Tagged.

First off, for Potor, the requisite spam love,

Rose-colored pressed meat
I like to slice you thinly
spam burgers are yum!
 
and for Ms. D, the ever deviating wonder, a tag I almost missed,

1) What's your favourite colour?

-Green, all shades but moreso the paler ones like celery, mint, celadon. There's something calming and restful and fresh about green. It also symbolizes spring and new beginnings to me.

2) Why do you do what you do? Why are you working on what you want to become?

-I'm a writer/stay at home mom. I'm hoping to give my kids a good foothold in being independent thinkers and having high self-esteem so I have spent the last two years homeschooling them. When they go to school this fall I can devote a little more attention to writing. I write because I am called to write. It's a feeling. I have to.

3) What do you want me to go away knowing about you?

-That I'm just like you. I have joys and fears and bad days and good days and I fuck up and grow up and make mistakes. That I'm not a doll. That I get tired of being evaluated based on my looks. I get tired of being looked at.

4) What is your biggest fear?

-Besides heights? Being alone. Having absolutely no one at that last hour when you need someone the most.

5) Do you always tell the truth no matter what the cost?

-No. Some truths only serve to hurt so what's the point? If it won't change the circumstances then I don't bother. But you know something? Thinking back if I had admitted to myself that I really really liked Jake and spent so much time wishing he was in Trey's place would I be in this mess? Probably, for I try to avoid regret and believe so much in things happening for a greater purpose.

This is way too deep for a Saturday morning. From spam to life's decisions, the tags are done and I love tags.

Jacob has a wedding today. He was ironing his shirt this morning, for he does indeed dress up for weddings. He wears a suit and a tie even. Oh the hotness. I can't even stand it. He shaved his face. Kill me now. That alone gives me renewed energy to attempt to jump him. We're very creative these days based on the fact that I'm wrecked.

Okay, too much information.

Byebye. Have a great weekend.

Happy overall.

Since the parade of ups and downs never ends let me say this-I love the moments when Jacob kisses my forehead, looks back at me just when I need him to to make sure I'm okay and I love that when I call him in the middle of the day to tell him I love him he sighs and smiles and I can hear it right through the phone. And the kids screaming for him all through the house when he comes back at dinner time. Jake! Jake is home! Jake! It's glorious. And it totally offsets all the other bullshit we're going through. All of it. He was worth it and oddly enough I would go through all of it again because I love him and I just wish I would have admitted there was something between us back in 1997 when we met and I couldn't stop thinking about him...for almost 10 years straight.

Yup. Love is grand.

But right now I have lilacs on my table from a walk with the kids with Ben, and he actually did leave some cake for us for later. Ben has gone for the day, off to chase women instead of babysitting them and Jake and I are going to sit on the porch tonight and sip some wine and do nothing except he promised to read to me a little. I love listening to him read aloud. We're working our way through my Hemingway collection beginning with A Moveable Feast and it sounds so beautiful when read by a male voice. Jake's voice.

TGIF.

    When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
    ~Ernest Hemingway

Blog, meet Ben.

No more drugs. It's better to feel the pain and stop pushing myself than to feel okay and overdo it and wind up with tears streaming down my face over something stupid like trying to hang up a shirt that fell off the hanger. Try that with one hand. Yeah. No personality changes, just massive amounts of frustration. Between that and the overwhelming urges to hang off the gingerbread at the peak of the roof in my dreams I chose to put away the painkillers for now.

Ben is here today hanging out (playing bodyguard) while Jake works. He's got a 4 day weekend from his cubicle at the insurance company and so he's freaking me out by telling my kids about all the hot girls he met last weekend. He's so inappropriate I can't stop laughing and it hurts so much but it's too funny to stop. I can't even stand it. My son, who is four, just told Tucker, I mean Ben, that he knows what boobies are. Mommy even has two. So there! Ben points out that Mommy has nice boobies.

Oh geez. Stop making me laugh. It hurts like hell.

My mom left this morning. She's the primary caregiver for my grandmother so she didn't want to be gone long and I have a ton of support here just from Jake, from friends, from the women's group at church who filled my deep freeze yesterday with enough food to feed Bridget's army. I think she just wanted to hug me and see for herself what condition I was in. My house has revolving doors.

