Squares.

Piet Mondrian moved to Paris and threw away his perfectly good art career for some sort of poseur Cubist avant-garde bullshit Abstract movement which is a travesty if you've seen his former work and a walk back into memory lane if you've seen the latter. When I say 'our time' I mean the early nineteen hundreds, of course but just about every second Canadian public library or community college I have ever seen had some version of the red, blue and yellow squares on it and he became famous but miserable because he left behind the love of his life in the netherlands and so of course-

Bridget. He's pinching the bridge of his nose again. Headache, probably. Can't be me. 

You asked what was on my mind!

Seriously? That was on your mind? 

Yes, I saw a museum tote bag on the pen shop site when I was looking for quink.

Oh, does this mean you're going to place that order I asked you to place before Christmas, finally?

Probably. 

Is that a yes or a no?

Depends. 

He looks weary and wary at the same time. I swear, he and Trey (Cole) are the only two men on earth who can pull that off, which mean it's not them it's me.

On? 

If they have the quink. 

Oh, I'll bite. What is quink? 

A very not waterproof ink that's great for painting, as you can go in with bleach and make these crazy sepia drawings on top of the ink layer. It's so cool-

So buy some and get me my order, please. 

Yessir.

Without being belligerent about it, especially since I know you'll tack on four hundred dollars worth of things to it. 

He is a raging minimalist. I mean, I am too except for art supplies and handbags and even the handbags have waned from the time I wanted to fill the top shelf in my closet, carrying a different one every day and now, because I gave them all away and there are five remaining. 

Art supplies take up one rolling cart and....the stables. It's a little out of control but save for the pastels that were handmedowns, I use everything. So adding a bottle of quink to the mix isn't going to mean I have to rearrange or anything, it just means I am adventurous.

No, I think I have my list down to fifty dollars. 

Well then add to it. You never buy anything. 

I don't have to. You do. 

I mean we send you out for a treat and you come home with things for us.

You need things-

Bridget, you're missing the point. 

No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that I have what I need. 

He turns to me abruptly. You do?

The meaning has suddenly changed. 

Yes. 

He smiles. Go place the order then. Add what you want.

Will you draw with me tomorrow?

Maybe. If you like.

Okay maybe just the Horseshoe Baes.

Today is going to be a productive but restful day. 

Today I will start to learn to trust my process.

Today will be good. 

It's not much but it's a start. We also did deep breathing out in the gazebo, in the rain to clear out the negative creeping overnight thoughts and blossom positively into the new day. They're throwing everything at this now, and I humour them while I learn.

Because I am a skeptic.

Because I am difficult.

Because I am afraid.

 I started off right. Coffee. Helping with laundry. Seeing Ruth off to work and Henry out of bed (since his school has going all online he likes to sleep as long as he can and work until dinner. Man, if I were him I'd be up a six and done by noon or one.). Talking to Caleb about some financial things (he is very proud) and ordering a book off Amazon (which I will share if it's good), preordering Jon Foreman's album Departures (so good already) and planning a day of sewing as our mask supply sucks and painting, because I should do more art and less mindless reading and fretting. I want to be a creator, not a consumer. I want to treasure and curate, not collect. 

I want to streamline life and work in things like this, though I daresay being told to breathe while I listen to bells and the rain all around me is a fun way to spend thirty minutes and it probably helped my headache (now on day four #&$#%*@) since I hold my breath when I'm in pain (so always) and I'm trying to learn to be a tea drinker but it's not happening and I always go back to coffee just like I'd probably be a wine drinker but I always go back to bourbon.  I want things that make me think and be surrounded by people who are good for me without being focused on me instead of themselves. 

Okay. So far so good. What's next for today? 

***

Lochlan asks me if I'm ready to get back into hockey. 

Uh. Maybe. It's weird though and I hate the empty arenas. (Who am I kidding? YES.)

That is weird. Usually you hate the noise.

Hockey without noise is just sad.

Right?

HOWEVER. 

Oh no, what are you plotting, Peanut?

If I grab a million from Caleb I can get Chara for next year. Let's start our own team. Seriously. The Horseshoe Bay wavebreakers or something. I'll need time to think of a proper name. 

It's expensive to mount a franchise. 

Yes but Caleb has money so I'll just get more of that.

What position will you play?

Pfft. I'll be the coach, of course.

Joel, you left too soon, dude.

Chara what now? 

I took a hockey break and the Bruins are captainless now and Zdeno Chara's gone to the Capitals for $750k? Seriously? What? No, hahahah. 2021 is not going to be this weird. Too much in six days. Epiphany indeed.

