it your best shot. I have a sitter.

The kids are doing much better. Still with colds but sleeping and attending school even. Hurrah.

PJ doesn't have a girlfriend but again, taking offers.

I'm thinking of going off my pills. Why? I don't know. Just because I wonder what it will be like with no Jake around to make me half insane. Will I do it? Doubt it. Ben cannot pick up the pieces. He is too busy holding his own innards together. Besides, he won't be here. He's on the road again effective the 9th. He offered not to go as if it were an option for him. I don't know why he did that but it didn't help, it just painted his desperation with a rosy glow. Gave it purpose.

Butterfield may have eaten my phone. I couldn't find it, didn't even have time to call it to see if I could hear it hiding somewhere. I'm guessing if the dog didn't eat it it's in someone's pocket. Ben tossed me his on the way out this morning and I've been the proud recipient of seven surprised girls calling him and leaving messages when I said I was his assistant. Yeah...you don't even WANT to know what they said but they know he's headed out and in case he wanted company he presumably has their numbers.

I'm never ever taking his phone ever again.

Not a great day. Just a day. When I'm done filing and boring myself stupid I'm going to walk around singing at the top of my lungs. The acoustics in here are phenomenal. I can hear myself singing. That never happens.

    I'm the voice inside of you, that says there's nothing you can't do.
    If you could open up your eyes and lay your heart out on the line.
    I'm the voice inside your head, that brings your mind back from the dead.
    I hope that I have served you right, even if only for one night.

    I'm not religious or fanatical, but I'm a motherfucking miracle
    You knock me down and I get up again.
    So hit the lights out and let the show begin.

Wizard of Awe.

I keep tripping over the same hole in my brittle, dumbstruck, beautifully vacuous way. Or so I am reminded.

Barely-there, Bridget. Now pay attention, please.

I get tired, the doubts crowd back in and everything goes straight to hell. So nevermind me while I trip and stumble my way through life for a bit. I'll get wherever I'm supposed to be, eventually.

Possibly sooner than later, if you can believe it.

I'm sitting in a Veyron at a stoplight. The car can do it, I'd be at the ocean by lunchtime.

(Go, Bridget, go.)

I just need some gas and a little courage. Not that stupid thimbleful I usually hold, but a trunkful of the stuff. Perhaps I can buy some, beg, borrow or steal a little strength just for the hard parts and I promise I will return it with interest when I get there. I would roar off into the sepia horizon while a ticker-tape parade heralds my departure. Don't think for a moment that I won't.

(There she goes.)

Last night Ben brought me home a present. I seriously think that instead of paying attention when he's driving he's surfing my journal from his blackberry. He needs to not do that. But still he did and he knew he was walking into a bee's nest and he knew it was late so he stopped into a store and he brought me a candy necklace.

He didn't say a thing. He put it on me and I sat with him while he ate dinner and then he peeked in on the kids and turned out most of the lights and took my hand and led me all the way down to his end of the house, pulling the blanket over our heads and leaving the light on his night table on and he ate the necklace right off my neck and I didn't get any at all. He never touched the light to turn it off, he never said a word, he never let me get more than an inch or two away from him at any time which was amazing to me somehow.

When I was sticky and exhausted and near tears because he can be so sweet without saying a thing he burst the bubble once again.

I'm not in the Veyron suddenly, he pushed me out and took the wheel and left me standing by the road again. Do I get back in the damn car or do I turn away and go home?

(Wait. Which way is home? No one will tell me.)

He asked me to marry him. Again.

(Bridget, where are you headed?)

He didn't say why but I think sometimes the patience isn't as easy to hold on to as he says it is.

And I know why, I don't need him to tell me.

No, there is more. I'm also very tired.

There is no relief today from the dark self-doubting, fumbling, bumbling, scared, freaked out uncomfortable miserable girl who lives in my head. None at all. I am supposed to swallow pills and talk this stuff out and then it's not supposed to be so bad but some moments I can't get out of the way fast enough and it steamrolls me flat. Some moments I'm just so afraid.

Of what?

I don't know.

I don't even know who won the games. Someone will tell me.

Instead of a weekend filled with hockey and football and friends, we had a weekend filled with frightening fevers and a trip to Emergency Saturday afternoon and I was so scared I was relieved when PJ took Ruth out and they went shopping for musical instruments while I sat and tried to keep Henry awake for the long wait.

Ben was on the ice, I had asked PJ to leave a message for him only there weren't enough details and signals got crossed and it was close to seven Saturday night when Ben came charging through the waiting room at last after trying four different clinics and saw us coming out. He and Loch promptly went at each other and were kicked off hospital grounds, thanks to Loch using his 'I have it under control' attitude instead of realizing at that point that Ben didn't even know who was sick or injured or what the fuck was going on and he panicked.

Yes, lovely.