And new locks. Jacob changed all the locks himself but it's not good enough. Apparently Trey is absolutely grief-stricken that he laid a hand on me. He was drunk and crazed and I'm still afraid of him and he wants to talk to me so he can apologize and make sure I'm okay. He's not allowed anywhere near me. The worst part of this is the knowledge that when he came into the house I was washing dishes, which puts me in a position where I hear nothing-running water takes away all other sounds. He knows this. I always used to wait and do it at 9 pm, once the kids are asleep because otherwise I can't hear them call. He knows this better than anyone. And he arrived at 9 pm, and I was supposed to be alone but Jacob had come by to collect his books and I had asked him to stay. And I didn't know Trey was in the house until he grabbed me.

So I have babysitters like Ben. Ben who regularly propositions me and calls me princess milf. Which Jacob tolerates only because he doesn't want to seem square. It was Ben who had the task to pick up Trey from downtown and take him back to the house where he's staying. Ben made sure there was no alcohol in that house and then ripped a strip off Trey and told him if he ever touched anyone in anger ever again BEN would kill him and that he is very lucky that Ben wasn't there too that night and that everyone will be supporting me for the next several weeks and Trey had better get his shit together. I think I stopped listening to him there. I think I pissed him off. I'm pissed off, Ben.

And now he just asked if I wanted cake because he isn't planning to save any for preacher boy. I love my friends. Really I do. Even the weird ones.

Too high to think of titles

Wow, the lucidity with which I wrote yesterday was way more than I expected to see this morning.

My mind is still addled with the lovely magnificent drugs, and I can see why people take them recreationally, because if they're this orgasmic when I'm all broken up physically, just imagine how amazing I would feel on drugs when I'm completely healed. I'm kidding.

I have blessings to count today. I got to see my own arm bending freakishly the other way, which is the highlight really. I can now claim abuse, which means the divorce will happen much faster than before, and Jake and the kids are safe. Trey's friends are supporting him without letting him off the hook. And I am not alone as I thought I was.

But then again, this is Bridget your autopilot talking. Not sure how Bridget the real girl feels because I can't find her. I think she ran away to join the circus because of her bendy arm. That's good because I don't think she's really doing so hot.

Why you should pay attention when they tell you to change the locks.

I'm going to try and be brief, typing with a sling isn't as easy as it looks.

A month ago I was ignorantly as happy as I thought I was ever going to be. Amazing how time flies and crawls all at once. And early this week I wrote that things were calming down. Boy how wrong that turned out to be.

Because last night Trey went to jail.

He came barging into the house and tossed me into a wall. Then he picked me up from the floor by the throat and smashed my head into the door, possibly more than once, I wouldn't know, the stars prevented me from counting and then the blackness took away the fear. His stupid handprint is still on my neck. And his stupid ass is in jail, because Jacob was out by the garage talking to the neighbors and heard Trey raging at me. The kids woke up. I didn't even think he was drunk but apparently he was. He didn't go after Jake, he came after me. He said he was going to kill me.

And I had defended him when Jacob asked me very very seriously if Trey had ever laid a hand on me. All he ever did aside from the frisbee plates was twist my wrist a few times to keep me in the room when I wanted to leave. I thought that was bad.

He left me with a fractured collarbone, a concussion, he dislocated my elbow and bruised my ribs and my back. I am very very frightened. I spent the whole remainder of last night and most of this morning possibly having every part of my body x-rayed and some of it cat-scanned. Tons of needles. Painkillers are so wonderful. Right now I feel nothing, and yet my body is wrecked. We are at Jake's house now. I'm learning all sorts of new phrases, like temporary prevention orders and release conditions. Sign-out against medical advice? A new favorite. And somehow I'm thrilled that I'm still alive. Amazed. I can't sleep. Ha. They told Jake to watch for personality changes. I heard the words brain injury. And battered wife. This is not who I am.

Jake showed herculean restraint by not killing Trey. I know he came so close. I was told it took three officers to get him off Trey and even then they had to threaten to arrest him too to get him to cool off. He wasn't even supposed to be there. Trey knew that. He planned it.