Not a recipe but an ode to my bed.

 Today the boys are making a big breakfast together (Thursday bonding exercise) and I am sewing madly at the machine, making flannel patchwork cloth that can then be made into other things. I got a lot of complaints yesterday for calling myself crazy, by people who don't know me who said I should know better than to use that word because it's a stigma and the boys should know better because it's disrespectful. 

It's hyperbole, and I know what I am and they are nothing of the sort but thanks, I love being corrected about myself and my family by people who have never met us. Look, I can send you a great list of blogs to read if this one doesn't float your boat. Hit me up. 

Jerks. 

But anyway, there are hashbrowns baking and bacon frying and eggs sizzling on the flat top part of the oven and there is toast in shifts and someone set the table and August (I thought he was a coffee snob. I was wrong. Dude's straight up a food snob) is juicing fresh oranges because the big jug of orange juice in the fridge is apparently not good enough for this meal. Caleb's (!) making a fruit salad and Ben is eating as much as he is cooking, as he is in charge of mushrooms and peppers and onions. 

PJ poured me some champagne. God bless all of them.

This makes me want to go to the diner and get a Denver sandwich. I don't even know if the diner does takeout. We only go to the sushi place, the Chinese place, very rarely now McDonalds and that's it. 

No Thai. No Vietnamese. No Mexican on the regular and this is freaking sad. We're all great cooks but it counts when you don't have to cook yourself and no I'm not complaining, for pete's sake stop looking for something to bitch at me about, it's just that I miss certain things. 

I don't miss cooking this morning. I was going to make cheese toast and Lochlan decided we should all cook together. And then he sent me to sit this one out, because I take the lion's share of cooking and it's like running a mess tent most of the time and complaints only get you more of whatever you hate but that's okay too. 

Looking forward to this brunch as it's been almost an hour and breakfast for me is way overdue and my blood sugar goes for a long drive in a too-hot car, facing the wrong way and is already vaguely sick. I wonder if I go back to bed if they'll bring it up to me? Honestly that's where everything tastes best.

It stopped raining for a few hours.

It was a good day. 

PJ and Lochlan and I tackled the bathrooms and the kitchen, doing a big heavy cleaning that hadn't been done since the day before Christmas Eve. I had planned to do a quick cleanup but then never did and this week is catch-up week for sure as we work away at a long list. Spring cleaning here starts at the first of each year. By eleven I was scrubbing at the corners of the windowsills and the undersides of chairs.

Then, black forest ham sandwiches with sauerkraut and oranges on the side. My favourite right now. Henry took a short break from his university work and he and I watched the first episode of season two of The Promised Neverland over lunch.

I should probably wait until all eleven episodes are out so I don't need to wait but I also don't want it to be spoiled so I'm thinking.

I watched it again after dinner (that was steak and cauliflower and Caesar salad) with Sam and Matt. The dog howled the whole time (there are characters he apparently doesn't like) and thank heavens for subtitles. Everyone likes this show, probably because it moves way faster and is far more heartwarming than Attack on Titan, the other show we are slogging through right now, so far behind we'll never catch up. 

The other good news is that Jon Foreman announced his next solo album is coming in February. 

The last piece of good news is that Joel's notes don't cross the line to casual, so I can't figure them out at all, but August took a look and he said he understands it. 

So I'm crazy?

Bridget, we're all a little crazy. That's how we get through life. 

But am I unforgivably crazy? I ask, voice wavering. Rather be eaten by a demon, at this point. 

Never, Sam says with authority, and I figure he should know.

It goes: A Change of Seasons, Apparitions and then Strange Days. That last one's the hardest, by far.

I feel like I'm losing for money
I feel like I'm losing for free
I feel older than the dead angel on my shoulder claims to be

I feel like we're drinking and driving
I feel like we're running into walls
I feel like swimming in your apathy as a kind of parody
For miles and miles, miles 

I feel like somebody's missing
I think that somebody's missing
I think somebody's missing 

Tried the song on this morning, though I'm forced to sing along because I don't know the tab on piano and it's too much of a rollercoaster ride to sing to be able to focus on anything else anyway. My spirit animal looms large today, singing comfortingly into the cavern of my skull, enjoying the acoustics of my pickled brain. The chorus, oh, my heavens this is why God invented music for me, I swear to Him. 