Henry will be fine. His 103.5 was quickly relieved with tylenol and he has a whopping aggressive case of strep. Henry is the sort of child who will tell you he's fine when he's miserable and Saturday around lunchtime I couldn't get him to sit up or wake up long enough to get him to answer a question. It was an incredibly oddly scary moment for me and I'm the sort of mother who only panics if you pass me your severed limb.

In any event, much understanding and patience was shown on Ben's part, who wound up left out of the loop so completely I expected him to withdraw, to be bitter and resentful and instead all he did was ask PJ to take his truck so that he could drive us home instead. He and Loch are presently seven years old and not speaking to each other. Never a good thing.

I went up four times the last two nights to check Henry and I didn't do it alone, to give him more water and more Tylenol while the penicillin began to work. He is fine today, he keeps pointing out how great it is that he's less floppy.

This morning we slept in until nine again, Ben's arms curled firmly around me to show that no matter what happens, good or bad, he's here for the long haul, as he has always been. He took a couple days off, mostly so I can catch up on sleep. I'm completely exhausted and treading in dangerous water, but frankly I don't care. Henry doesn't have meningitis or anything scary but by 6 pm Saturday I had resorted to asking God for favors.

He listened.

Pecking orders.

Family meetings with my boys don't seem to work very well after no sleep, trips to Emergency and shoving matches outside in the snow. They also won't work if everyone is going to pull rank, refuse to listen and be jerks in a general sense.

It's par for the course. It's Supertestosteronebowl Sunday. And no, I'm not blaming them because they're men, I'm blaming them because they need to have a little more patience right now. This isn't about them and we really don't need this shit right now.

10 a.m. snapshot.

I'm watching Tool live and loving the raw voice.

I'm still eating red pistachios.

I'm in my favorite cardigan from Anthropologie along with woolen tights, because it's cold.

My new razor cellphone never stops ringing, though mine is a pretty silver instead of blue.

I'm looking forward to seeing Switchfoot live, later this spring.

I've become highly addicted to Reddit,  so much so that I had to join. I've never laughed so hard as I do at comments there.

I'm stocking up on over the knee socks, because they are the best ever. Should I get the pink or just stick with black?

I'm planning a Snowbeque tonight to coincide with the best day of the week.

I've had the words completely fucked out of me, I think. So nevermind posting today.





Have a great day.

Beauty and the beast.

    And all the roads we have to walk are winding
    And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
    There are many things that I would
    Like to say to you
    But I don't know how

I woke up this morning right where I wanted to be, under Ben's Maple Leafs blanket, stark raving naked, sated from a night of pushing our friendship past our own limits and finding we like it here. He never stops smiling anymore, it totally interferes with his angry anti-establishment rockstar vampire persona.

Wait, everything does that for Ben, so nevermind.

He got up around six, threw on a pair of jeans and wandered out to the kitchen and he came back and tossed my bag on the bed and I could hear my phone ringing as he passed me a glass of orange juice. As I sat up to clear my head, he opened the bag and started going through my things. If you knew Ben, he's a riot. He loves to play with everyone's stuff. He'll rifle through the pockets on the clothes you're wearing, pull out your wallet, flick your zippo, read your library card, organize your keys, call people from your cellphone contact list, try on your gloves. It isn't annoying, it's hilarious, but he saves the funniest explorations for my bag. It's always full of things that intrigue him.

First he took out my phone and passed it to me. I answered it and it was Chris. Ben frowned and took out my sketchbook, putting on one of my hearing aids. He drew a cartoon of Chris and I started to laugh. Then he put two baby-blue bobby pins in his hair, one on either side of the front to make his hair lie flat. Then he took out my black nail polish and put some on, just two fingers and then threw up the devil horns at me, so that only the polished nails were visible. I kept laughing while Chris asked what was so funny.

Then Ben found a Disney princess chapstick that was Ruth's and he read the ingredients and frowned at Belle and then took the top off with his teeth, spitting it onto the bed and then he smelled it (cherries) and put some on his lips. He smacked his lips together and then rolled the tube all the way out and bit the end off and ate it.

I know. You really have no idea. I can't ever leave him alone. He might eat the cutting board or one of the kids. Or wear one of my dresses out of the house.

He made another face and tossed what was left of the chapstick over his shoulder and went looking for more stuff. A spare tampon went into one ear. My headphones in the other ear and the hearing aid was handed to me. A second sharpie was uncapped and he wrote Property of B. E. N. on my arm.

All I could do was just laugh and laugh.

Eventually Christian let me go and Ben ran out of things to explore in my bag and so I hung up and he suggested he run out and bring home some breakfast. I agreed and off he went.

With the bobby pins still in his hair.

God love him, what a fucking freak.

The cult of Jacob.

Several readers have sent me notes of concern recently.

How I could forget Jacob so quickly, how I could move on? What am I doing to the kids? Why I can write so flippantly about fun moments after my husband died? And didn't we go through all this before and you're a fucking fake and Jesus Christ are you ever fucked up.

My therapists thank you. The bills for just one will cover the cost of a small villa on the French Riviera.

