Birth of an urban cowboy.

Hey, Bridge? Come outside for a sec.

Huh? No, fuck that. It's freezing.

Just for a moment. Get your coat on.

What in the heck is that?

Your new ride, princess.

Well, that...that's really big, Jake.

Sitting out front blocking the sunlight was a candy-apple dark red Dodge Ram 3500 quad cab behemoth of a pickup truck. I have to admit, she is awfully pretty and I'm slightly jealous of Jacob's attentions being shifted off me to this new toy. The one with running lights and dual wheels in the back.

I didn't think we needed a truck that big. It's a far cry from the old beloved vintage Suburban, which finally went to the junkyard in the sky, the same one he's been driving since he was 16 years old. But at least this one comes without worries, it's brand new. He's earned it. He really has.

It has heated seats. For my perpetually cold bony little ass. Oh, terrific, honey!

What's funny is I can just see over the hood. On tip-toes. It fits him, though and he's like a kid in a candy store looking at it. Like consumerism just skidded into our house and bit him in the ass. He had to have her. And he looks like a cowboy now with his new truck, having completed the last vestiges of the western male myth to a tee. I asked him if he was going to wear his cowboy hat now to complete the package.

What, you think I should?

Why, yes. Yes I do. Hot damn.

Drive-by folk music lessons.

While I ride the disco biscuit wave of anti-depressant goodness, you're going to be treated to an awful lot of head-clearing drive-by snippets. Just so you know.

I don't think I have ever heard a folk song build and sway and then positively explode quite the way this one does. I love it. Hang on, it's quietly goofy until the last quarter, and then this from Elephant, by Damien Rice.


    What's the point of this song? Or even singing?
    You've already gone, why am I clinging?
    Well I could throw it out, and I could live without
    And I could do it all for you
    I could be strong
    Tell me if you want me to lie
    'Cause this has got to die
Epic.

Midnight turkeys.

(The title today is borrowed from one of Henry's favorite books)

I'm an idiot.

This morning at 1:37 am I woke up coughing so hard I was afraid I would break something in my chest. Old habits die hard, and I immediately quietly slid out of bed and headed for the couch downstairs, having grown accustomed over the years to Cole yelling at me if I woke him up (even when it was fine for him to wake me up at strange hours to rip off my underthings and do whatever he wanted). I had a glass of juice, checked out a few blogs and then settled on the couch with a blanket and the couch cushions and a big swallow of cough medicine.

Around 4 am Jacob called for me,

Get'cher little ass in bed where it belongs before you freeze to death.

I went back upstairs and it was so dark now with the heavy winter curtains up that I was feeling my way along and I made it to the upstairs hallway and then I went to cross to our room and flipped over the portable oil-filled heater we run in the hall when it's really really cold outside. The heater crashed onto it's side and I think I broke two of my toes and I was half-delirious from the lack of sleep and all the medication.

Bridge? Are you okay?

No, fuck. I'm so tired, Jake.
I found the light switch and flicked it long enough to righten the heater and move it out of my way and then I turned the light off again and ran and jumped into bed. Jacob snuggled me down into his arms and then out of habit I reached down, yanked the quilt up to my ears and elbowed him in the eye.

Jesus, Bridge!

Sorry!
This morning he was looking at the hint of a bruise under his right eye and listening to me yelp as I tried to pull wool socks on over my wounded toes and he laughed and told me that charm school failed me because I have the grace of a yeti in snowshoes.

It was payback for teasing the tooth fairy, of that I'm sure.

I will say I'm doing pretty well for someone who's had around three hours of sleep. Please no jokes about narcoleptic nymphomaniacs today because I will hurt you. And I promise they won't be superficial wounds like the ones we're both sporting today.

Tagged.

Smarts has tagged me to stay warm to tell you five things you may not know about me. She warned that it's harder than it looks. She's right!

1. When I was ten years old one of the boys ran into me with a pencil and stabbed me in the ribcage. The lead broke off and even though it happened twenty-five years ago I still have a dark dot under my skin.

2. I don't know the words in the correct order to Oh Canada. I can get through it using a mixture of English and French lyrics so all is not lost. I stay now and sing with Henry's class in the morning so that I can learn it again.

3. Growing up I had a huge crush on Jack Lemmon. My friends were mooning over Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer and I was off mooning over Jack.

4. I can do a perfect impression of Andrea Brooke Ownbey. I like to use it in public and drive Jacob crazy with laughter.

5. I cry when I hear Auld Lang Syne. It doesn't matter if I'm happy or sad or if it's on a movie on TV, there's just something about that song. Thirty-five years into this life you would think I would have a handle on that by now but I don't.

Yes, Smarts, that was tougher than I thought it would be.

Tooth fairy.

In this big old creaky Victorian resplendent with carved woodwork and ancient plaster walls, where the light shines warm through leaded glass windows and laughter echoes off the high ceilings, lies a most ominous secret.

Oh yes.

In this house the tooth fairy is said to be a tiny bell-ringing, sparkling milky-way shadowed creature with a beautiful smile and papery butterfly wings.

It's all a hideous lie.

In reality the tooth fairy is 6'4", blonde, generally unshaven and wearing only pajama bottoms and he scratches his chin in bewilderment, fishes a five dollar bill out of his wallet and attempts to navigate a floor strewn with Polly Pocket wardrobe implements. Once the toy minefield is successfully navigated, our giant cumbersome fairy will then knock the clock radio off the nightstand thereby waking up Ruth, who confronts our fairy still holding the tooth box.

Oh shit.

His excuse?

I was just clearing a path so the tooth fairy won't have any problems finding you tonight. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.

The fairy was dispatched once again around midnight and I'm pleased to say he made much less of a ruckus the second time around and this morning Ruthie was a very wealthy young lady indeed.

Pocketful.

    Like the coldest winter chill
    Heaven beside you... Hell within
    Like the coldest winter will
    Heaven beside you... Hell within
    And you think you have it still, heaven inside you
    So there's problems in your life
    That's fucked up, and I'm not blind
    I'm just see through faded, super jaded
    And out of my mind
    Do what you wanna do
    Go out and seek your truth
    When I'm down and blue
    Rather be me than you

This song is too high for Jacob's baritone but he's singing it anyway, because it's the only AIC song I like and it's fitting for this remarkably freezing cold day. This day in which even my zen player wouldn't play because it was -35 (windchill) when I went out to shovel the sidewalk.

Because forks and automobiles are off-limits but I can still wield the mighty blade of snow removal. I was gifted new silk longjohns this weekend and I'm only feeling pain in my fingertips and toes when I go outside.

Oh and yes, he's very impressed that I have once again written down everything that's going wrong. I got called by my entire name this morning, something he usually saves for the kids when they do something they aren't supposed to on purpose. Yes, I wrote those entries on purpose. But he will live because he says my very bad is pretty darn good and he'll take it.

Good, because I need to look forward to being warm again, someday. That warms me. He still wants me even when I'm a mess.

And when she was bad she was horrid.

And when she was bad she was horrid

    You slid away from me
    Crept away from me
    I tried to keep you down
    And there was nothing I could say.
    So what you're trying to say
    is you don't wanna play.
    But what you want and what you need
    doesn't mean that much to me.

It lurks in the dark and comes out to strip us of our thick skins and contented hearts just when we need them the most. The allowance made for the depression to hang around, even with all the pinching going on around here.

The issues with our sex life remain. I wrote about it back in June, and little has changed. You'll never meet a more dedicated couple in love bound to self-destruct over issues that scream of a history together that's too long. It went on too damned long.

See? Aargh. I can't even figure out how to explain it without exposing myself, us to everyone in a terribly invasive way. Worse that I usually do. Surprise!

Loch's prediction of Very Good Things to come when Bridget recovered from the onslaught of Very Bad Things that took place was ignorant of one of the biggest points of note. Jake and I did sleep together once before, although oh so briefly back in 2000. He's had me with far less baggage than I carry now. He knows what it can be like. He knows and he wants that. He wants it now.

But it isn't like that anymore and he's feeling ripped off, frustrated, impatient. And it shows in everything he does. He's tense. Not with me, with everything else. He'll blame the whole world while he stands there and refuses to blame me for the way I am.

Nights are bad. In the morning when I have no control and I'm hardly awake, it works, somehow. It's much easier to write about.

At night with me, Jacob has taken to doing whatever he can to get me to shut up, help me relax, stop fighting him, and stop asking him to do things that he will not do. Ever. And in my head and my heart I know none of this is fair and I wouldn't dream of throwing it in his face but then in the heat of the moment everything changes and Bridget turns into some sort of little sex maniac. His words, not mine. He has called me challenging, combative (when feeling generous) and fucking messed up (when not).

So when I write about him holding me down or pushing me down, it isn't the same as it used to be. He's doing it to make me stop. Stop trying to do things he doesn't want me to do. To stop me from being a freak.

When I'm so excited I cannot breathe I ask him for things that I wouldn't ask for any other time. It happens. It flies out and I can't put it back in fast enough. He loses his desire for me when I do this and I know that. Well, maybe not, he's perpetually into me. It doesn't matter if it's quiet or if it's loud, with music or without, following a lapdance or a round of stoli or a mug of hot chocolate. Everything. Nothing. It works up to a point. Everything works up to a point and hell, more than once I have begged him to use me in some sick fashion and Jacob got up and left the room, punching the doorframe on the way out. But then he is back moments later, trying to bundle me into his warm, strong arms, kissing my eyelashes, my ears, my mouth, my skin all over because in spite of this bitter pain he still wants me all of the time. Like an addiction to something you are certain will kill you.

I can't even figure him out. He's fighting me, fighting himself. Unable to resist even when he seems to hate us both for our actions and reactions. And me? I'm fighting history, a way of life I've been accustomed to for so long I can't figure out any other way short of becoming a doll, without moving or speaking, and honestly?