And to Matthew Good, God of my emotional lows because dammit, he's a litmus test for whether or not things are working and clearly I can feel this so bad I guess they're not. Or maybe Lochlan has asked them to back off a little in case my brain doesn't bounce back and he doesn't recognize me here, like this. He can appreciate the late-stage Radiohead-worthy guitar solo but then the final lines ruin him. 

(I feel like somebody's missiiiiiiiiiing.)

Right. That would be Jacob but the spectre of Jacob is still right here and excuse me, I thought someone was going to fix this and did I go through all of that punishment to my liver and my memories for nothing? Please don't tell me I did.

I'm taking this song for a bit, honey.

No you're NOT.

Then skip ahead to the next. I'm not going to let you fall today.

I press the button. 

Apparitions begins and my whole face splits open in a grateful grin as his own face falls apart in response.

Jake leans down and speaks softly into my ear. I think I'm going to give him a break and just take off for a bit. 

I reply without looking at him, my eyes not leaving Lochlan. Don't go. 

Lochlan says evenly, fighting for composure. I'm not going anywhere, Peanut. Why won't you believe me?

A break in the clouds.

Early this morning and I am lying in the Devil's arms, who is up on one elbow with me tucked in against him and he won't stop staring at me and I keep closing my eyes and just drifting away, completely oblivious to everything, the drugs running liquid quicksand through my veins. He loves this. They love fucked-up Bridget. I just love carefree no-worry Bridget. She is so laid back. I'd like to be like her someday. I just have to navigate the side effects which are the ever-present brain fog, no emotions at all (even happiness or contentedness), an exceedingly dry mouth and super harsh dizziness/motion sickness. The moment I feel like I have to throw up I am done with everything and so later, if he lets me go, I will make a plea for the half-dose or whatever's next. This isn't sustainable and that's part of the problem. 

But for right now, if I close my eyes and stay very still I don't feel like I'm moving. I just feel warm and safe and adored. 

He bends his head down and kisses my forehead. Want to go back to sleep? 

No. I need to get going. 

There's nothing you have to do today. 

I laugh. You don't know my schedule. 

Sure I do. At six this morning, you're going to make love to me. At seven, I will make love to you. At eight we can make love to each other, and at nine we will call for some coffee and croissants to be delivered up. Room service. 

Who will bring that? 

PJ, if I give him bribes. 

Good luck with that. 

I'll go make coffee and bring it up, then. 

No, I have to go. It's Monday. 

It's a braincation. Stay. 

I'm calling Joel again. I want my files before he skips town without a word.

We have them. 

Okay, rewind that. You what?

We already have all of his notes. 

What are you talking about? 

August went and got them and spoke with Joel. August will be spending the next several years upgrading his credentials and going back to school. We have an agreement. 

You're creating a live-in psychologist.

Psychoanalyst. He already has his masters. This will just be a top-up of his education and then he has free reign to be your official replacement for Joel. 

Out of the frying pan, don't you think?

No, I think August has proven himself over the years. He is not in love with you. 

Who told you that?

He did. 

He always was a good liar. 

I believe him.

You shouldn't. 

Why not?

Maybe I'm in love with him.

Well of course, or he wouldn't be here. And yes he's in love with you, but it's not in a dangerous way.

My head explodes at Caleb's admission, and this plan. If I could feel happy on these medications, boy would I right now. Does Lochlan know about this plan?

It was his idea. He came to me with it to see if I thought it had legs. 

Does August want to do this? 

Get dressed and go see him, he can answer the rest of your questions. Caleb smiles and leans forward, kisses my bottom lip instead of my forehead, and gets up, heading into the bathroom for a shower, closing the door. Caleb has never once in his life suggest I go to August, let alone considered him an ally. 

But here's the army. Working together. Mounting a strong offensive against the ghosts. I dress quickly and head back up to my room to see Lochlan first. Then I'll go see August. 

What the fuck. Christmas day came so late this year. But it still got here in time.

The value of closure.

Another decent nights sleep. Six hours unbroken and I feel a lot better. I have eaten breakfast. I have had a full-nights hug. Didn't have to look over my shoulder in the dark. Have secured four extra games of checkers with the boys who remained near but stayed out of the firing range just in case they needed to run shifts (spoiler: they didn't). 