You know, if I had any idea my life would unfold like this when three years ago I was writing that Cole was working long hours and gee I hated shoveling snow but he came home and did it for me, I might never have started at all. Do you think it's easy having it all out there? I can't even walk away from it now because every last person who comes to read gets their update and if I don't write the assumption will be made that I finally did myself in.

Well, fuck you too, as long as things go well and I keep working so hard I think I can and will overcome that urge. I think I already have. How many of you are just waiting for that?

You're so smitten with Jacob that you forgot the central points involved in his takeover of my life. Encouraging poor opinions of Cole. He never let up the pressure on me. And then when I fell for him he took over everything. All of the sudden my friends were limited in their access to me. He encouraged me to drop several if not most of them. My car was sold. Cole was painted out to be a monster, when he was nothing more than a man with a violent streak a mile wide that was nothing I couldn't handle but he was dead so Jacob had free reign to paint him black.

I was stripped of my own opinions and reduced to a shivering, weakened doll while Jacob used his heavy handed charming approach to fix my life. He was going to take over and fix all of it. He would be a better man, a better father, a better husband and a better friend and God only help you if you disagreed with that. And then little by little it fell apart around him as I got worse with him instead of better.

He couldn't fix things, it just wasn't falling into place and his facade began to crumble. His self-esteem took a dive, he started making mistakes and he began to hate me for his obsession. His obsession with me, I don't even know how it began or what happened to it but it consumed him and then he decided he would drive me insane while still fixing everything and I would be fully dependent on him and it would hurt both of us and he could no longer make any sense of anything and he couldn't get rid of my friends and it got too hard and then he cracked and he stepped off a building and died and left me here alone, in amazingly poor mental condition and I've spent the last three months in therapy five times a week learning how to be human again.

He was my David Koresh, my very own Jim Jones, a live, in the flesh psychopath masquerading as the most amazing human being I've ever known. Of course he's still on a pedestal, I am mostly still under his spell even though it's been carefully dismantled piece by piece. I still love him. My God, had he not sent all these journals and the letters that he did I would still be in the dark. He knew what he was. He knew he hurt me. He knew he was a monster in his own right and he'll never be able to change that now just like Cole can't change the picture painted of him anymore. They won't get better, they're dead.

But I will get better. I want to.

I'm alive.

I want to be normal and I want to be in love and if that's with Ben, then it will be wonderful and if it isn't then that's okay too. If you can't handle reading or you don't understand how so much could go wrong in such a short while then trust me, you are not alone there, but please, for the love of God stop writing to me to tell me how awful you think I am.

Because I don't write for you.

I do it for me.

Find the road.

Yesterday's carnelian mittens and rose cheeks gave way to silver and gold notes from a lengthy before-dinner guitar lesson and then slid easily into blue and lavender dreams, restless sleeps for kids with colds (again).

Last night brought a new song and a new revelation, for if Cole was the keeper of the Zeppelin catalogue, Ben is the finder of their lost tracks, multiple takes and rare alternative versions, painstakingly seeking out every last recording the band has ever made. When he took me to bed somewhere around nine, early because I am trying to sleep enough instead of hardly at all, it was to the strains of a new and wonderful but old familiar song I knew well that I lay in Ben's arms while we did things that are new and different and so very right for us. Perfect for us.

The song was In the Light. Only this version is called In the Morning and I made a note inside my head to ask him about the song today, as I tried not to cry out as he easily found that one amazing place between not enough and too much.

Somewhere around midnight we fell asleep to the strains of The Rain Song, and it occurred to me that not only do I not feel homesick when I'm with Ben, but I also don't feel frustrated by him, I'm not trying to force him to do things he shouldn't, nor am I trying to get him to stop doing things I don't want him to do. Sleeping with him is a perfect match of skill and experimentation, of want and energy, of just the right level of perversity and gentleness. We match. Uncannily so.

Which leaves me kind of speechless, actually.

    Though the winds of change
    may blow around you,
    but that will always be so
    When love is pain it can devour you,
    but you are never alone
    I would share your load.
    I would share your load
    Baby, let me

    In the light
    Everybody needs the light.

Ambient noise.

    It's all wrong
    Don't cry
    Clear away this hate
    And we can start to make it alright

Today is a much better day, though slightly low-key, between my hands being sore and burned from the cold and the slow dissipation of the sleeping pill from my body I'm not going to do a hell of a lot. I'm all foggy but rested and loved and ready to not wake up on the low side of Bridget again any time soon if I can help it.

Can I blame this on Ben? No? It's okay, I didn't think so.

Last night was the first night I went to him since we came home from Nolan's. I crawled into his bed and right into his arms and told him about the pill and kissed him and unfortunately maybe fell asleep before the kiss was over. When I woke up he was already gone, off to work at dawn so he can leave a little early to come home.

There was a note on the table.

I love you, bee. You drool. Sleep well.

Heart-stopping dinner conversation.