What sort of fun would that be?

I may be fucked up but I don't want to be a dead fuck. Because please. Life is too short for bad sex. Even fucked up crazy painful (emotionally) miserable fighting-through-it sex is better than just Bridget lying there and taking it.

Or so I've been taught.

Yes, that's a supremely painful admission too. Or is it shameful? Jacob will tell you different. He would take me unconscious. I swear it. So has very little actually changed for me?

And Jacob would have you believe that everything, that his life with Bridget is perfect. And it would be except that he refuses still to venture to new far away places in the dark. Those same dark places that I am somehow refusing to crawl out of, thereby making his life equally imperfect. Not in some misguided attempt to remain the tiny little bad girl that I want to be but because the dark is a familiar comfort and sometimes, as I have said before, I liked it. Some of it. Jacob doesn't have to follow in Cole's footsteps nor does he need to reflect the terrible level of depravity that Cole had reached with me, but there's a limit I have that I like to push regularly and I want Jake to meet me in the middle.

I'm not a bread and butter girl, there is nothing pedestrian about sleeping with Bridget and as intriguing as it once was to Jacob, now it's an embarrassment that he wishes would just go away. He likes his lap dances and he likes me riding his lap or spread out on the table or the floor and dipped in something sweet but everything else is completely off limits. With no room to negotiate.

Off limits would be fine for most people but when you've done it all there's pretty much a list of things you enjoyed to some extent and I'd like Jacob to take me to those places. Because with him it would be a million times better, a million times greater. Oh my God, I cannot fathom the highs that those experiences would achieve with him. It would be fun and not scary with Jake.

And he won't and I feel like a goddamn freak some nights. Like last night when he propped himself onto his elbows and clamped his hands over my ears and told me just to focus on his face and not think, just focus and take it. And he fucked me for a long while and everything was good and okay and wonderful then.

I would do anything for him, because it's Jake.

He proclaims me still completely fucked up. He's right. I am. I know all this.

And still I fight for something that was never mine, and we both fight for something that is still just out of reach, for now.

I just hope we get there. Because after all this time it hurts. It hurts to know that the most intimate part of our love is a confirmed disaster. Any progress here is going to be hard-won and it's own reward.

Why can't I fix this?

And when she was good, she was very very good.

A wee bit of dirt, or an ode to Jacob and his morning wood.

One plus of the waking up before 6 am habit is that when I start or move even slightly Jacob will invariably wake up too, sensing that I am awake even though he can't open his eyes just quite yet. He'll usually shorten whatever space he finds between us, if there is any left at all, and he'll grab me and pull me in until my back touches his abs, his warm hand spread out across my belly. He pulls my thigh down hard into his lap with one hand while his other hand presses my head hard into the bed. Then he pushes himself into me, not slowly, but with force, because he wants me so badly when he wakes up in the morning. He's much rougher at daybreak then he is at night. At night he's so slow and gentle and has so much patience. He'll wait forever, he'll say he wants to fuck me forever, and he has hours to try things and to wind me out on his whims. In the mornings he has no patience, he doesn't want to wait, he just turns me over and then he's inside me and I'm grabbing for the blanket or the bedpost just to hold on. He doesn't want to talk or kiss or cuddle, he only whispers things I can't hear and takes what he needs.

Speak to me/Breathe.

    Breathe, breathe in the air
    don't be afraid to care
    leave but don't leave me
    look around, choose your own ground
    for long you live and high you fly
    and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
    and all you touch and all you see
    is all your life will ever be

(Pink Floyd or Phish, who covered it well, your choice, it's what's for my audible breakfast this morning.)

So am I capable of seeing anything at all?

You bet I am.

I can't believe my car is an issue even. It's my car. What's the big deal?

Perceptions and reasoning aren't always the same thing are they? But no one asked me for the reasons, instead they created their own. This is what happens when you allow everyone input on your life. When you go and make a decision without a group vote the shit hits the fan. We're still cleaning that shit off of every surface imaginable.

My car was getting very little use. Very very little and even less now with the snow. It's a coupe, it's not something you want to be out in unless the weather is beautiful. It's winter 5 months of the year here. And I'm fucking medicated, I can't drive. Jacob can't drive it, he's too tall. And the insurance rates on it are through the roof.

Not to mention, it's the most extravagant gift Cole ever gave me. It's black. My badass little car. He led me out into the driveway with his hand over my eyes and there she was with a big white bow on her roof. A toy car for my toy girl, he said. I only ever put 11000 kilometers on her and I had her almost two years.

She was procured by a man who will probably use her to fuel his own life crisis and celebrate his upcoming divorce. Which is fine. It really wasn't much of a family car. And with Jake staring down car payments for the first time in his life we need something a little more practical. His truck is on life support and so he's going to get a new one. A very large one but I've been assured I'll be able to drive it when I end this permanent sanctioned high I'm on because it won't have a broken seat adjuster track like his old truck did. I'll be able to reach the pedals.

Besides, fast cars aren't my thing. Everyone thought my car was the Coolest Car Ever. I lent it out for special occasions. Sometimes I lent it out just for fun. It was a fun present but it sits in the garage and reminds me of when Cole was not angry. Destructive memories. It had to go.

The guys mostly blame Jake, refusing to see the logic involved and I'm not impressed by that. Ben's direct comments, agreed on by others were that Jacob was removing my own personal mode of transportation so that I would be completely dependent on him and he would have total control over where I went and who I went with. Which ties in nicely to the whole drug her up and keep her home scenario they're expounding on right this minute, because my ears are still burning up hot.

Added fuel to the fire would be bringing in reinforcements (Loch), Jacob canceling Caleb's impending visit indefinitely and basically my whole spoken need to just step back and let Jacob run The Bridget Show because hell, I'm safer that way. Physically and emotionally. Do they need a map to show the path that led to this? I'm not being coerced, I'm being smart. I've elevated my attempts at self-preservation to a whole new high and hopefully this time it will hold.

All I know is that I have had a lot of sleep and a lot of talk and I feel almost human again, confident in my big decisions right now. Jacob made love to me gently last night and then ferociously this morning and confirmed that I'm not a zombie (yet) judging by all the shushing he had to whisper because Loch was staying downstairs.

I don't regret getting rid of the car. That's 3000 pounds of baggage off my mind right there. Go Bridget.

Perspective.

I'm not feeling so lucid this afternoon and I crashed down into a chair at the table.

He bent down and kissed my nose and then he got down on his knees and we were eye to eye.

Do you love me, princess?

Of course I love you, Jake. More than anything.

Do you know how much I love you?

Yes, but tell me again.

I love you. Forever and then a little more and I will never ever stop, no matter what.
And that's enough. It's more than enough. It's everything I will ever need in this life.

And then there were four.

Let's expose the devil and his many advocates, just for one bare brief moment.

Let's say Bridget is pressured. Get better. Do it fast, do it now. Play pretend-normal. Life goes on. Take the pills, finish them up. Come on, girl! Leave therapy behind. Make your friends pick sides while they figure out what the fuck to do with your former domineering husband dead and your new husband one of them, formerly less sweet as he tried to usurp Cole. Watch as they get into actual grownup fist-fights over you, over nothing at all. Refuse to talk to most of them. Fight off older brother of dead husband repeatedly (because, the headgames he has played with me for DECADES). Sell cute little sportscar against wishes of people who don't have a say in that kind of thing. Make a few passing references to not being in charge willingly and lead everyone to call your new marriage some sort of sugar-coated incestuous power trip for someone but not for you (that was rich).

Have two treasured trusted friends who remain who will relay these awful character-destroying conversations and letters so that I can see exactly what is black and what is white. Boy was I surprised.

Oops, I almost forgot the whole keep Bridget heavily medicated and unreachable because that makes it easier to control her over all, no?

How am I doing?

Ben, Caleb, Robin. Mark...I don't even understand anymore. I didn't realize when I stopped being the x-rated entertainment that I would become their comic relief. Fodder for their own insecurities. I didn't ask for any of this.

Loch, PJ, Chris and Jake are it now.

Unwritten.

Hey. Good morning. Rest assured, I'm not having a nervous breakdown. I haven't written about much of the latest news at all, looking back because I was hoping it would all magically disappear. I feel like I'm losing what few friends I have left and they may have all been fucked up and had their own hidden agendas but is that better than having no friends left at all or not?

I can't decide. But what people don't understand is that they ARE my family here.

(I'm not saying my friends are causing my problems, let's just say they're heaping it on thick and I'm not strong to start with. So maybe I am saying this is their fault. I have no idea.)

But what was decided for me is that it was too soon to stop talking about everything, it was too soon to stop taking pills, it was too soon to stay up late, to skip meals and to fight with people. It was too soon for me to try to pretend that everything was fine and dandy and it came back and bit me in the ass. I'm not in control anymore because it's better if you just lead Bridget by the hand. She'll come, she's just going to need a very soft touch for a bit.

But I am still spoiled. Jake brought a tray with coffee and toast and my laptop upstairs and I can read and sleep and browse the internet and write if I want to or not and he's going to take the kids to school. They came in to kiss me goodbye and I told them I was feeling really tired and I didn't want to get really sick again.

And surprisingly I don't feel like I'm going to shatter today.

But I'm not allowed to answer the phone either, so your mileage may vary.

Here. Finally.

Jacob found a sitter for Henry this afternoon as soon as I opened my mouth.

Then he put my coat on me and took me out to the truck and put my seatbelt on me, like a child. He didn't say anything. When we parked, he took me by the hand and brought me inside, then again, took my coat off me and steered me by the shoulders straight into the office, no waiting, no bullshit. He said he wasn't going to take any chances, I brought up the very worst day of his life and he refuses to let me be in this kind of pain without doing everything he can to fix me. With help. With a whole team. He has connections, I had no idea. I came away with a plan, I came away knowing all of the factors which contributed to today's abrupt and frightening turn and I came away with more pills. Very strong happy pills. Which Jacob held up in front of me and he forced my chin up until my eyes were two inches from the bottle and he said, quite simply:

These you're going to take. Every single day. Because they keep me from being scared. I know you won't do it for you, so you're going to do it for us.

