Let me tell you about this day.

I'm sitting here tonight with bare feet dangling in front of a wide open window, enjoying the lights. Watching people work and make dinner and watch tv. No one seems to close their blinds here. It's entertainment for urban dwellers maybe. It is akin to apartment living for me, since in a strange way you are never alone and suddenly I find myself seeking crowds and strangers to talk to and I'm stopping for conversations with people because it's nice to have the company. The children are much the same way, shouldering a new kind of mature confidence, making their way without a hint of shyness or uncertainty. I wish they could be the sort of naive barefoot hooligan that I was as a child, without the sophistication that they seem to possess now to the point where I find myself chasing after them, reaching out to grab Henry's hood so that he doesn't get so far ahead of me that he'll end up on the wrong side of the skytrain/seabus/elevator doors.

Phew. That's an all-day job.

And...who am I kidding? These are our children. It stands to reason they will not miss a moment, and are introspective and alert and clever to the point of astonishment from those around them who stand seven times as worldly. What am I supposed to do? I can't turn back time. I can't change the life they have led thus far. We just keep going.

Today was the mother of all days off, that's for sure.

When I opened my eyes the city was already coming to life. We left the blinds open the night before. All white bed. So luxurious. A slow morning. No alarms, no concrete plans, just some ideas bantered around in the weeks before. This was the first no work day with no horrendous pressure since possibly last fall. We managed to see and do so much my legs ache like the dickens and I'm just now making us our late afternoon coffee (it's after nine) because once we did get going it was tough to stop.

I found the sky train interesting, as well as the sea bus. Louis Vuitton and the yacht club were quite amazing too. Boats. Incredibly luxurious boats. I could live there quite easily. I sometimes feel like I was two different mixes poured into one princess mold and shaken up so hard every now and then when I find a hard little ball of unblended mix I like to savour the sheer purity of it.

Sometimes those little bits taste like French designers and American yachts. (I'm sorry, I can't help it. The other bits all taste like dust bunnies and bent bobby pins and homemade chicken soup.)

They argue something awful these days too, those two princess-mixes and I can't seem to make peace for everyone. I can't seem to figure out who to side with. I can continue on this path, and the kids grow up city-friendly and capable and worldly and somewhat spoiled but without abandon, or I can choose the other path and raise two perfect humans with wonderful childhood memories and happy animals and a life that defines washing a car as turning on your hose and working for the next hour and getting wet instead of passing someone your keys and a crisp handful of bills and reading the newspaper while they do it instead of you.

Yeah. It is a choose-your-own-adventure novel, princess edition and I'm too tired to read the last part so I'm purposefully going in circles, trying out different actions and alternate endings. It's going to be a big surprise and frankly, Bridget only likes the good surprises and I'm rambling, am I rambling? I have no idea.

I just know that when I was walking along the path this afternoon, a voice very close to my ear (but on the inside of my head, not the outside) said, breathe deeply, princess. You know that smell. That's seaweed and you are home.

I know that voice.

He came with me.

And Ben noticed before I did.

Sea level.

We're here.

At last.

Way up high in the sky in a place that is floor to ceiling windows. All windows everywhere and if I walk in a circle I can look at the ocean and the mountains at the same time and then I can peek out the other way, towards the Coach store, L'Occitane and Tiffany's. I plan to visit all of them tomorrow.

It wasn't as smooth a trip as I had hoped, with more than a few heartbreak-generating bumps in the road and some very close near misses and a whole lot of Oh-my-fuck-what-are-we-doings but we're here and we brought the sun and you can buy milk in glass bottles and I walked through a bamboo forest and Ben already took me to the gigantic Tom Lee music store. Figures.

It's pretty amazing. Here I can dress how I want, as long as I have a sweater for the ocean breeze and an umbrella for the freaking two-minute giant raindrop-carrying rainstorms. Here I can laugh at the weather where we used to live, because it's twenty degrees warmer today.

I've been here before, and still as we were walking this afternoon, I said to Ben, why the heck did we live where we lived when there are places like this out there?

He just smiled.

I think he's happy now that we're here and I know we're happy that we're here and right now my list of things to do just tomorrow is as long as my arm plus my leg plus my other leg and then continued in the memo app on my Blackberry and I'm sure tonight will bring some sort of epic sleep that will revisit the dead and then everything will be complete.

I'm totally wired.

And Ben is a prince, an honest to goodness, card-carrying prince.

Everything is gone.

Wtf. This house is huge. Don't know how I feel right now.
~via BlackBerry.

Progress

Three-fifths done. Everyone has tattoos and they're singing musicals. It's a bit surreal.
~via BlackBerry.

Moving day!

It's Monday. Truck is here. Busy bees!! One whole hour sleep. Place your bets to see when I crash. :) xox b
~via BlackBerry.