Do you know why I stopped drinking? I stopped drinking so that you would take me seriously. So I wouldn't be known as the irresponsible party animal anymore. I stopped so that you would see me for who I am. I stopped because I knew that you would need me and I wanted to be able to be there for you one hundred percent. I didn't stop so that you would spend the rest of our lives thinking I can't handle anything difficult. I've been handling this and it's the most difficult thing I ever did and I did it because I wanted to show you how strong I am. Jesus, baby, to find out what kind of shape you were in at the end of an entire oblivious work day pisses me off because I could have been here. I'm here for you, why won't you come to me?

Because this isn't your responsibility. You can't fix this, Ben.

I never said I could fix it. But I can damn well hold you while you fix it yourself.

The world at night.

Sometimes I think that while I sleep, night seeps in around my edges, looking for a crack, any flaw or opening, a way inside. When I wake up I am filled with dark, with black, and I cannot see and I can't feel anything good and it hurts like hell and it takes forever to get rid of. I even tried to let a little of it out with a dull knife on a scarred thigh and I set myself back a good twenty months progress-wise but I was at the end of my wits, if I ever had any left at all, and I didn't dare call anyone for help nor would I let on that anything was wrong while Ben was still home this morning.

It wasn't until Loch phoned to tell me he had made a new template for this page and I just asked him to leave it like it was before and he asked what was wrong and I didn't know. I never know, I never have words that come out loud to tell anyone what it is. I just know that it was a black homesickness, a feeling I wish would stay away. I'd like to get better but then it comes to remind me I never will and then the hopelessness gives the black more weight and Bridget suffocates underneath it.

Loch was adamant that I share this feeling and get some help and he's pretty much been after me all day now as I flutter around the house with no words coming, the silence taunting me like a ghost.

Of course it's a ghost. It is two.

I could rest in the cold snow at the foot of the bench all afternoon, sitting on my knees, legs long asleep in the freezing wind, clutching the tiny copper box with the enamel bluebird painted on the lid in my frozen bleeding fingers wondering how they fit a man as big as Jacob into something so small but eventually someone that Loch called makes me come home and then they sit and stare at me and wonder how one little human could go so left of center and how in the hell do we bring her back and keep her here? Gosh, she doesn't weigh much, she's pretty complacent when it comes to direction, why in the hell is this happening?

It's the dark. It covers everything and I can't hide from it.

I can keep it from finding Ben, that's pretty much all I can do some days. He has his own things to deal with, I have always kept him from this.

It took forty-three minutes to pry that precious little box out of my frostbitten hands. Whoever said I wasn't strong should have really been here this afternoon.

Butternauts.

This morning was spent in a hotel restaurant making sculptures out of the butter shells that were served alongside of my incredibly overpriced bagel and fruit, courtesy of a panicked Joel, who is in conference all this week but needed to talk to me and was in a rush, could I meet him for a quick breakfast downtown as he headed into his meetings?

Right. He took a leisurely two hours to tell me everything that is now wrong with my life while I pointedly ignored him and made a little butter astronaut guy exploring the face of the butter moon.

The maitre'd scowled at me relentlessly and I continued on while Joel tried and failed to drown out the clinking dishes. He knows damn well I have trouble with restaurant noise but it was his two hours and his hundred dollar breakfast so I let him drone on while I thought about PJ patiently waiting for me to return home, having planned to spend the day with me again, happily so. I actually messaged PJ twice and I don't believe Joel even noticed.

Joel didn't say anything I haven't told myself already. Nor did he say anything Ben and I haven't already covered at great length. Yes, we covered Bridget being half out of her mind, medicated and barely even fresh out of one therapy, still heavily invested in two others. We covered the kids and dads issue and Ben being more than friends. We've covered the incredible risk of recovery versus new and difficult relationships, and widowed people filling holes as a stop gap and temporary measures and rebounds and addictive personality types and killing friendships and Bridget's recklessness and sex addiction and life alone and life not alone and how doomed this is.

After two hours of his endless voice he came back around, wrapping up his gentle tirade with a reminder that I'm unstable, that I've just been through a lot and it isn't fair to Ben or to the kids to begin yet another relationship against the odds.

I was just about to ask him if he was prepared to break into song when I realized he contradicted himself ten times over in his closing arguments. I pointed that out and he didn't have any excuses left so I squished my poor little butternaut, got up and wished him a good day.

I believe at this point I have dealt with friends and jealousies to death and I'm not doing it anymore. Adapt or die, Joel. Everyone else did and he had fair warning that being friends with me was going to be hard and he was better off when he sat in his office on the other side of his desk dispensing pills that brought fog and relief from pain, conducting the symphony of mental health professionals who have walked in and out of my head ever since. When he was the objective band leader instead of another person looking for their cut.

You think I'm cruel? You weren't there this morning. The butternaut was so ludicrous it was the only thing keeping me from crying at the goddamned table.

Don't trash the first fucking thing that has made me happy in three fucking months. Just don't. I'm a big girl and I know the risks of what I'm doing.