My teeth were chattering from shock because his voice was ragged from fear. From exhaustion. Because again I pushed myself, us and I was beyond overtired and hungry and slightly shaken by a lot of things lately and dealing with my usual depleted emotional strength and we both missed it in our joy of normal life at last. Or whatever that brief respite was.

My team (ha, that's funny) says a little backsliding is normal (ha)with new stresses and changes in a recent trauma victim and someone battling chemical imbalances as it is. They say it will get better but not for a long time. They say I need to not pretend things are great when they're not. They say that I must not push myself. That I need sleep, food, and medication. They also say I'm not to be left alone again for a while because the straight-laced logical part of me still refuses to say things that will make everyone comfortable. I told Jacob I was sorry and I told him that I love him and I'm not leaving without him but everyone else can go to hell. He laughed and said they sure could and he expects the promise to be made when we catch our breath.

I'm doing my best here. And I'm sorry for scaring everyone. Hell, I scared myself and I called out to him for help. I'm learning, guys.

Loch is coming for the weekend, bless his heart, since Jake has to work a bit, and I'll have all kinds of good influences present.

When we got home I was led into the house and my coat was taken off and then I was enveloped in the longest, hardest hug I have ever had, followed by Jacob pressing his lips against my forehead in a kiss that steamed up my eyelids. My god that felt so fucking good.

Because for once, he was here right when he needed to be.

He was here.

Jake.

Slide. rule.

Right. Downhill all the way now. I shouldn't be trying to write and so I stopped. Again.

In behind the front, the flippant, confident inventor of so many silly similes and poetic waxer of cake, lies me. Just Bridget, flaky girl of extremes and irreparably messed up in the head. Coexisting with my own inner monster is sometimes a real fucking bitch.

Nothing changes with that. I started with it. It's still here.

Jacob may care a whole lot more. He's epic in his own right and I'm the luckiest person in the world. But he asks for a promise I can't make still.

(this is where you can go and search my journal for eggshells or unspoken history and you'll see what I mean, I'm not reading that again.)

Bridget. I need you to give me that. I need to know.
I shook my head. I'm not going to make a promise I'm never sure I'll keep. That would be foolish. I can't lie to him.

Tread carefully, Jakey. And I love you even if sometimes I lie and say I don't just to protect you from me.

It must be hard to live with me. I find it easy because if it gets too hard, then I don't have to do it anymore at all. I thought that maybe since it got so hard already that he wouldn't be so afraid but I was wrong.

And still, I shook my head because I can't make it.

He told me he was going to get help for me because this isn't how I'm supposed to be. I hope he keeps his promise because I'm afraid of myself today. I hate this.

Tears and mortar.

I think this house is causing problems.

It's a beautiful house.

Cole only lived here for exactly eight months and yet it's just full of him, with none of his things left, save for what the kids have. His visage, his imprint is somehow still here, hell, I don't know if it's the house. Maybe it's me. Why wouldn't he had an imprint on me just like his handprint was on me for so long. It was twenty years. It's been five months since he died and that's all. That's nothing. It was just in March when we stopped trying at all. No, I stopped trying. He continued on his self-destructive path without me. March was not so long ago and now even with so many changes and upsets and therapies, it's fresh and it hurts like so much hell.

I'm not sure if we're moving or simply disintegrating.

Once he was feeling generous or sad, I'm not sure which. It was one of the few more recent times when I was being cold, he hated that. I wasn't letting him into my brain or under my skin and perhaps he had a moment of regret, a twinge of a wish. I have no idea. He looked at me and he told me that if anything ever happened to him, to ask Jake for help with anything I needed. That Jacob was a good man and he would look after us and he had been around so long, so many years, that Cole knew he would hold true to his convictions.

I know.

No, seriously, Bridge, he's been there. Ask him for help, no one else.

Are you dying, Cole?

Everyone is going to die someday, baby.

Not you.

Even me.

I'll go first.

That's not even funny today, princess.

It's not supposed to be.

Just promise me.

Done.

Should I expect to be poisoned slowly now?

You should have suspected that all along.

He laughed softly and just looked at me for a moment like he had all the regret in the world. I'm left now wondering if he knew his heart was going to explode or if he sensed something. If he did he either told no one or no one is going to give up his secrets and I'll wonder this as long as I live. Or I could call it simple fate, or God's Big Rescue Plan for me with the help of his favorite wayward angel. I don't know. All I know is that it was times like that one that make me hate his memory less.

An excuse to make excuses.

Hey.

Hi, Bridget.

Caleb. Hi.

Please don't be impressed on my account.

Oh, I'm not, trust me.

Can I just explain? Please?

I don't think any of it matters, Caleb.

I would like a chance to defend my character. Now, don't say anything. I'll be in town before the weekend for a meeting and I'd like to stop by and drop off some Christmas presents for the kids and say hello to you anyway if that's okay. I promise you'll understand when I explain why I contacted Ben. Please, Bridget, just trust me.

Fine, just please try to call before you come over.

I'll do my best. Thanks, Bridge. Look, it's been a while and I...

Don't. Please.

Oh, I can't WAIT to hear his excuses.

He only lies to be kind.

Princess!

Yes, Jake?

How many times are you going to play that song?

Until I figure out the notes!

Oh, my dear God.

What? (I heard him, I just wondered if he'd repeat it.)

Nothing! Sounds good, baby.

Crumbs for breakfast.

I think I'd prefer to wait until the latest event plays itself out and then I'll eviscerate everyone involved right here for fun. It sure isn't as pretty as I like to call myself. Or maybe I'll share it later when I have it figured out. I'm still thinking this morning.

Instead I'll reach into my mailbag. The Friendly Giant used to have a mailbag on his TV show when I was Henry's age. Jacob's other nickname (after Preacher Boy) is Friendly Giant thanks to his towering blonde stature and giant hands and feet (shhhh, perverts!) and mostly easygoing nature (hockey notwithstanding).

I'm going to do a random grab of things you've asked recently. I'll leave your names out, being the guilty pleasure that I am. Here are the questions that have been asked by more than one person:

What's your favorite post?

I have three (you can search in the bar, the links are all there):

1-Public Declarations, because it represents what normal used to be. Normal, happy. Before Cole self-destructed. When we all had our shit still together, or something.
2-Because All I do is Talk, because this conversation shows Jacob at his most heart-rending (to me, I don't even know why) and it's the only time I feel like I've ever gotten that across in writing.
3-Life Very Quietly, because it still pains me to read it and I'm a masochist. I'm not but I shiver when I read it. It's on the mark.

If you notice none of these are the big Event posts, like Jacob's proposal or any of our anniversaries, it's because there was never any way in hell I could adequately describe those days and nights here. In truth, they didn't translate well at all to a page and do better shining in my mind.

What's Jacob's favorite post?

I'll ask him and get back to you on that. I don't even know the answer to that one.
Coasting, because he loves the way I wrote of the wind undoing my braids and the way I described his home planet.

What's your favorite song?

Oh please. Forty Six & 2 by Tool. Though I keep listening to 9 Crimes by Damien Rice over and over today so I can figure out the piano by ear (new talent! if I can hear it maybe I can play it! Weee!)

What's your favorite drink?

Jack Daniels, just plain, in a glass. Hell, from the bottle. I never claimed to be a sophisticated drinker, though I'm not doing that so much anymore anyway.

When does Jacob start his new job?

Not until the fall, unfortunately. August 2007. He's anxious but it's a long ways off. He has trimmed down the number of hours he spends counseling and doing pastoral care, because he has already begun his work as a chaplain. There is no difference only this feeds the whole little-boy-captivated-by-lights-and-sirens-and rushing-around gene.

What won't you write about?

That list is miles long. I don't do so much politics, current events, or news. I'm not exactly worldly. I won't name drop if I know anyone famous. This is not a mommy blog, though sometimes I like to write about the kids but I keep it sparing. I don't name place names so much, I try to leave Jacob's innocent family out of direct mention, and if he asks me not to write about something specific, I won't. There are lines I won't cross out of respect for my husband.

Oh and Cole's genius/madness is censored right down to the bare minimum. I have said only what everyone else can handle. There is no point in freaking the fuck out of everyone I love, he's gone. What's the point? And because Jacob loses it just a little more each time he finds out something else.

Why do you swear so much?

Habit. I always have. Not alot of words but a good 'fuck' can be descriptive. It's satisfying. Shock value for my mother. I have no idea. I was told that I write in a weird, buttoned-up, uptight, intimidating manner in which I appear smart, and the only thing keeping me approachable is all the swearing. Nice. Lord knows, Bridget isn't so smart. I don't talk like this, I only write like this. If you heard me talk, you would laugh. I stutter when I'm very tired, I mispronounce a lot, I just plain miss a lot, I can't find the words I want unless I'm writing them down and it's really frustrating for others. It's hard to explain. I was a bit stunned when people expressed surprise that I write the way I do here.

What's with the song lyrics?

Without the stupid hearing aids, I can't hear songs so much as I feel them first, unless they are played loud. I would feel a song, go and look up the lyrics and study them and then decide if I liked the song. I fall in love with songs in reverse of the way most people would, as a result and I'm fascinated by the ways a song can create emotions in the listener, much the same way writing can. I'm not trying to be 'emo'. (I had to look that up. Jesus, people).

Do you have any female friends?

About as many as you would imagine, a few here and there but no one really close. I would have said a couple of years ago that men play less head games, but now I'm not so sure. I had one very close no-bullshit girlfriend but she died many years ago and I lost interest in seeking out new ones. Besides, Jake filled the void for a very long time. He still does.