Charges are being laid. Apparently I don't even have to decide, the police do it. The flashing lights outside and all the people and everything scared the kids. We're seeing a domestic violence counsellor. Thankfully they had stayed in their rooms with the doors shut because they were scared by Trey's yelling and they didn't see him hurt me. Small thankful moments. Because I can't protect them from their own father and that's the scariest part. I didn't think he would hurt me ever and so I can't believe he wouldn't try to hurt them too.

After twenty years together you really think you know someone. Which is why I'm sharing this, because well, this isn't something I wanted to share but women should be aware of exactly how bad things can get, even with someone you know so well. I thought I knew Trey, but I didn't know the monster who came into the house last night. I also thought I was so tough-I was prepared to harm anyone who ever might come in and try to harm us. I never had a chance.

My mom is coming out tomorrow morning and blissfully I am going to sleep now and then take more of these drugs. Because they keep the shock of what happened from bugging me at all. Or maybe that's a defence mechanism. Either one is fine, I like it this way.

March of the inchworms.

We went for a long walk today, mostly to pick dandelions, watch ladybugs and scout out lilac and forsythia bushes that we liked. I got lots of xeriscaping ideas just from checking out yards I admired and I admit finally I really love the look of the well kept shabby chic-style white painted everything that is chipped just enough to be perfect, because it still reminds me of my grandparents' old house.

When we came home we had to pick over each other like monkeys, because we were once again covered with little green inchworm friends. I wonder how many are trapped in my ponytail. The kids loved them but all I could think of was that once again the city will be slayed by the cute little herbivores who will eat every leaf in sight, on a warpath similar to when the grasshoppers destroyed Pa's wheat that first summer on plum creek in the Little House series.

At least we can band our trees. Pa's field didn't have a chance.

They started over with nothing and they survived. I will survive and I have more than they did.

I have two beautiful kids, my violin, my spinning wheel and enough hope and courage to get. through. this.

It takes me forever to work through change. I don't move very quickly in reality and I warm up so slowly. I inch my way through life making sure I won't get squished, much like the little green worms, who seem so helpless and fragile alone but can leave trees bare-branched and reeling from their onslaught. I need an onslaught. Or something. A Bridget army! To slay all the obstacles and just let me live. Happily ever after. Because that's all I've ever wanted.

Finer points.

First up, a little blog business-email is back up on my profile! And a dedicated gmail address just for this site, because I got tired of hatemail on my personal email address and took it off for a bit. And I love mail so feel free to write me, even if it's bad. Because I will only look at it on days when it won't sting so much.

saltwaterprincess (at) gmail (dot) com

Now, I've had nice requests through email for more info. For lots of info. There are holes where information should be, because I have left things out on purpose.

I will say please don't think that Jacob's soon-to-be-ex wife is a victim in this. She didn't even live in this province. They got married back home after less than a year of dating, then she went off to school and her apartment in another city and Jacob decided to come out here when there was an opening. Yes, I know he followed me here. He loves me. It's very clear, and it always was. She came out here maybe 3 times and she's not exactly upset, she's relieved. Long distance is hard, and they weren't so much soul mates. Out of respect to her and to Jake I didn't say much about that. They made a mistake. She married him because she was afraid of not having anyone and he married her to try to forget about me.

And no I haven't talked of how Jacob and I met or details of our friendship over the past ten years because honestly, I look like an idiot when I think back. Who isn't an idiot when they're 25 and they don't know who they are quite yet? It's been a bittersweet, funny, amazing, painful ride for most of us, I think. Jake insists I wasn't an idiot but he wasn't inside my head so much back then. I can see now how things happened the way they did and why and it is my fault and I will be accountable for it.

Public declarations.

There is nothing like being formally introduced to the members of Jacob's parish during his announcements as the love of his life when they're all aware he is recently separated. Somehow it's okay to people after he explains that we danced around each other's hearts for almost 10 years. Within hours I think everyone knew our history together and we were warmly welcomed officially, as I have been to the church many times before, just not with any regularity. That will change.

So most people knew me anyway. Or they knew of me. There was such a buzz in the sanctuary when he seated us at the front I feared a throng chasing me down with a scarlet letter was imminent. But it was a friendly throng, and I got a lot of over the pew shoulder pats, and people whispering their welcomes and smiling at us. It was difficult to carry out the conversations with leaning in quietly and whispering, as my hearing loss doesn't allow much room for large areas with lots of people. I mostly smiled and said thank you, for this is a very loving, supportive group that accepts everyone. Absolutely everyone. Even me.