Still packing!

Odds are I'm updating via Twitter. Be nice and follow me please. In 12hrs this is all a memory.
~via BlackBerry.

Saturday update, the boxed chaos edition.

Garage and workshop are all cleaned out. The last of three loads of laundry are in the dryer and then I can fold all of it. I am on my second giant cup of coffee and I have a pounding headache. On the upside? NINE HOURS OF SOLID SLEEP last night, something I haven't seen since around last Halloween.

I packed more dishes, more clothes and more guitars today. Ben did the outdoor, freezing cold and heavy things. The children walked the dog and went to the store for me for bread. For chocolate bars too.

Do you think the headache is from too much sleep? If so, I will embrace the pain. I wish every night was that effective.

No music today. There hasn't been time. Up until now I've been alone and I packed the stereo and I couldn't reach the network (and the music from my computer) because it just wouldn't work properly (Lochlan has since fixed it) so I figured out how to drag the tiny(forty songs) music folder on my laptop into VLC and it would play a loop and then I would have some soothing company for a bit but it's okay now because I have Ben home and he has open arms for me and very long hugs and even longer kisses and he's taking over the hard parts and keeping everyone super calm and instead of rushing around he is pacing us and reminding me to sit down and finish my coffee. To go to sleep already. Not to worry. You don't have to do everything, Bridget. Not anymore.

He's like a giant, bearded Xanax.

It's awesome.

But I am out of coffee now. I ate a granola bar. Now I have to go and fold laundry, put it all away and then start pulling it out again. We're almost through here.

Also awesome.

More than you realize.

Hallo, Ben.

Show your face
Living in the shadows like you got no name
Enough to make a little girl go insane
Be my guest to let it out tonight
It's okay
I know all about the little games you play

He's here.

Thank fucking God. I swear I was ready to just curl up and die. Three months was three lifetimes, I'm a cat. I believe I have around two lives left.

That isn't quite right.

I'm actually a book on a shelf and some days I'm a biography and other days horror and sometimes a Harlequin romance. Sometimes I'm an instruction manual in a language you don't understand and other times I'm a page ripped out of the back of a minigolf score book.

Ben says I should say I'm a porkchop sandwich. Boys are weird. That's okay though. This princess is pretty weird too.

Today we ran around like headless chickens. Well, first I woke up and smacked the snooze alarm and then turned over and saw Ben sleeping there. It wasn't a dream. He is real. He's home, even though home is temporary because we move in mere days and home seems to be all boxes and bare walls.

We went and looked all of the important things that required both our presences and we went to McDonald's too. We walked the dog and stopped for coffee and Ben drove and so I didn't have to and I talked and he signed for things and then he lifted things and I told him where to put them down. I made a schedule for the rest of the week and he only added a couple of things.

He is very sad to be leaving this house and I'm being protective of his feelings because he didn't have the past three months here like I did to make his peace with leaving it. If I had any faith that it would hold together I would have had it picked up and moved with us, or rather, we would have still flown out and the house could have traveled slowly down the highway, bookended by signs proclaiming 'caution: wide load'.

But it wouldn't. I could see it shift slightly and crumple onto itself, windows blowing out and porches collapsing.

That cannot happen. Instead we sold someone a lot of colored glass and wood and character and we're going to go look for a new castle and hell, yes, I will write about it because Ben listened and since he is my number one fan I will tell it as it happens because he listened, I said. Are you listening? I asked to leave here. I said I was done. Done with the memories in fingerprints long faded against paint I could never change. Done with walking into rooms and seeing Jacob sitting in chairs we don't even have anymore. Done with very high tiny windows that can't be sufficiently cleaned and done with the endless sparrows that sit on the branches outside my bedroom windows and make so much damn wonderful noise.

Done. Bridget's done. Time to run, plan escape and have some fun.

I can't do it anymore. I'm not a Prairie girl but I gave it eight years and frankly though I love the big open sky and endless flat fields of sunflowers and canola I need that ocean bookend to help me find my way.

Whatever that is.

No, I know what is is. It's having the water to navigate by. It's smelling the salt air constantly to keep alert and awake. It's healing. It's fucking Bridget, baby. All the way.

Things may get sporadic posting-wise, though we have wi-fi the whole way to the west coast, we probably won't have time or energy left to think, let alone post. I said we, didn't I?

I have a helper now. He's home. He's big and he's silly and he's funny and he's hot as a five-alarm fire and he's going to throw in some suggestions and maybe I'll follow them and maybe I'll rebel but maybe we'll share the page every now and then. Maybe we'll start having fun now.

You get to come too. As usual, just don't ask so many questions.

Awake on my airplane.

This is seriously not a day to have Filter songs stuck in my head but as usual I have no choice in the matter. It can always be worse.