What's your favorite color?

Green. You'd think it would be blue, teal, aquamarine. It's not. It's Celadon, Moss, celery, olive, not so much mint, but most of the slateish shades of green between. Not forest green but pine. I'm picky on greens.

What is your real height? How tall is Jacob?

I know I lie about this all the time. Why I couldn't be a 5'7" supermodel is beyond my grasp. I'm exactly five feet tall but I usually say 5'2". Why? I have no idea. Perhaps it's deep-seated baggage from this equation:

Very short + Named Bridget = Midget.

Happy now? Jacob is 6'4" possibly taller. That's what his driver's license says but he can't squish himself into my little car to drive it so I would say closer to 6'5". When he hugs me really hard just about everything cracks. And...

No, I'll stop there for now...

Burning Bridget at the stake.

So for what it's worth I have enemies now. Real ones that aren't just little Bridget with her big imagination.

Ben and Caleb have opted to join forces to try to...irritate me to death? I'm not sure. Caleb called Ben to talk about me. He had questions and instead of just asking me he decided to dig around. And Ben knows everything. Well, almost everything and now it seems he's got a new best friend.

Should I be worried?

Ben seemed smug. Jacob is concerned. Which makes Ben more smug and Caleb even more curious. Ben and Caleb have been spending far too much time together, I'd wager. This makes me laugh. This is absurd. For two people I have pushed out of my life out of necessity they sure are causing a ruckus.

When you guys are done with the high school payback attempts, let me know. And pardon me for trying to leave the trouble behind. Because that's what you both are, trouble. Caleb, I can't even believe you're stooping to this level. Whatever you're looking for, it isn't there, sweetie. And if you're just interested as a way to get to know me and learn everything you can, well, you're too little too late. When I was twenty you could have had me, I would have thrown Cole over for you in a heartbeat.

But thanks for feigning interest in my heart all the same.

I don't know what more I can say. I don't need this. How can I leave this alone? My ears are positively burning.

    Leave me out with the waste
    This is not what I do
    It's the wrong kind of place
    To be thinking of you
    It's the wrong time
    For somebody new
    It's a small crime
    And I've got no excuse
    Is that alright
    Give my gun away when it's loaded
    that alright with you
    If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it

Disillusionment.

Have you ever been fed lines that sound so deep and beautiful and raw and honest that you fall for it hook, line and sinker? You proclaim the speaker of the lines to be a unique, precious charm in the otherwise pretty but dull costume jewelry bracelet that is your universe and you reserve large portions of time and brain power to the challenging and introspective conversations you actually look forward to now.

My weakness, I'll admit.

Then they go and behave like a total asshole and you discover that they're a fake and a fraud and a total charlatan. They lied, and that the conversations you were having weren't unique or deep or even introspective, they were a front for an image that was carefully, cleverly cultivated. Their words were just enough to leave you with a sense that they were just like you, with fears and failures and hopes and then you find out it's a front for some good old fashioned shallow bullshit. They're just like everyone else, and they were seeking out you in a way that would get your attention.

They got my attention with the imaginary neon lights over my head now that proclaims USED in capital fucking letters.

Jacob tells me to leave it. To be nice, to let it go and continue with the status-quo but really I'm having a hard time finding my nice for this particular person now. I was used and I hate this feeling. Someone fed off my sweetness and took it away just a little in the process. And they turned in their deceit for anger, at me. I did nothing wrong here. For once. Except I'm guilty of an unusual level of naivety because I believed it. He fit in so well. I should have known it was all a front.

A lesson for that friend would be not lying and not trying to be someone you're not.

A lesson for Bridget would be not to be a sucker for a pretty face and a soulful exchange.

But really, who isn't? Everyone I know is victim to that same weakness, wanting to be around the pretty ones and yet I don't put on a front. They know they're getting a slightly kooky, very brittle, somewhat kind and outwardly confident fun girl with some...issues. I'm not pretending. It's not a put-on (despite popular opinion), there's going to be no massive letdown for them in the end when I show myself because I was here all along. If anything I will prove to be less sure of myself then they suspected and I don't think that's going to come as any huge surprise.

My mistakes are in full view, my choices picked apart and evaluated and I have been judged and I continue to be judged and it's fairly kind, all things considered. And if you talk to me I'm not going to feed you lines. What is the point?

Did you want to be near me that badly that you had to pretend you were someone you're not?

    stones taught me to fly
    love taught me to cry
    so come on courage
    teach me to be shy
    cause it's not hard to fall
    and I don't wanna scare her
    it's not hard to fall
    and I don't wanna lose

Coma kisses.

It's so cold here, the time of year has come at last when I resort to wearing clothes to bed. Mostly Jacob's shirts because they come almost down to my knees and they smell like him, even though they're clean. Like Patchouli. Like soap. Like...warmth.

I just need something warm around my shoulders because with the constant moving around, the blankets are mostly at waist-level. Even though he is warm and I don't leave his arms when we sleep, sleeping uncovered in the winter is a fresh new hell.

For too many mornings now I have woken up stark naked, and neither one of us knows why. I was wearing a shirt when I went to bed. I didn't take it off. And I'm not a heavy sleeper with two little kids and a big creaky old Victorian house underneath us. How the heck he could get me undressed without me waking up would be a magic trick in itself. He swears he didn't do a thing.

Then he laughed and his cover was blown. Because every time I come to bed less than completely naked he protests loudly, and because I almost believed him when he said he didn't remember taking me out of my clothes.

I wonder what else he's doing? It would explain the wonderful dreams I have about being kissed all over. Maybe they're not dreams. My dreams have become reality anyhow, my life something out of a romantic movie. It's a small price to pay for waking up with various cold body parts, I'll tell you that for nothing.

Not like the other.

I was looking for a way to describe a true cake emergency as only I can have it. I have a thing about cake. It's one of the few things I eat without having to be reminded. When you struggle to stay on the right side of a hundred pounds, food you love seems to magically appear on a regular basis.

There's a very decadent bakery many blocks from our house, and it's too cold to walk there in the winter and too hot in the summer because the desserts would melt on the return trip. They make the most decadent, delicious cakes I have ever tasted, and I love cake. I hate to run out of cake.

Bet you didn't know that. Nope. Surprise!

In any event, I was on the phone with Jake trying to make him see that he needed to hit the cake store on the way home, and he insisted there was a whole cake in the freezer. There was. A generic chocolate freezer cake. He kept telling me we could pull that out and warm it up and it would be fine.

Finally he stopped talking long enough to hear my horrified whispers, barely daring to speak of the pale imitation of cakeish-type sweetness lurking inside the ice box, the fast food little punk brother equivalent of a true double-layer black forest masterpiece baked with kirsch and lovingly drizzled with shaved chocolate curls. Oh...that is cake. And Bridget knows cake.

But Jake, it's ....ghetto cake. I need real cake.

He laughed so hard he had to hang up and he was still laughing when he came home, with a real cake.

I'm sure right now he's planning an intervention. I think I may have a problem.

I'll be waiting there for you.

If I were a poet I could recite my poetry on a corner.

If I were a songwriter I could sing my love songs in a quiet cafe.

If I were an artist of any note I would take my easel to the river's edge and paint.

But I am a writer. I suppose I could sit on the dock jutting violently into the sea and tell stories but really, who would listen? How would I hear myself in the wind anyway?

I'll never be a busker again, traveling around the word collecting coins in a hat, at any rate.

I've come to that conclusion. And I have to sell my soul instead in phrases and paragraphs and chapters at a time in exchange for an occasional cheque and I don't mind, because I love what I do, I'm very attached to my words and I'm always exclaiming over new ways to put different words together to make my points of note. I love my fictional characters with all my heart. I have cried and bled for them, I have wished some of them dead and refused to allow others to hurt as I had planned, because I was far too wrapped up in them emotionally. Which speaks volumes, it tells me it works.

Because I can feel it.

But I like writing here better. And some days I wish I could just pack it all up and go sit on that dock and tell you stories about myself, about Jacob, about my children and about my life and you might like it. You might stay for a while, you might stay all night and we could build a bonfire on the beach and maybe Jake could sing and then I would have new stories borne out of that night for the next day.

My life is a snowball rolling down a steep hill, a sandcastle in the throes of accretion, a book that keeps getting added to, chapter by verse, word by letter, day by night and it is turning into a story all by itself. And the poetry has finally surpassed the porn because I have never had such a big response to one quiet little post as I did with the one I wrote on Tuesday. Those who have seen the picture and know us and love us were left breathless from the momentum with which I described that time in my life and those I haven't met in person yet were moved to tears and wonderment and for all of the letters coming in from far-flung magical places, the encouragement to keep writing and keep sharing I say thank you. It means a lot when you take the time to tell me you were moved.

Because you can feel it.

Those letters are the coins in my hat. My storyteller hat. Because I always wanted to remain a busker, traveling the world. I didn't realize I still am.

On ice.

Someone's amateur hockey career was over fifteen minutes into the first game. At least for this season.

Because of his temper.

I know! My God, here I was going on and on about the gentle giant singing me beautiful love songs in bed with his guitar and everyone I know was snickering because they don't get to see the Jacob I see. I wish they got to see mine more instead of the one with the temper and obvious lack of self-control. I don't like writing about it. I don't want to acknowledge that he has these issues but sometimes it bothers me. Sometimes it scares me.

Ben had to play last night too. He has balls to show up, but they're already short two players (Cole and Loch) so it was an empty bench altogether.

Jacob is the team's enforcer, he gets into a few fights each season as it is. He and Cole used to brawl whenever they had the chance and I have had many a winter dinner party in which the two of them sat at the table with black eyes or a few loose teeth. I stopped going to watch the games years ago because I couldn't stand watching them fight.

Cole's somehow passed his torch to Ben. I'd feel sorry for Jacob but he needs to learn to let it roll off.