I've discovered I really enjoy sitting down on the big wrap-around steps curving down to the back of the house, the ones that are wide and go from the upper hallway down to the patio doors. The overhead light is a yellow-warm  and bright and it's not uncomfortable at all and the board goes on a step by itself and a tall person can sit on the step above it, back against the wall, feet out sideways and still reach down. And I can lean forward and reach up from my step. I might bring the meditation pillows in from the gazebo just for extra comfort but they are big and hold a whole person and it might be worse instead of better. I can open some of the doors to hear the rain if it's not too cold and I can figure out how to beat the boys at a game we've been playing since the treehouse days. That's what it reminds me of, sitting in the hallway taking off snow gear in time for dinner. It's a safe memory and so for now it can linger.

I have won a few games, too. As many games as the number of decades we've been playing. 

I called Joel. I think he's trying to extricate without incident. I think what he's trying to do is ghost me but just so there's no mistake in who's dropping who I left a grownup voicemail detailing our history briefly and thanking him for continuing to help and to try to be a friend long after it was clear we probably never should have met. That shit happens and life isn't pretty and I hope he is happy and has what he needs. I didn't make any offers to be here if he ever needed us or any apologies for being the patient that destroyed his career or even for fighting him tooth and nail for the entirety of our relationship on every single thing. Not all friendships are perfect, especially one built the way we built it. It wasn't supposed to be a friendship and we tried way too hard but now it's done. 

I'm not mourning him. I'm relieved. I almost wish I could call my ghosts and wrap up our relationships and then they would move on as well but at the same time they are woven right through me and so the fight goes on. Maybe I'll fight harder in 2021. Maybe I won't fight at all and move toward acceptance and they will too. 

Maybe those pigs will just fucking fly. 

We'll see. 

For now the drugs are good and plentiful, there's no ghosts around that I can see and Lochlan has taken to becoming my human blanket, including while we made omelettes and plot to conquer this rainy season upon us.

The girl who cried Wolves.

 I don't know how coherent or sense-making this will be today. I'm swimming in an ocean of klonopin-molasses that is my brain today and it feels so nice not to be anxious. I will reply to emails eventually. I watched them roll in while I lay on the kitchen floor behind the woodstove, where you walk into the hall past the kitchen, high traffic so they wouldn't miss me, phone stacked neatly on ipad as I do when I'm about to go somewhere. I figured Lochlan could put them upstairs if I was taken away or put down or whatever you do with your broken pets in this day and age but here I am. 

I already said sorry for wasting their time and for freaking everyone out but I panicked and they all said more than once that it's better to do what I did then yo do what I usually do which is to stop talking altogether and just implode but I don't know if this is better if the result is the same.

Also fun fact for his 2021 New Year resolution Joel gave me up, I guess. He refused to come out. Refused to help Lochlan on the phone. Refused Sam's plea for a little help now and we'll sort out the hurt feelings later and in the background the whole time I am yelling AWESOME. DON'T COME BACK and then August took over and he and Ben and Lochlan sat down on the floor and we played checkers until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more and I slept for twenty hours. I didn't sleep at all New Years Ever. I was passed around and then fought over and by the time dawn broke I hadn't eaten, hadn't closed my eyes except in ecstasy and was playing with a fire I didn't know how to control and it caught up with me. 

Had a facetime with the Russian doctor who was very kind but due to covid he did not come out but he called the pharmacy. And he's called back twice since. He knows damn well I can turn him way up on my phone but I can't understand him or turn him up in person, with a mask. With that accent. It's impossible.

I wasn't going to hurt myself but I was hurting so badly I sounded my own alarm. I keep dodging pills. I hate taking things. And then I see what happens when I don't, like yesterday, but as I said I missed my pills, two whole nights sleep and a solid meal at any point in there and it caught up so fast I swear to God if I look behind me now it's right there, matching my pace, reaching out with both hands to grab me and I hate it and I wish it would go away. 

(And Lochlan is not a jerk. Gosh. He tries so hard and I give him nothing but shit for it. I'm sorry to him too. We make jokes about me having to request things like scissors, the can opener, tylenol, trips down to the beach, I don't know, anything that should be childproofed and yet it's not a joke and it's not funny at all and I understand how lucky I am to have someone like him to be here because he told me Thursday afternoon to fucking cool it and, as always, I didn't listen.)

(For those saying it's impossible to write on heavy drugs. HAHAHAHA You haven't met me. I have the world's greatest drug-metabolism ever and this has been part of the problem forever. I can run a marathon on this shit and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.)

(For those saying I need therapy. Yes, I have it. It doesn't do much and it isn't them, it's me.)

(For those hating, you can take a fucking day off please.)

You're all the things I've got to remember.

When I was fourteen, sometime long before Lochlan decided he couldn't carry history for us and sometime before Caleb decided he now had an open door to continue the abuse he started when I was ten years old Aha released their number one smash hit that still sees people stop and smile when they hear it even now. 