I also know the rewards.

Beekeepers.

    Hanging by threads of palest silver
    I could have stayed that way forever
    Bad blood and ghosts wrapped tight around me
    Nothing could ever seem to touch me

    I lose what I love most
    Did you know I was lost until you found me?

    A stroke of luck or a gift from God?
    The hand of fate or devil's claws?
    From below or saints above?
    You came to me

    Here comes the cold again
    I feel it closing in
    It's falling down and
    All around me falling

I opened my eyes in the dark and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. I went down to the kitchen and Ben was already there, quietly putting on the kettle.

Why are you awake?

I don't know, I just woke up. You?

Same. Join me for a nightcap?

He held up the hot chocolate tin and I smiled and went to get two mugs. We didn't talk anymore, waiting for the kettle to begin it's quiet whistle and Ben pulled it quickly from the heat. We blew down the steam and sipped thoughtfully, staring at each other across the wide wooden table.

When we were finished Ben took both mugs and put them in the sink and then he held out his hand. I took it. He was going to walk me back to my room where the kids were sleeping.

We stopped outside the door and he pulled me back toward him and kissed me.

Oh geez, why did he have to do that? I stepped back out, closing the door quietly and began to walk toward his room instead. Next door. He didn't follow, he was rooted to the spot.

I think I'm dreaming.

Shhh, don't wake anyone.

Soon I was firmly ensconced in Ben's arms, his face jutting up over my head, his breathing quiet. His sheets were so warm. Dark brown jersey. Like a favorite t-shirt or the arms of an old friend. I moved and he lifted his head off the pillow and moved his arm up as I turned inward to face him.

You smell so good, I'll never be able to sleep.

Sorry.

Don't be.

I pushed my head up until I found his lips. I kissed him, a long kiss, a loving kiss. He responded easily, his arms sliding down around me. He climbed over me and kissed my neck and then my lips again and I pulled my legs up around his hips. He rolled off me promptly and reached up to turn the light on.

Bridget, I don't want us to be a casualty as friends. I can't do that.

Me neither.

And I know I always back out at the last minute but I really need you in my life and if we're just going to have a fling and ruin everything then I don't want to lose you.

So let's not let it ruin everything.

How do we prevent that?

We keep things good between us and respect each other.

I've done the fuckbuddies thing, I'm not interested in trivializing you like that.

What do you want us to be?

I'd like it if you were my girlfriend.

Jacob-

Jacob's dead, Bridget. And you're still alive.

Sometimes I wonder.

You feel alive to me.

Do I?

Definitely.

Let's just take it slow then.

Okay, I'll go sleep downstairs.

No, stay here.

I can't.

Ben, just fuck off and be here.

Bridge, if I stay here we're not friends anymore, I'll just warn you right now.

What are we going to be then?

Lovers.

Lovers.

Are you okay with that?

Yes.

I nodded as he turned off the light.

He kissed me hard and pressed against me. I was caught up in his arms, so warm and strong and wanting and it felt so good. My legs found their way back to his hips and I put my arms around his neck and he wrapped his arms around me tighter and kissed me again.

Now you're in the right place, Bridge.

I wish I had a heart to give you.

You do-

I don't. It's gone, it's broken. It's not beating. I don't know where these feelings are even coming from.

He put his hand over my heart.

Right here. It's right here. It's faint but it's healing, that's all.
His voice was raw, filled with emotion and fear. I could hear his fear. Fear of losing me, losing us, the closest friendship we've both ever had in our lives. How many times have we given up on each other but not given up on each other? We could never stay away, never be apart. He kissed me gently and I know he was about to leave and so I countered his tenderness with a sudden hunger I couldn't hide. I reached the point of no return. He followed. I couldn't ride hard enough against him. We devoured each other.

For such a goof he's probably the most sexually experienced guy I have ever been with and it showed as we spent the rest of the early Saturday morning getting to know each other on a whole new plane of existence. Finally we couldn't move another muscle. He kissed me again but didn't say a word, he just held on very, very hard. We had torn at each other until there was nothing left and we realized we hadn't lost a thing.

The sun rose.

Not a thing.

I went to meet him last night too, and it was more of the same. This is all so new. It's like we're falling for each other in reverse but slowly, too. Physically first and emotions seem to trail along afterwards like wayward children. I never expected to feel this strongly for him and it shows. Every time I look at him I smiled involuntarily.

The other guys caught on fast. He didn't say a thing, and neither did I. We didn't have to. I think it was obvious. We've now drawn a huge amount of endless teasing for getting together on a snowy weekend in which we did little more than sit together in the corner of the big sectional in the great room, hunkered down into a blanket together, watching the fire, talking quietly while everyone else played outside, getting to know each other in this way, this new way, so new the tag is still attached and we're still not even sure if it fits.

Okay, that's a lie. We know it fits. Like a...oh, nevermind.

Holding bright, holding tight.