They started hurling comments at each other before they got on the ice and were warned repeatedly to keep their personal problems out of the arena.

Did they listen?

Of course not.

I have been told that Ben said something to Jake when his back was turned and he was skating away from the net and that Jacob turned around and just launched himself at Ben and they went into the net, helmets and sticks skidding away and punches flying and that it took, once again, the bulk of the rest of the players on both teams to get them apart and keep them apart, as they attempted to go at it a few more times in the dressing room and then in the parking lot even, Jake's truck showing the brunt of that episode because they broke the passenger side mirror right off.

Nice.

Ben called this morning to apologize. Jacob wouldn't talk to him and all Ben would say is that he said some really shitty things about us to try to get under Jacob's skin and it worked and he feels like an asshole for doing it. I asked Ben for specifics and he said it was too awful to repeat. I thanked him for continuing to keep me free of doubt in my decision to cut him loose. He was so damned bitter. I told him to stay away from Jake. That he agreed with. He has a broken nose and is sore all over.

Jake wouldn't say anything about it at all. He doesn't hurt anywhere, save for a sore ear where his helmet was ripped off. He knows damned well he's too strong to get hurt in a fight. He and his size 12 skates (two sizes too small for speed) are intimidating and he knows it and I wish he wouldn't give in when he gets egged on.

I told him I was glad he was off the team because I like the kind, gentle man who sings love songs so much better than the brawling out-of-control giant throwing punches with abandon. He said only that life is certain to require a little bit of both and he's ashamed of last nights' behavior but Ben crossed the line and he's already gotten away with far too much and he wasn't going to get away with anything more, but that I should be proud because I bring out Jacob's softer side, that he feels relaxed and unhurried and unstressed when he's close to me and he likes himself when I'm within reach.

That shouldn't be cold comfort, but it is.

The gossip making the rounds of the neighborhood today is simply the surprise that he was off the team so soon in the season. Usually he makes it all the way to January.

Delicate and definitely not Tool.

Last night very late Jake picked up his old beaten-down Martin guitar (that he usually pets instead of plays) and he started to sing a song I had never heard before. I had tears rolling down my face and he got more and more serious as he sang and finally at last his voice cracked just enough for me to barely hear it on the third to last line that he stopped and he put the guitar down and this morning after I took the kids to school I drove to the damned record store myself and bought the CD because the song was that good and he had been practicing it from memory whenever I left the house for a good while now. It's for 110 days of marriage, which is tomorrow, by the way. The mood just struck him, so I was treated to this gift just a little early. I love nights like that. Everything else fades away and I 've just got Jacob's voice. Maybe that's all I need.

Thank you, Damien Rice.

    we might kiss
    when we are alone
    when nobody's watching
    we might take it home
    we might make out
    when nobody's there
    it's not that we're scared
    it's just that it's delicate
    so why did you fill my sorrow
    with the words you've borrowed
    from the only place you've known
    why did you sing hallelujah
    if it means nothing to ya
    why did you sing with me at all?
I'm glad he didn't try to sing The Blower's Daughter, because I might have cried that much harder, and he laughed and said there was no way in hell he could do that song justice, but that I shouldn't think for a minute it didn't cross his mind more than once.

Oh, just kill me now. Please. I am so spoiled.

Dedicated.

Oh, it's you. From the road I thought some kid had lost their beach ball.

Funny stuff, preacher boy. Be nice to the hugely pregnant girl.

Why are you down here on the beach alone, Bridget?

I'm not alone anymore, Jake, you're here now.

Where's everyone?

Still at work.

I see.

Why aren't you working?

I'm finished for the day. All my papers are written so I came out for a quick walk. Want to go for an ice cream instead?

No, thanks, it's too nice out. I just want to sit for a few more minutes.

What do you do in the winter when you come down here?

I bring a sweater. Then a parka when it gets really cold.

Boots?

No. The sand feels good when it's cold in my toes. Like if I dug down far enough the warmth would be there just waiting for summer again.

I think I have a nickname for you.

I hope it's a nice one. I'm a little sensitive these days, being wider than I am tall.

Saltwater Princess.

Sounds high-maintenance, but I like it.

No, not really. I've just noticed that when you're on the beach or near the ocean you never look at anything but the water. You don't hear anything but the surf. You're the princess of saltwater. It's as if you're surveying your future kingdom. You're barely paying attention to me.

Well, the surprise is on you then, Jake,because that's exactly what I'm doing. Except for the paying attention part. I'm listening to you.

And you're about eight million times happier when you're within touching distance of the water.

Who could blame me? She's beautiful, isn't she? That's my ocean. Mine. And I'm happiest when I'm near her.

Everything is beautiful here, princess. And I think I understand what you mean.

I tore my eyes away from the aquamarine waves long enough to smile in appreciation for how easily Jacob's new nickname for me rolled off his tongue and the meaning of his words. He was smiling back at me. He sat down behind me and put his knees up so I could lean against him like a chair.

You do realize you're going to have a mermaid baby, with a tail instead of legs.

Yes, I know.

Two weeks, princess. You ready?

As ready as I'll ever be. I hope she likes the ocean.

Oh, I'm sure she'll take after her mother.
I closed my eyes and listened to the waves crash upon the shore, and inside me Ruth matched the vibrations of the waves with kicks of her own. She always kicked a lot when Jacob was talking.

Jake? I think I'm going to head back. Want to come for supper?

Sure, princess. I'd like that.

Are you really going to call me that now?

Special girls need special nicknames. It will catch on fast.

He was right. Within a few short months the nickname stuck like glue and everyone, including Cole was using it. And I had my mermaid baby, Ruth, who was five days old when she saw the ocean for the first time, and three weeks old when she visited the beach and I stuck her tiny pink toes in the sand and showed her mommy's favorite place in the whole world.

When she was nine months old, Jacob took Ruth in his arms and walked into the ocean up to his knees at sunset and blessed her in a dedication ceremony with all of our friends and family present, the latter grudgingly coming out for the 'hippie baptism', as they liked to call it.

I have the sweetest picture from that evening. It shows Jacob standing in the surf in the glow of the sun's final light, his jeans wet up halfway up to his thighs, his white shirt untucked and billowing in the wind, his hair flying into his eyes and he's smiling up at Ruth and holding her up high up in front of him. She is smiling back down at him with her one-toothed grin, her fine blonde hair blowing straight up from her head, her little dress buffeting around her diaper. If you saw it you would see the similarities, the connection they've shared forever and it makes me happy that Jacob has this history with us, that he has been a part of our lives and every major event therein. It's a permanence that belies the honeymoon phase of our relationship now with our marriage still in it's own infancy.

It gives us a deeper appreciation for each other, a foundation on which to build our castle, because this princess finally found the prince she was looking for. He was right under her nose all along.

The soundtrack for this morning was "Huh? ", "Really?" and "Eeeek!"

It's shaping up to be a strange day.

When I woke up I was upside down in bed on top of the covers and Jacob had one hand wrapped around my ankle. It must have been a spectacular dream.

Henry asked for Rice Krispies, which he never does, claiming he doesn't like them.

When we left to drive Jacob to his meeting we discovered a mouse living in the back porch, which would explain the hole in the bag of winter birdseed I keep on the floor of the utility closet in that room.

I'll be back with a real post this afternoon. Lots of appointments this morning. Ciao!

Pixies in the shallow end.

Yesterday I stood in front of the bathroom mirror holding a fistful of my hair out from my head and my giant sewing scissors. Frozen like a statue.

For close to a half an hour.

I just stood there, thinking.

My hair has an identity all its own. It's been long and very pale blonde with ribbons of darker ash and lighter white forever. The color of my hair matches my children's hair and my husband's too. We're a set of four. A blinding, vaguely Nordic, fully Irish flaxen presence, a towhead force to be reckoned with. It was stick straight forever until I let it grow with abandon and then it grew into crazy gentle waves and tendrils. It's called my crown, literally. Mermaid hair, princess hair, hair people covet so desperately they buy it in dyes and extensions and straighteners or they come up to me and ask me where I got it.

My hair drives me crazy sometimes. It's a love/hate thing. I go through a bottle of conditioner a week. It gets singed at the stove, it goes down the drain if I lean over the sink, Jacob is always pulling long strands from his beard, and off his coat. I tuck it into my jeans by mistake and get it caught in buttons and car doors. He sits on my hair without thinking, sometimes he lies on it, he's pulled out locks in his sleep because he's tangled in it. I veer violently from looking angelic to being Medusa. And yet it's comfort. I rarely wear it up anymore. Henry used to hold it when I fed him. Jacob holds it or touches it constantly, which I relish. And people stare at me and I admit I like that. It's been this way since I was around four years old. I'm possibly dumb enough to enjoy that kind of attention and admit it willingly.

But a small part of me would sometimes love to chop it all off and dye it bright red and be different just for a little while, not forever. Have it stick out all over in cute little turned-up points and become a smoldering firecracker, a ginger-flavored spicy pixie, instead of a vanilla lemon-drop princess. Why? Just to be different looking. Redheads are gorgeous creatures. I was born with bright orange hair which fell out within two weeks and then grew back in fuzzy and yellow and glowing. I've always identified with redheads. They get stared at a lot too.

Then slowly my common sense began to return in a trickle, because even if I say I hate my hair, I don't. I love it, unapologetically. But I didn't put the scissors down right away.

Jacob found me still standing there. When he saw the scissors he dropped his favorite coffee mug on the floor and it shattered into so many pieces I may spend the entire winter fishing shards out from between the hardwood boards.

Princess, what are you doing?

I'm thinking, Jacob.

Are you thinking about cutting it?

Yes.

Can I ask a big favor?

Sure.

Put the scissors down. Please don't change your hair.

I'm not. I'm just thinking about it.

You're thinking if you change your physical appearance enough you've have a clean slate, maybe feel different?