But today was the first time I heard it (I don't have the original, I have an unplugged version from a couple of years ago) and it made me cry, here as I wake up early and start laundry and un-decorating, drinking coffee and playing music before the whole house wakes up as is my favorite time of day because it's the only time I can let go in the music and my brain takes a break and lets my heart drive for a while and no one expects or needs anything at all. 

And then I realized what I need and the music hurts all the more. 

Happy New Year. 

Wait:

! 

There. Almost forgot the false enthusiasm.

It feels sad this year. It feels like it's full of too much wishful thinking and frightening unknowns. It feels like it might be more of the same and yet less of everything. It feels weird and alien and I took down the 2020 calendar and I dearly loved that year, because my children were home and safe, my boys were home and safe and everyone in the greater universe backed the fuck off so I could catch my breath but then I still couldn't keep up and I feel completely helpless when I watch people flout the rules and then completely despondent when they don't and I worry it will be like this forever. 

Only once or twice did I worry that we might get sick. Only once or twice did I need to drop what I was doing and leave an area. Once in Canadian Tire and once in IKEA. I never returned to either place. I have a tendency to go out and run my errands the moment the stores open. I do the grocery shopping at seven in the morning. I go without and I wait and I figure out other ways and I've cooked so much and we've dropped even takeout for the most part just because of the traffic. I drink too much and pass it off as nerves and I think too much and pass it off as grief and no one can fix it. 

No one. 

Jake could have and I don't know why. I don't understand why no one else can help me, why no one else can make me feel safe and secure now and even if he walked through the door he wouldn't be able to pull that off these days because I don't trust anybody anymore and that's weirdly his fault and not Caleb's, not Lochlan's, not Trey's by any means (Cole, that's Cole. His nickname returned in a fond wistfulness and won't go away now with the boys and it sort of freaks me out) and not Ben's. I never trusted Ben, he made sure to be the crazy friend my whole life and even that was a lie as he turned out to be the most sturdy, trusted foundation I think I ever had at any point in my life and it's hard to separate us now for completely different reasons than it used to be.

This is why they say stay, wait for me to get up, wait and we'll go down and have coffee. Don't go in there, Bridget. Remember the blast? There's nothing left that's safe in your head and so just stick with us. And I do but then in the dark they go digging through the papers that coat the landscape and dig up the smallest things and rip them out of my arms, changing them into something else and I have to write it down on a new piece but there's nowhere to put it, no way to organize it into a system because all of that is gone. 

In the dark they turn me into a little monster and if I fight they gaslight me all to hell and back.

It's okay, Bridge, they'll tell me, a reassurance pouring all over the floor but for the holes. I watch them and it looks ridiculous.

No it's not okay. None of this is okay. 

I can't do this without them, Bridge. This is your army for a reason.

Then you can't be mad that they're here, Lochlan. 

I don't know what to feel anymore. What can I give you? What can we do? 

Bring him back because I need to talk to him. 

He's not coming back, Sweetheart. He's gone. 

I don't think he's gone. 

If he wasn't gone do you think he would be able to stay away from you? 

Sure. I would. I would run so fast. 

It doesn't work. I think we've all tried that. 

Worked for him, then, didn't it? 

I don't know what you want me to say here. 

Nothing, I don't want you to say anything. 

Why don't you listen to some music, and then we'll have a nap later.

And so here I am. What a GREAT idea.

***

I didn't think it was such a huge disintegration, at first.

 I know it's a feature of very big holidays when you have lost someone in a violent way, that they are harder and there's more baggage to lug around as you make your way through the world and maybe tomorrow I won't be so sad but it's striking to me to mark these days passing like everything is going to be great and wonderful because you don't know. We never know what time we have and that's what I don't trust. That's what sends me running, screaming, and I feel like that fear isn't something that can be contained in my brain or my heart, as it tries to help out but is mostly useless, chasing after love and affection like a blind stupid fool. I am afraid of everything and they promised I'd be so much better by now but Jesus the hard parts were in the single digits and now it's 2021 and I feel like it isn't. Not yet. I'm still here and they don't want to wait and I don't want to be alone and

I don't want to write anymore of this. Not now. Just know that I called Sam first and he's coming and I called Joel and then I called everyone else and they're calling others and everyone's coming in to celebrate 2021 without quarantining Jesus fuck because emergencies are somehow like that. Take on me, indeed. God my brain is fucking fucked. I'm sorry.