We're back. Home at last. What fun. So much to tell you but right now I'm being tortured with Duran Duran blasted through the house on eleven by my favorite nerd.

Please, Girls on Film was never a masterpiece.

The Seventh Stranger, however, was.

Whoops. I just exposed my inner dork again, didn't I?

Good things come in threes, two. (A Friday postscript).

Twenty sessions and our family therapist proclaimed us to be managing very well and we're a cohesive bunch, us three, learning to roll with the punches. We're done, we graduated, though I'm not dumb, she's on speed dial if I need anything and I set up three more monthly sessions to see us through until spring, just in case.

Well, in case I need answers, because sometimes being a parent is flying by the seat of your pants and being a single parent after something as catastrophic as the children losing two dads in two years, let's just say I'd rather endure the therapeutic microscopes than risk fucking up Ruth and Henry forever.

To celebrate a free weekend we're headed up to Nolan's with some of the boys. The kids are excited to get another (slow) snowmobile ride or six and some sleigh rides too. There's so many people going some of the guys are going to have to double-bunk. It's going to be fun. My truck is full of food. I'm full of excitement.

Geez. When's the last time that happened?

Gardening tips for the faint of heart.

    So sacrifice yourself and let me have what's left.
Lyrical cautions or simple cravish plea? Does it matter anymore?

No, does it, really?

Does it matter that I'm OUT THERE standing on the ice at 6 a.m. with him while he skates circles around me spraying me with snow from his plow stops and making me flinch every time he slams his stick down? Does it matter how I feel, does it matter if I want to be the selfish princess taking some much needed time just to stop the fucking world from moving and I can't help it if it won't? Does it matter how much he holds my hand, squeezing it so hard I grit my back teeth without realizing it. He reminds me to breathe, to not worry and to stop eating. He laughs over the last one.

It's absurd.

He isn't in charge. He needs me as much as I need him, except for the fact that we swear we don't need each other. He isn't interested in fixing things, surpassing greatness or in happily ever after, he is adamant that we should just blow off some steam in each other's arms and then things won't feel so bad. Then he laughs again, disqualifying his own words as a joke, thinking I won't see his nervousness, his deep desires, so entrenched now he is too vulnerable for castigation on my part. I wouldn't hurt him anyway but maybe I am without fully realizing it.

He is vulnerable and tenuous. He's been to his edge and come back running. He lives a different life from the rest of every human being, a carefree, adolescent existence of spontaneity and mistakes and fresh chances and thin remorse that make me envious. He is so far left of perfect he has an open charm that reads flawed and yet no one finds it off-putting in the least.

Maybe it's a lift, being with someone on an equal plane of imperfect.

Maybe it makes us perfect for each other.

Maybe he just wants to be everything Jacob wasn't and nothing like Jacob was.

That's good. Being unguarded is a breath of fresh air and not even remotely akin to the weakness I expected. Just a naked, tender truth of who we are, what we are. Human. Bent. Ugly sometimes, sometimes, not.

I've figured some things out and come out intact on the other side, slightly warped maybe. I can't keep waiting to get over Jacob, get over myself, I am learning to live with it instead. Live around it and through it and in spite of it. With help. With so much help I am drowning in good intentions, saved by grace, humbled by love.

I'm also learning that I can't replace him. I couldn't if I tried. And I no longer want to, having set myself up for failure so easily in the past I have it down to a mindless routine. There is room for Jacob to stay here as part of me.

I can do this.

I can let my heart grow back. It's like planting a seed, right? Take a little piece and bury it somewhere safe and give it plenty of love, how can it not grow? How can I not live life to the fullest while I have it laid out in front of me? It's a gift and I'm wasting it sitting in the dark.

Rawer words.

I never was the sharpest tack on the board. So maybe locking myself upstairs after the kids went to bed to read through my journal and read some of Jacob's wasn't such a hot idea after all.

I miss him.

You will never understand how much I miss him.

You slid away from me.

After the kids went to school, Christian and I took Butterfield and a few tennis balls over to the river and Chris threw the balls and Butterfield gave chase while I hung on and slid for what seemed like miles. Squealing the whole way.

Christian says I am very easy to entertain.

He also was proud of me, I've been dealing with a lot (extra) lately and doing really well. I got a hug and then a dozen more, as we haven't spent a lot of time together lately. But really if I could stuff Chris in a jar and keep him on a shelf in my house I just might. He gives the best hugs in the world. Somehow he utilizes every muscle in both arms; instead of being encircled within a halo of elbows and hands, he simply squeezes the bejesus out of me.

So maybe I'll fill you in a bit more as we go along here. I've been a bit hesitant to talk about certain things because of the rampant armchair judgment and distance diagnosing going on. And because I was never really clear before on exactly how many people are standing by waiting for me to fuck up and how awful that feels when I'm just trying to do the best I can. It's one of the very few times I wished I had never shared my thoughts publicly and I just...I don't know, I just want you to come and read and feel and then write to me if you want to but not as my therapist or my conscience or my big sister or brother. Lord knows I have enough of those and they squeeze from all directions.