Something like that, maybe.

It doesn't work that way, princess. A big change can be symbolic but in the end life still picks up where you last bookmarked it. Altering your appearance won't change that.

I know. Somehow I know.

Bridget, I really love your hair the way it is right now. Call it a guy thing or a fetish if you must, just don't change it.
I just stared at him without responding. He had shaved his beard off early yesterday morning, sending his seventies sideburns and tickly mustache with it. Now he's baby-faced again, clean-cut if you ignore the shaggy blonde hair that he hasn't had cut since possibly June. He couldn't put any logic around his own minor treachery. He can shave off his beard and I almost cried but I can't cut my hair that he loves? Um, what?

I left the mirror and returned the scissors to my sewing basket.

Within an hour I was overwhelmingly glad I hadn't cut my hair. I'm sure relief is always more welcome than regret. I didn't think we were both so shallow but it runs deeper than that and I can't explain it. I guess when you have a trademark like the one I do, being easily recognized for my hair, my brand, an identity tied to a physical characteristic, you shouldn't fuck with it. A package deal. I'm not a superstar, therefore I don't need to try to reinvent myself.

My other remarkable characteristics that are shared by few constitute my lack of height, my color-changing eyes and the sacral dimple that always seems to be a fun surprise to my lovers. I can't change those either, and I wouldn't even if I could.

Okay maybe I would lose the dimple. I find it kind of an oddity. Like maybe I was meant to be a bowling ball with three holes but at the last minute, through a cruel twist of evolution, I turned into a human female. Sorry, that sounds really yuck but I'm laughing anyway. Or maybe it was a tail and I would have been a little more popular on the freak circuit but it just wasn't in the cards for me.

Made in the image of a Blythe doll with the freaky eyes, but anatomically correct, and real. A living mermaid doll.

And yes, I'm tired today. Too tired to write anything important. I need a bath. I have to wash my hair. I need to get started on the the ten loads of laundry we created over the weekend. So you get a two-page ramble about my hair.

Feel fortunate, I could have posted a two-page ramble about sex.

I still might.

Moon princess.

Snowy owl-sightings and snowier walks were planned for yesterday as we cleared out of our now-leafless Victorian neighborhood and headed up to the lake for the day. The days are growing shorter. Nights are long and the echo of the moon was visible in the daylight sky, holding low to remind us that the dark comes soon, keeping us rushing through our late afternoons.

The drive takes forever. We eat red pistachios and sing Nick Drake songs, and Jacob has the most hilarious running joke of taking any heavy metal song and singing it as if it were being sung by Harry Connick Jr. I laughed so hard I feared the pistachios might wind up shooting out my nose but they settled for choking me half to death instead. I haven't laughed that hard in ages.

Our walk was icy-cold. Frosty kisses were worth it. The kids kept giggling. Jacob would stop every ten feet, grab me and dip me back low so that my hair touched the ground. I was full of snow. He was grinning as we walked, his nose was red and his eyes bright. He taught the kids a silly song that involved lots of stomping and clapping to stay warm and then we finally got too cold and the dark started crowding in close to our twilight and so we turned and raced back to the parking area from the labyrinth of trails. Only I didn't run, I walked briskly and watched as Jacob pretended to run fast beside Ruth, pantomiming falling behind and then tripping and falling into the snow. She was howling in delight, Henry was chortling and had snot running all over the place. I was laughing so hard I couldn't say anything anymore.

Both kids fell asleep on the drive back to the city, and Jacob took my hand in his and sang to me the whole way home. Songs he was making up about a princess who lives on the beach and meets a prince that she falls in love with and he builds her a sandcastle with an oven inside big enough to bake a thousand chocolate cakes. It was quite something. This princess had pet oysters who gave her pearls in exchange for her affections, and there was a switch inside her castle that turned on the sun or moon at her command.

Only Jacob insisted that it wasn't a fairytale song but a true story and that I should recognize the princess in the song as myself. I told him I couldn't light up the moon at my whim and he pointed to the glowing sliver of crescent now clearly visible outside my window. He smiled and said I could do whatever I set my heart to. That I have control at last. That I am capable of anything and everything. That it's magical.

He's right.

Blue velvet.

Contrary to unpopular opinion (the boys), I am not out of things to write about. But instead of me writing, I'm going to treat you to a favorite entry from The Journal. Yes, that one. Jacob's book of incredibly flattering and incredibly horrible things that he's written about me. An amazing read. But I'm narcissistic like that. I love to read his descriptions of me for reasons I can't explain.

The coffeeshop mention that I again gave made me run and look it up and he's given me permission to transcribe it to my journal. It gives me goosebumps:

I wrote that I had met the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen a few days ago but today she met me to give me back my coat and she looked a hundred times more beautiful. She rushed into the diner on Friday morning in a flurry of bells and cool air and every head turned to watch her as she made her way to where I sat. Briefly I was the luckiest man in the world. When she sat down she stuck her hand out and smiled at me and told me her name was Bridget and she was happy to meet me, since last weekend our introduction was awkward at best. We both laughed, the sound from her throat a low, soft chuckle with a hint of rasp. She has a neat voice. I can still hear her in my head.

She took off her summer coat and sat on it. I had forgotten how small she was. She looked so pretty. She had on a white Indian kurta shirt and blue jeans and clogs and she had a blue velvet ribbon around her neck. With her coat she carried an umbrella and a patchwork tote. She has really great long hair. I really wanted to touch it but that wasn't appropriate.

The diner was loud and we talked a little, she asked me to repeat a lot of my questions, she wanted to know why I was back in school, and mostly she apologized for her behavior at the party even though I told her there was nothing she could have done better and I was glad I was there. There was something about the way she twirled her cup around in circles on the saucer and looked up at me through the longest blonde bangs and white eyelashes I have ever seen. I couldn't take my eyes off her lips, they were free of any lipstick or makeup, just pale pink lips and I liked to watch the way the corners of her mouth turned up when I said something that pleased her.

We were wrapping up our conversation and I was afraid I would never see her again and I wanted her to know it but instead of telling her that I said I wished she was single. She froze and I saw a flicker of pain pass through her green eyes before she collected her thoughts and began to rush to gather up her stuff. She told me she had to go and that she was happy and married and trying to get pregnant. She was upset and so I grabbed her hand, I needed time to apologize, I didn't want her leaving when she was distraught because I said something so reckless. I asked if we could be friends instead, because of our common interests. She made a joke about me trying to trick her so I could steal her from her husband and even though that's exactly what my plans were, I laughed and said something different instead.

I walked her out of the diner, unwilling to part ways with her but she was in a hurry to get to work so I said I hoped we meet up again soon, and I was gifted with another one of her softer smiles. She agreed and then turned and walked away down the sidewalk, head high, maybe knowing so many eyes were following her. Life would be like that for her. My own eyes followed her until she was swallowed in the lunchtime crowd of people, families and traffic. And then when I couldn't see her anymore I missed her already and that unnerves me. What kind of man falls that hard that fast for someone he has briefly met twice? Besides, I'm too busy working on my thesis to chase after any girl right now, let alone a married one. She's gone. She'll never be mine, my brain tells me. But then my heart says different, because I held her in my arms for a whole night and I can't explain how she has created these overwhelming feelings in me. I put her number in my book and I plan to call her in a few weeks and ask her out for lunch, hopefully we can be just friends and I can find a way to turn these feelings into simple caring for Bridget. If only I could get past her smile.

This KILLS me. Wow. If you ever wanted to know what a man was thinking at a certain time, it's a trip to find out. Maybe I'll post some more of his writing if he says I can. He was funny about this entry. He smiled and told me he had it bad from the first night for me and it took me forever to take him seriously.

This makes me wish I could turn back time.

Defining our normal.

We went to the doctor today. It's been a little over six weeks since I checked out of the hospital against my doctor's advice because I wanted to grieve and heal at home. It's been a little over two weeks since, again, without my doctor's consent, Jacob and I made love for the first time since the end of September. It has been a little over a week since I was given the very last of my much-loathed anti-depressants, having been weaned off them fairly quickly and with minor difficulties.

So tentatively I was peeking out at the world and wondering if all of my professional Bridget-keepers were going to clear me for normal life now, Jacob included.

And they did and it's bittersweet. We chose some birth control we can live with and we were told to go home and be happy and live normally, that I am healing just fine and am physically well again. Couple this with another follow-up today with Claus in which he declared that he knew I would find myself with time and the incredible support that I have.

In the truck on the way home we were quiet, each of us lost in our own separate thoughts of what normal life might be like, because we've never really known it before for anything length of time and yet, here it is.

What in the hell has ever been normal about our relationship? It's mostly been some quiet wonderful days that wire together the popping, exploding lights of heartache, pain and overwhelming joy. I'm not sure how to function like this.

Jacob was standing beside me, tense and and holding my hand while I sat on the table and waited for the doctor to return after my exam with some more information on future pregnancies. Jacob's hand was warm and damp, mine was trembling. Being here brought back everything but we remained in place because it's closure of a different sort.

Bridget, everything looks terrific. No pain with sexual activity?

No, none.

Jacob looked at the floor. We had expected a lecture. My doctor tends to do that.

Looks like you're doing very well. A model patient. Good luck with everything, you two.
Dismissed because physically the scars will fade. Emotionally the scars will fade. It's a contest, a marathon between my body and my mind now to see which one can claim resiliency first. My body always wins these races and my head plays catch-up forever.

When I look to Jacob to gauge his reaction to the doctor's placating reassurances, the fluorescent glow of the lights on his skin makes the dark circles beneath his eyes appear that much deeper and the hard set of his chin reveals his unspoken disappointments. We should have been sitting here hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I hate those lights. The whole time the doctor was droning on in his professional voice all I could do was think about how cold those lights make the world, bathing our flaws in unflattering radiance.