The neighborhood looks like hell. This city is second to none in clawing back to a decent summer from a spring that is all mud and garbage. I want to wash my face because my skin feels awful. I want to powerwash the entire property top to bottom but instead I'm going to walk away from it in less than a week, with the rotten leaves still protecting the gardens and mud all over everything.

I still remember the week we moved in and heading outside to dig up the begonias to keep indoors in pots over the winter because I didn't know they were a hardy variety that would survive this zone. I had a ball. Playing in my own garden was cathartic. I could rip out all the plants if I wanted, because it was mine now. While I did that Cole was exploring and he found a stack of glass inserts that go in the screen doors in cold weather. We put them all up and suddenly we were warm.

We learned this house the hard way and I'm leaving one single skeleton key and no instructions whatsoever, because it's fun.

Oh pish tosh. I left the alarm manual. We didn't even get that much. Oh and new appliances, since I'm still a little bitter that the stove stopped working Thanksgiving weekend. It's a chance you take and I'm still glad we took it.

And I had high hopes of coming in here and regaling you with more Jacob-stories because the emails from yesterday show me you're still in love with him too and you like the stories I share about him and frankly, there are millions I never told, but might someday soon. Only not today because today I am hit and miss with tears and over sixty boxes in and today we crossed the threshold of packing around living to living around packing, because I am no longer comfortable with the lack of space and everything being taped shut. It's just not great but in thirty hours the biggest longest nightmare is over, because Ben will be home. And he won't be going back alone this time.

And boy oh boy does Bridget need a hug.

All that you can't leave behind.

When the doorbell rang I remember feeling that little undercurrent thrill that jolted through me every time Jacob was within reach.

Cole threw open the front door and Jacob was standing there in the porch, smiling. He looked around and then ducked through the doorway and smiled at me.

This your castle, princess?

All teeth, he was. All big smiles and hands and unruly blonde waves and the beard that only served to picture-frame his whole presence in blonde.

Cole laughed in a forced way and offered to show him around. He nodded and they disappeared down the hall to the basement steps first, because all proper men in this house have to verify the existence of the workshop before they'll spend a moment here otherwise. This one had shelves and places drilled to stand rows of screwdrivers and a huge worktable built right in.

I waited outside in the backyard, watching the kids run on their grass, enjoying the fenced-in safety of the yard.

Soon a hand touched my back, completing the circuit of electricity, making me jump. I turned and smiled in the cold sun, for it was October and it seemed warm until you realized you were slowly freezing solid.

Teeth again and those pale blue eyes. Jacob approved.

You going to be happy here?

He said it in a low voice and frowned suddenly.

Yes, like you said, it's my castle. I love this house.

What if nothing changes?

Then it will become my prison.

Cole came outside then, and I watched Jacob's face transform into forced joviality, his expression hard. I'm sure Cole never missed a thing. He would tell me about it later and he did.

Jacob's hand went away but he covered it by rubbing my shoulder. Cole smiled with his wicked cold eyes.

I think she'll be happier here, don't you think, preacherman?

If we all make an effort, yes.

(Oh, tension. Bring me a knife and I'll slice enough for each of us.)

Nothing changed and Cole didn't have much time here after all. He died less than a year after we moved in. And then Jacob moved in and eighteen months later Bridget's unhappy drove him to disappear too and finally Bridget's unhappy led the universe to alter course in order to protect everybody and that's why we are moving west again.

Surprisingly Ben, the dark horse finisher and outside longshot (or longshit, as PJ so lovingly calls him) has lived here the longest.

That's good, don't you think? I think it's good. I think it says a lot for us. I think maybe we'll be okay. Instead of being imprisoned by memories and held captive by long hard winters, extreme weather and total darkness we'll be made lighter. We'll have a chance to live instead of living around and through the memories when given tiny, brief chances to do so.

I remember also the day that I told Ben that Jacob was moving in. That I was moving on with my life because I deserved to be happy, didn't he think?

You're not going to be happier, Bridge. Somehow I just see things getting worse before they get better.

Instead of seeing that as prophetic I instead chose to chalk it up to Ben's jealousy and I dismissed the comment, letting it hang between us, a privacy curtain that would serve to drive a wedge we left in place until years had passed.

I won't make that mistake again.

Ben comes home in two more sleeps and he is nervous about the move, while I become more and more excited. He's a funny guy in that he's moved enough in his life that it triggers a sadness that he works hard to cover with being brusque and difficult but I'm sure it's bringing up everything he's ever felt that makes Ben who he is.

He's mine, that's who he is. And soon we'll be living life on our own terms with the mountains and the sea as a backdrop and the warmth to insulate us from the past. We have all the character we'll ever need to build, we're going to live.

Chapter three. It begins now.