Thank goodness I love hugs. Even internet ones.

Touch and go.

I think I write this post in some variation at least once a year.

Let's see. Yes, but I'm not linking. They're such sweet moments, memories of Jacob and I can't read them right now. If you'd like to just type in 'cracked fingertips' in the search box top left. I can wait.

We've reached that magical time of year when my hands are so badly cracked and bleeding that I have taken to wearing bandages on the tips just to keep people from freaking out. My skin is like touching fine-grit sandpaper and I feel like a giant itch. It doesn't matter what I do, it just happens. I drink a ton of water, I wear rubber gloves when I wash dishes or clean, I wear gloves outside, I use a ton of moisturizer, even straight oil sometimes, hardcore stuff-shea butter, emu oil, you name it. Humidifers and I are close friends.

I think it's just the price for living here in this high-altitude low-humidity windblown wasteland of dryness. I'll live, two months and it will be a memory, I hope. It's a long two months when you're reminded of it every time you touch something, which is 37,000,000,000 times an hour.

Everyone is obsessed with my tiny little ruined hands and I spend all my time hiding them in my pockets or sitting on them, snatching them back from boys determined to inspect or soothe them, fielding questions about their condition and deflecting sympathetic expressions of concern, as if there is something worthy in the plight of this usual seasonal drama to discuss.

Fuck that.

It will pass. It always passes. Just like time and pain.

Though it would just be nice if it hurt a little less to type but instead every word is a testament to my dedication, a measure of pain meted out one sentence at a time as only a masochist can truly appreciate.

I suppose it would also be nice if I hadn't just written this entire entry to be nothing more than the continuation of the incredibly obvious information blackout on my life while I go and get some things sorted out but sometimes it's a necessary evil.

Much like having to touch stuff right now.

    I will not be made useless
    I won't be idled with despair
    I will gather myself around my faith
    for light does the darkness most fear
    My hands are small, I know,
    but they're not yours they are my own
    but they're not yours they are my own
    and I am never broken

Blackout.

(The old/new title wasn't meant to be cheeky, it's a nod to the trolls I feed).

I ran this morning. I picked the coldest day of the year and I ran and I sang to myself because my phone stopped working the moment I opened it and then my legs stopped working shortly after that and I only had one decent fall that will come back to haunt me tomorrow.

I need new gear, some of it is tight. Hauling an extra twenty pounds on my frame is exhausting and so I'm going to try to fix it. I'd like happy mediums instead of hard lows and epic highs. I'd like it to be warm. I'd like not to have to deal with the climbing gear I found in the attic and I'd like to know that I'm doing okay from someone that has no stake in my life, financially or emotionally. I'm tired of being the little bourgeoisie princess with too much money and too much heartbreak and I'd like to blend in.

Jacob promised to teach me how to stop thinking and just be, but we weren't finished and I can't remember the steps and ironically it is like filling a thimble from a bucket instead of the other way around.

I ran down to the bench today too. I wasn't going to even tell you that because the boys will probably be pissed because they can't figure me out and Cole is an appropriate listener and yet he didn't have any answers but Jacob is too far out of my reach to try to talk to right now and so I ran through the silent cold and just tried to stop thinking.

    this is the first day of my last days
    I built it up now I take it apart
    climbed up real high now fall down real far
    no need for me to stay the last thing left I just threw it away
    I put my faith in god and my trust in you
    now there's nothing more fucked up I could do
    wish there was something real wish there was something true
    wish there was something real in this world full of you
    I'm the one without a soul
    I'm the one with this big fucking hole

Razorburned.

There are moments in my life that I can peg as the exact moment in which I changed. The moment I grew, learned something or re-adapted to my environment to be able to move ahead to the next phase. These are the moments with which I mark time, the moments that are strung together to hold the lights shining for me.

I had one of those moments last night.

My cheek burned red and hot scraping across his. His fingers traced a line down my arm to my hand, leaving goosebumps, the hair raised up from my skin like it does when I'm feeling fear or anticipation.

He laughed softly, his eyes bending into crescents, breaking into silent mirth. He waited for the goosebumps to fade and then did it again, with the same result.

Incredible, he said.

I nodded. I didn't say anything. I just watched him while I waited for the color to leave my cheeks. I waited to see if my flesh would become accustomed to his touch. I noticed I was holding my breath and so I stopped and tried to breath deeply but I know the moment I stopped thinking about breathing that I would hold it again.

He was doing it too. Holding his breath. Rocked by his effect on me and stunned by a physical response so basic and visceral it warmed his heart to the very core.

He broke the spell and apologized for burning my skin. I shook my head, willing him back under the spell but it was shattered.

He kissed me. I returned it once and then deferred. I saw his eyebrows go down and then soften and I knew he was wanting to protest but not willing to risk an argument and I liked that so he got a second kiss. One that didn't end easily. The one that took the breath I was holding and used it all up.