This closure marks more step on the path to our future. We got through it. I'm planted back firmly on my axis, spinning with just the right angle at the perfect speed. There are no injuries to get past. No surgeries to heal from. No heartache to overcome, no death to grieve for. No fear of reprisals. No medications. No alcohol problems for Bridget at present.

Mark this date in history.

When we got home, Jacob took my coat for me and hung it up and we walked into the kitchen from the back porch and he closed the door. I turned back and looked at him and he was staring at me. Staring like he had never really seen me before. It was the same look he gave me that day in the coffeeshop back in 1997, the day he couldn't take his eyes off me. The grin that said he liked what he was seeing, a lot.

He laughed shyly, and put his hand up to rub his thumb on my bottom lip, like he does when he loves me very, very much and he's thinking.

Princess.

Yes?

Where do we go from here?

Up, Jacob. Up.

Yeah. Because there's nowhere else to go, is there?

I love you, Jake.

I love you, princess. And I thank God for you, every single day.

Pot, kettle, black.

I'll admit, I wasn't so impressed with Jacob's behavior yesterday. I never expected him to call from the airport to tell me he had been drinking and couldn't drive his truck home. You don't expect that from Jake, and besides, his birthday was barely a week ago. He's on some sort of destructive roll here.

The good Reverend is afraid to fly and it's worse than it was in August, because this time he was flying alone, and he is no longer comfortable with that. He's afraid he will die and leave us alone here on earth to fend for ourselves. God only knows, Bridget can't seem to fend for herself.

His solution was to have a couple of drinks onboard the plane to relax a little lot. Which is four drinks on the ground and far too much for Jacob, famous for not being able to hold his liquor.

He said he will not fly alone again. Ever.

His own very rare fragilities and weaknesses concern me. They astound me because I feel like I have become his biggest flaw. His excuse to fail at something that he used to be good at or seek out often because now he must stay behind and defend and protect poor little Bridget.

I meant fragile miss Bridget but I was too frustrated to even find my usual words, let alone spit them out in the proper order last night, this morning, an argument that keeps us traveling in circles since his return.

Christ, Jake. If you're going to give up everything you love for me then you're soon going to simply resent the ever-loving fuck right out of me and we won't be any further ahead. Maybe you're using alcohol to dull the pain over the choices you've made because I make you miserable.

So how do you think he responded to that?

Yes, he laughed. Again. He seems to think I'm funny when I'm mad. And I'm not, I'm frustrated. My goal was not to end up with Jacob simply so that I could ruin him too. He's not weak, my God, he's walked through fire to be here. He can withstand just about anything. He's strong and good and beautiful and I have come to realize that he isn't very strong at all sometimes, that I can push him over with one finger.

I'm not giving up anything, princess. I've just come to such a wonderful place in my life in which I know exactly what I want, and that's you. Traveling away from you and the kids for more than a day isn't something I need or want to do. And the pain from my life choices? Maybe if you'd wear your damn hearing aids you might have heard me for the past six months telling you how goddamned happy you make me. But you're too stubborn for that! Oh and if you're going to fight with me about alcohol, you'd best look in the mirror, princess. Besides, I'm home and I'm not planning to touch anything else for a good long while.

Okay, maybe not with one finger but I have my ways. When I figure out what they are, that is. He wins, again. Surprise, surprise.

Not the quiet reunion I was hoping for.

If you happened to be at a certain incredibly busy central Canadian airport yesterday afternoon you might have seen possibly the funniest and sweetest thing ever. Jacob, walking very quickly (a million miles an hour on his endless legs) and yelling my name across the concourse, which was packed with people. He was very loud, and only just a little drunk. Unable to drive in the state that he was in, and so he called me to meet him there. He only had enough wits to yell my name five times, so excited when he saw me, and trying to get my attention in the crowd, because he forgets that I mostly hear him now. He's never sure if I'm wearing my hearing aids or not. It wouldn't have mattered. He's tall and gorgeous and so loud, you can't miss him.

After tripping over a tour group of elderly Vancouverites and their collective baggage and a large gaggle of college boys who were blocking the stairs, he reached both arms out for me and suffocated me up into his coat to the point where I had to hit him on the back to remind him that I was better off breathing than a slightly-blue and completely dead plaything. He laughed and put me down and put his hands up to my face, planting a very sloppy, slippery, rum-soaked kiss mostly on my lips and slightly on my nose, too.

Then back to his arms I went. His hands into my coat, then tangled in my hair, and he surreptitiously checked to see if I had my hearing aids in. I clung to him like I used to when he'd return from being away for months. I dug in with both hands, clutching the back of his coat and balling up the fabric in my fists as if it might keep him grounded in my arms forever. He smelled vaguely of airplane fuel and even more rum. His beard felt soft on my cheek and I missed that. I missed everything about him so badly.

People stopped and watched. They do that when things like this happen. I would if I saw it. Because life is short and love is beautiful, and because Jacob made a complete spectacle of us.

    When spreads thy cloak of shimm'ring white,
    At winter's stern command,
    Thro' shortened day and star-lit night,
    We love thee, frozen land,
    We love thee, we love thee,
    We love thee, frozen land.

Hearts like paper.

Ruthie came home yesterday with a love letter crumpled haphazardly into the front pocket of her backpack, put there in secret when she briefly left the room to put on her snowboots. She pulled it out and unfolded it, a huge grin on her face. It was a piece of paper crudely shaped with safety scissors into a makeshift heart, a glorious display of the innocence of the grade-two set.

What does it say, Mommy?

It says 'to ruth i think you're pretty love james.'
She giggled and told me in hushed joyful whispers that today during morning recess they were going to get married on the ball field. I smiled and told her not to kiss anyone until she was old enough to drive. She smiled back at me, her satisfaction evident at having caught the eye of one of the more eligible elementary boys. He was tall (for a seven year old), dark and handsome and he routinely looks for Ruth's full attention on the monkey bars.

I realized how completely unequipped I am to handle this.

This heartbreaking thing they call 'growing up'. The inevitable highs and lows of watching your children repeat history in their own unique ways, with their own personal hopes and dreams ready to take flight, and quite possibly vastly different from what dreams you held at the same ages, and equidistant from the dreams you hold for them now.

How do I tell my daughter that love is so beautiful and difficult all at the same time? How am I going to celebrate her love when and where she finds it without wanting to save her from the certain heartbreaks? How do I teach her that it isn't okay for a man to hurt you ever, even if you could never prove it? How do I teach her that I didn't do things the right way and I'm incredibly lucky that I ended up with her stepfather? How do I make sure she is happy with the one she loves, secure and safe, treasured and respected? How do I not cringe when she brings home the rough ones, a dangerous glint in their eyes, rapture in hers? How will I ever stand back and let her make her own mistakes without ever letting her know that I could have prevented things she will go through?

How do I keep her small just a little while longer while I linger on the innocence with which she played yesterday, forgotten in her preparations for her recess nuptials today?

Ruth is only seven years old now. If these are my thoughts and feelings brought forth by an harmless note to my daughter from a classmate, how are we ever going to make it through the next ten to fifteen years?

All these thoughts rushed through my head like wildfire, and Ruth folded the note up and placed it back in the pocket of her pack and banished my fears in an instant with her next remark.

Don't worry, mommy. James is going to have to share his Oreos with me too or tomorrow Steven will play the groom.

The courage of hobbitses.

This morning I'm listening to Encomium (Hootie and the Blowfish doing a smashing cover of Hey Hey What Can I Do), I'm coveting a pair of green cowboy boots and a Samsung SGH-i760 smartphone, and I'm sporting a pair of very tired, burning bottle-greens, thanks for asking.

The boys came and took me out for a second breakfast, I call it a hobbit breakfast because they are the only people who eat breakfast twice, and I am stuffed so full I can barely walk. It was a very rare and much appreciated treat for me on my last day alone before Jake comes back tomorrow.

I also did something else very smart, too.

So fucking smart some of you will alternately slap me on the back so hard I fall on my knees or you'll just fall to your own knees to give thanks that I finally went and did something that needed to be done without just standing behind Jacob's shoulders while he did it for me.

Oh yes I did.

Well, almost anyways.

I called Caleb last evening (still with the ceiling-crawl issues when I hear his voice, and I called him. Talk about baggage) and told him he had to back down because I can't take it. That he can't visit, he can't call and that right now I'm not in any place from which I find it easy to interact with him.

He was reluctantly flattered, not surprisingly.

I wanted to murder him.

I can see where it gets difficult. He looks like Cole, he acts, sounds and even moves like Cole. He has the same sense of humor, same passionate attitude, same laid-back yet stressed out demeanor. And since I said I still loved Cole (I know, I waffle. Sometimes I still do), Caleb transferred those feelings unto himself. Uninvited. I said I couldn't distinguish between them as two separate people and yet there remains a strange and wonderful barrier of complete unreality that keeps me grounded and mercifully out of trouble.

I told him I had no plans to spend any more time with him and that he wasn't going to get a free pass to step into his little brother's shoes and complete the heartwrenching love triangle that has played out over the past ten years once again, oh no.

Caleb is fully aware that Jacob won the contest, for whatever it's worth. And in a way that speaks volumes to me about the possibility that the brothers might be less alike than we can see on the surface, he understands the frailty of my emotions and my refusal to take any kind of chance, no matter what need he might harbor to set things proper.

It's not going to happen. Ever.

We'll welcome his letters, if he wants to write to the kids, and he can call them, if he can pre-warn me by email or text I will answer without freaking out and then give the phone to them. But I can't see him. I can't be in a car with him. I can't be having awkward moments in hotel rooms with him (because, my God) or non-awkward moments in the middle of crowded airports with him, I can't look at him and wonder if he hurts the women he sleeps with when no one is there to witness his depravities. I can't honestly wonder if he likes to grab their wrists and hold them down because he isn't Cole and that is none of my business.