Jacob had a hard time quieting everyone and finally asked them if they could wait and greet us at the end of the service, for Bridget has a hearing disability and would find it easier to talk aloud in the vestibule on our way to the luncheon. I sort of was grateful and wanted to kill him all at once, for I had been happily pretending I could hear everyone up until then. And cue the fresh round of sympathetic murmurs. They were killing me with kindness.

And with that Jake was on a roll. He's intoxicating to watch, if not because of his blonde good looks and conviction with which he speaks but because he is so expressive. His eyes, his hands are gesturing and he walks around a lot, he takes people's hands and speaks to them. He works his way around. He was born for this. He looks so adorable with the bangs and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his white button down shirt that he doesn't tuck in. Jeans. Jeans in church. Mom, take notice.

The lunch afterwards was so fun, with the men serving pancakes and strawberry shortcake and the children passing out nosegays of flowers to all the mothers. We all felt like queens. And I believe the oldest mother there was 93, bless her heart. She told me to be happy, for Jacob is a 'real catch'. Then she giggled, for he has that effect on women.

I assured her I was so very happy. And she squeezed my hand and said Good, dear. Good.

We left the park at suppertime, still stuffed, but we had planned to meet Trey at the house for dinner and bedtimes and Sundays are Jacob's busiest day so we left him behind. Trey brought flowers and wished me a Happy Mother's Day and produced these painted rocks that the kids had created back home at the beach. So cool! We're going to put them in the rock garden in the backyard today. We made a really light supper together and he read stories to the kids while I cleaned up. Once they were in bed he left and I had a few minutes to myself to read, which was nice actually. Private moments don't come by easily and the day was so free of the stress I feared it would be full of. Relief.

When Jake finally came back we made tea and sat in the porch and talked for a few hours. About everything, about nothing and about the day. It was surprising, enlightening and comforting. We've got a groove now finally and everything has ratcheted back to normal emotionally.

What a nice day.

Full day.

The kids are back, full of new habits and slightly wild from running free in the sun on the fields back home. Well, mostly sun. They played hard, loved up their cousins and didn't miss me at all, or so I thought, until everyone burst into tears the moment they plowed through the door at arrivals. So they missed me a lot but they did have fun.

They come back to a happy mom, a mom who pulled herself together finally. A rested, fed and loved mom. So Happy Mother's Day all around.

I'm going to church now. Jacob wants me to be there for the Mother's Day service and brunch and secretly I love watching him preach to a full house. So I'm putting on a pretty dress and my favorite shawl and got the kids all dressed up and we're going to sit in the front row. I'm nervous. Weird. Excited? Maybe. I can't quite place this feeling.

Have a great day!

Random Friday.

I'm sucking the life out of my last afternoon of uninterrupted writing and these random thoughts keep flying into my head so I'm going to park them here. Random. Unedited, uncensored, unrelated and unhinged. Bridget at her most gloriously uncomposed. Love her or hate her. Tie me Up! Tie me down! But this is not today's entry, this is nonsense. Go here to read today's entry.

   1. I want a life-sized angel statue for the garden. Not because it's spiritual or significant, but because the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was so striking to me. Of course, it was a cemetary. Can't win them all.
   2. I was following links last night on blogs and came across a stack of 20s or 30s portraits of women and girls posing with the moon. I can't find the blog now but the pictures were so neat. Help anyone?
   3. Do ladybugs bite really? We have so many, and they seem harmless.
   4. I think I almost killed Jacob last night. Everything is new and different and yet perfect. I loved it. He loved it. He has no hang ups. Everything goes. Anything goes. Shhhh. I can't stop thinking about it. Makes me want to run down to the church and throw myself on his desk.
   5. I finished the filet piece for my mom last night and now I have to send it overnight. This is going to be spendy and I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped it and it was the first piece of lace that ever came out really nice before blocking. Damn.

I think I'm going to find 5 o'clock somewhere and toast them and try to reel in my brain before I lose it. It's the Friday afternoon euphoria, the calm before the storm. The ever-lovin' madness, folks.