Then he turned and looked out the window. It was late. It had started to snow, again. The dark skies were dotted with feathery snowflakes skimming on the wind, spiraling down, landing everywhere. Covering our mistakes with a fresh coat of pure.

He walked me back down the hall and when we got to the door I started to close it and his look changed.

Why are you closing it?

I don't trust myself.

Does it matter anymore?

I closed it on him in response and slid down one side while he slid down the other and his fingertips came under the door and I grabbed them and held on.

I'm just not ready for this.

I don't even know if he heard it when I whispered it. I just know that his hand was there until I woke up this morning and then I imagine it was gone because he had to go to work or maybe he went to bed or something way smarter than sleeping on the wood floor pressed up against the door like I did. I knew when I woke up I had made the wrong choice once again, picking misery over warmth, solitude over companionship and the dark over the welcoming light of his room.

And so I called him at work and I told him I fucked up. He said knowing I was asleep on the floor bothered him worse that the rejection and that we could talk tonight if I wanted to or just let it go and everything would be alright. It was then that I realized that I can mark the moments that others grow and change too, because that was so not the old Ben that I love last night. It was some new guy that I know by heart but hardly recognized.

Things in the mirror are sometimes not as dumb as they appear.

    Maybe there will come a day
    When those that you keep blind
    Will suddenly realize
    Maybe it's a part of me
    You took to a place
    I hoped it would never go
    And maybe that fucked me up
    Much more than you'll ever know

This morning was very incredibly satisfying.

I took Ben and Joel with me, and I marched into Caleb's hotel suite, walking straight to the desk where he sat and I tossed a nice fat manila envelope in front of him, papers flying everywhere while he regarded me with his usual smug amusement, asking me what it was.

I explained to him it was a copy of his ruin, that I had similar envelopes waiting to be sent to his firm, his family and to our mutual high-end friends, and that if he really wanted me that badly, the price had just gone up. He would lose everything and if there is one thing I could ever tell you about Caleb, it's that he has worked hard to be where he is, and he is defined by his position. He enjoys his position. He won't risk his position. And so rather than calling me on my own threat, he tapped out completely.

His smile turned bitter, sliding right off his face. He asked if that was all I required to be released from him. I confirmed that I meant leaving me, my children and my friends, most of all Ben, alone, that we can all exist peacefully and he can get updates from his parents if he wants to be an absent uncle but otherwise I'm not doing this anymore and I'm not living in fear anymore.

He said he liked me better when I was fragile because that was the only part of me that had held any value for him anyway and without it I am just like everyone else.

I smiled and walked out.

Maybe that's exactly what I want, to be like everyone else.

Movies.

Strangers in a darkened room. Who were holding hands and no one saw.

    Sometimes it's hard to love me,
    Sometimes it's hard to love you too.

And of course I went to see Cloverfield this weekend. We took the kids even. Which caused a little keffufle at the ticket counter as I was informed my children don't appear to be 14. I pointed out I'm well aware. The guys were adamant about how well-versed the kids were in scary monster movies and the theater people seemed to be just thrilled. I made no apologies and we took our seats. It's a guideline, not a law.

No one told me that before the movie started I'd be gifted a viewing of the new Jon Bon Jovi video. Or that it was possibly written with Ben and I in mind. Or that when it was done I would look around and find everyone staring at me with stupid grins plastered on, nodding.

Bunch of idiots. Ben was absorbed in his blackberry pretending to be invisible. Ruth was talking my ear off. Henry was busy eating his snack while the lights were still on.

The movie was awesome once you got past the car sickness aspect. The kids enjoyed the heck out of it, especially the Very Gross Part, and we all resolved to go see the sequel. If you last right through the end credits it will all become very clear.

The other interesting moment was when Ben asked me if I was hungry. I nodded and he walked away, over toward the concessions. PJ asked what his problem was, and I asked him what he meant. PJ pointed out that he didn't wait to see what I wanted. I started to say he probably knows and then it kind of hit me all at once.

It's kind of like falling very hard and watching yourself do it. But from outside of your body.

Mornings with Poe.

Up for the dawn with coffee in hand, and a blanket for two, for the sunrise this morning felt colder than most. And inspiration came to me in the form of a fragment of old poem that I know, succinctly, by heart.

    
    But Psyche, uplifting her finger
    Said Sadly this star I mistrust
    Her pallor I strangely mistrust
    Oh, hasten! Oh, let us not linger!
    Oh, fly, let us fly, for we must
    In terror she spoke letting sink her Wings
    until they trailed in the dust
    In agony sobbed, letting sink her
    Plumes till they trailed in the dust
    Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

    I replied this is nothing but dreaming
    Let us on by this tremulous light
    Let us bathe in this crystalline light
    It's sybilic splendor is beaming
    With Hope and in Beauty tonight
    See it flickers up the sky through the night!
    Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming
    And be sure it will lead us aright
    We safely may trust to a gleaming
    That cannot but guide us aright
    Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night