I can't go there. I'll self-destruct completely just thinking about it.

And you know something? Caleb already knew about my feelings. He understood the trouble we were in and he had already agreed to stop contacting me altogether.

Because Jacob called him first and told Caleb he wasn't about to sit by like Cole did and do nothing while I struggle through my feelings. Jacob was going to fix the parts that were wrong and so he asked Caleb to stop calling, and to not plan to come and spend time, for now. That it's too hard for Bridget, and too soon, and Jacob isn't going to allow for anyone making life difficult for his wife, himself included, so not to take it personally. Caleb told me what Jacob said, word for word and ending with the most wonderfullest (more new words) sentence.

Bridget will not be hurt again, ever. I won't allow it.
Oh, music to my everloving ears. The hearing aided ones. Yes.

They agreed to meet for lunch tomorrow on Jacob's way home through Toronto and bury whatever hatchet they shared, and Caleb was very much in awe of Jacob's firm and devoted approach to my emotional well-being. To protecting my precious heart.

Aren't we all?

Again Jacob put his shoulders between the world and I, so I can be safe and that's fine by me.

He and I talked on the phone late last night for three hours, which also speaks volumes about how serious and non-flighty this whole situation had become. Jake was quietly very concerned and incredibly patient with waiting to see if I would come to him about it, and not wanting to call attention to it if I was simply being my customary over-reaching emotional self. He was prepared to call Caleb over a month ago and ask him to refrain from contacting me but he was thrilled and audibly relieved that I did it myself, unheeded. He's looking for the safe passage for us through the latest stormy sea and was moved that I found it too, without looking to him first to fix it.

He also said he much prefers to be the bad guy and is happy to have me standing behind him while he fights whatever battles rage near enough to us to warrant our defensive.

Because we didn't get this far to stop now. One more night and I'll be back in his arms where I belong.

    Wanna tell you about the girl I love
    My she looks so fine
    She's the only one that I been dreaming of
    Maybe someday she will be all mine
    I wanna tell her that I love her so
    I thrill with her every touch
    I need to tell her she's the only one I really love

Keep breathing, dear Bridget, keep breathing. He's coming home soon.

Of mice and monkeys.

Well, shit.

Caleb called to schedule his next visit, he asked hesitantly how I was really doing with Jacob away on business and possibly doesn't believe me when I insist that I'm fine. I realize everyone is waiting for me to fall apart again. Maybe I sounded a little weird because whenever he calls he says my name when I say hello and for a few seconds I have to peel myself off the ceiling and remind myself it isn't Cole on the other end of the phone. They sound exactly alike. No wonder I don't sound so good when he calls. I can't hear myself talk because of the damn screaming inside my head.

And that isn't hard or anything. Nope.

You probably guessed who the monkey is. Caleb doesn't seem to believe in thinking of my happiness or comfort level first and that's a brick wall I keep throwing myself up against because I have to come first. He thinks he has to come first and so he's going to keep visiting and keep calling even if he knows it's hard for me because he feels better. Wow, we're stubborn collectively. Which also doesn't escape anyone's notice.

I used to think he and Cole were polar opposites but I am being enlightened every single time I interact with Caleb that they are almost exactly the same. Caleb is simply Cole from the future, had he lived.

Yes. Hello. I know. Please don't. Don't let Bridget go there.

No more, please.

I need time before I confront him again because it's like a window into my past and my future all at once and I'd like to board that window up for just a little longer. Seeing him took so much out of me. He, on the other hand, wants to feel better yesterday and so if he's here a lot or checks in all the time then he is satisfied that he's somehow going to erase my past for his own peace of mind or possibly exist to drive me insane. He says he's trying to atone and it's bullshit.

I've been throwing out a lot of mental well fuck you toos his way today. Oh, I lie. All month long.

Jacob stays far out of his way. He's spooked by Caleb, not having really spent any time with him and yet having spent so much with Cole. He's apprehensive and aware of their similarities and what it does to me and yet he can separate it. I can't and it makes both of us nervous and weird. No pretty words for these feelings, I'm sorry.

I keep telling myself that they are two different men. I can tell myself that they are not the same and that I'm with Jacob and life is going to be better.

But Bridget doesn't see it at all.

Textaoke. Is that even a word?

So much for the mighty mouse.

I was doing really good right through this morning, after a wonderful wake up call from Jake at 6 am. It was 8:30 his time and he was waiting for his meeting to start and he missed me so much he said he ached. I know exactly how he feels.

But what a way to put a smile on a girl's face. Which was terrific because the first thing I look for on Mondays now after waking up in his arms is a full coffeepot and fresh bagels from the bakery sometime around 10 am. I got my own coffee and opted to skip the bagels, having toast with the kids at 7 instead.

Right. So as I said, I was doing really well.

Just as we were starting to bundle up for the walk to school he started sending text messages, one every half hour or so. Here's what I've gotten so far.

8:30
i love you

9:00
i have loved you all along

9:30
i miss you

10:00
been far away for far too long

Looks like it's going to be an all-day 5000 kilometer karaoke fest, one line at a time, starting with our song, which I didn't figure out until the last message just now. This kills me. Which is really sweet and kind of funny. So yeah, I'm sort of doing good considering how much I loathe being alone, being without Jake right now, but at least I'm one night closer to him returning safely and he's sticking close where I can reach him when the ache gets really hard to withstand.

Yeah yeah, drama queen. I know.

Corduroy sheets.

I'm possibly the only fool who would use them exclusively. For some reason I can't fathom, I love corduroy. Love it.

And believe it or not I loved it before the coat, which is coming out of retirement with a fresh retrofit-new elbow patches and re-sewn pockets, since it will work well for class where it had stopped working so well for Sunday services.

And yes, I stuck my nose in it too. Just to smell it. Even though it had been put away washed, of course. I stick my nose in all kinds of things, so you know.

Even cake.

Tonight Jacob has to catch a flight home to the rock. He's speaking at a conference and will be gone for three nights-enough time to attend two days of meetings, speak at the dinner and check in with his fading great uncle. While I would love to loudly vocalize my fragility and keep him home because I don't want to be without him that long or because I'm afraid, this is a reality. He can't be beside me every moment and I have to grow the fuck up and live life in spite of the overwhelming want to run and dive into our bed and pull the quilt up over my head, refusing to move until he is safely home.

I'm staring down a very long week, I guess.

Hit the lights.

Last night involved take-out pizza, pink floyd and a winter hat with earflaps. It also involved a couple of lights-out shots, which, for the uninitiated, are shots made up of half vodka and half Jagermeister.

It was a very relaxing night, exactly what we needed. And no, the earflap hat wasn't anything sordid. It was a hat I finished knitting for Henry, and I put it on to model it for Jacob. He thought it was adorable on me and suggested I keep it so I wore it all night, but I gave it to Henry this morning. He always has cold ears so the flaps are a necessity.

So so happy to be done with the antibiotics, done with the antidepressants and pretty much not anti-anything right at this moment.

    Its a sin that somehow
    Light is changing to shadow
    And casting its shroud
    Over all we have known
    Unaware how the ranks have grown
    Driven on by a heart of stone
    We could find that were all alone
    In the dream of the proud

The view from the flannel wall.

If I close my eyes and press my nose into his shirt I smell patchouli and coffee and soap. And love, newly tactile somehow, if that's even possible. He bends his head down and his hair tickles my ear while I shiver as his warm breath touches my back. He sighs and closes his arms tight around me and I feel safe. Safe, loved and almost human again in a way I haven't felt in months. I'm not straying so far from his arms these days, truth be told.

And I feel like this without the checks and balances. without the drugs anymore, without having to rehash every last painful moment with doctors, with family, with friends. With myself.

    Theres a passion in being alone
    A grace in a loveless time
    There's no new cross, there's no new sign
    Only the sun and the changing tide
    And out of respect, well I really must confess
    I never lost your number
    I never lost your address
    And if we remain friends at best
    Sometime later no, no not yet
    We'll smile and remember it like this

Secret guilty pleasure. When I wrote that the other day something snapped awfully hard.

Today I don't feel like sharing anything and that's not cool to me, this is my place to sort through everything and lay it all out bare and unprotected under the bleakest lights, judgments be damned, and yet right now I feel protective and remorseful for sharing so damned much. My very first pang of modesty with my words. You would have thought the pornographic writing would have been the first regret but it's not. I hope I feel differently tomorrow.

I can't put this shit back in, you know. It's out there, cached in the living internet machine and anyone, everyone can see it and I don't like that right at this moment. My, our history, a good quarter of it spilled into cyberspace. In my haste to deal with everything in the best way I knew how I forgot you were all out there watching me collapse. A quarter of it because I'll never tell everything.

Guilty indeed. I know who reads. I stopped posting pictures. I turned off the comments, with help. There are few links save for reminding myself where I said or did something relevant to a new entry. It has become so simple to make it easy for people to keep my words. Because words are all I have to give, and within them I have given you everything. No pressure, come and read, then come back tomorrow, because you know there will be more. Bridget, one molecule at a time.

I rarely comment on other's journals anymore either, I feel awkward and stunted when I try to weigh in on their lives. I have no business commenting on your lives when my own is so fucked up sometimes and that didn't even hit me until this morning.

Was it a bad idea? No. I work through alot. I have a place to hang out. I have an identity I can grasp by reading back. I can see who I am without blinders and editing. I could read about that girl and recognize her instantly. It's me. For fucks sakes, it's me.

I'm simply struggling with how public this has become and so, via my usual beloved words I am exploring how I feel about it.

Because I do that.

So no worries.

Tomorrow I'll share, but with a brand-new monkey on my back. I just have to figure out how to type without waking him up. Because you would have thought for all Jacob's (half-assed) pleading to take down the journal it wasn't him who gave me this pause. It was someone else.

And none of us are happy about it.