Happiness is coming home late on a warm rainy night and deciding to duck into a sushi restaurant first, where the lights are low and the place is empty and the owners happily whip up plates of rice and vegetables and cooked fish for the kids and you can enjoy some sashimi and saki and the music and the candles and an attentive staff and two hours of non-stressed-out peace and quiet.
I suppose it would have been even better had Jacob been there and not working but you know what? I'm a big girl and I had a good time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It wasn't till we were home and the kids were in bed that the loneliness crashed down all around me. Homesickness, fear, unsettled forced comfort. And yet I swallowed what has become a bitter pill for me and ignored the feelings because they aren't productive anymore and I know I have to deal with things.
And hey, am I twelve? Jacob has work to do, he can't be here every moment. I always wished he could.
I have to embrace the way this feels because things change.
I am alone.
Wow, talk about trust issues. I'm thinking if Jacob leaves I will feel this way all the time. A neverending rush of miserable fear. It paints a horrible picture but self-sufficiency is important right now and I have to know myself well-enough to recognize that in the event that he did leave I could survive just fine on my own. But I don't.
Because I wouldn't..well, there's no lineup. I sent them home.
Christ, I'm playing 'What If' by myself. All this from going to dinner alone with the kids?
I wouldn't ever try to find anyone else. Or would I? No, I wouldn't.
Because if there is one thing I know for sure, it's that no one can hold a candle to him. No one even comes close. He serves to magnify the weaknesses of other men I know. He makes them all look bad, somehow he exploits the flaws in their own fabrics. He makes every man he knows suck it up and try that much harder. So why can't I have faith in him? Of all people in my life he loves me the most. He has put up with the most. And he is still here. And I love him so much it hurts. Hurts. In a way that I can't deal with.
I see it. This isn't his problem. He gave it everything he had and I wasn't responding because I couldn't do anymore than I was doing. And he did give up. In the fall of 2002 we moved away from home and he gave up on me and I wasn't ever going to blame him for trying to get on with his life. He met a girl, they dated a few months and he proposed, she said yes and they got married.
Way too fast. And I couldn't talk to him on the phone. The long distance alone was a dead giveaway and Cole was like the cat that swallowed the canary. He took me away from Jacob and Jacob was left to live a life I was no longer a part of. Bless his heart, he did. Because he said once I was a part of his life it was never going to be the same ever again. He was never the same man, he said. That broke my heart into a million pieces.
But it was the same feeling. That cold feeling of abandonment, when you know that your last shred of warmth is gone forever. Oh how I cried.
By the time the feeling became a familiar one, Jacob broke my heart again, in the most wonderful exquisite way. His wife went back to school and he moved here. And we started over yet again. But this time I had a taste of that fear and I figured it was a matter of time before I felt it once again. Because once you feel it there's some sick habit of looking over your shoulder constantly. In case it comes back.
And here it comes.
Seriously. Why is he here? And why am I so fucked up? Instead of feeling safe and secure and content at last I have to root around in the dark corners of my heart and drag out the worst, most awful feelings, kicking and screaming from their places where they are content to lie in wait, ready to ambush me at the most vunerable times.
It's insane. Again, this is NOT WHO I AM.
And yet I am me. I am not taking anti-depressants, I'm not drinking (sake doesn't count, they serve it in an egg cup), I'm sort-of rested and I'm a raving lunatic. I'm scared. So goddamned scared. Of everything.
He tells me I have to trust him. 9 years doesn't lie and he hasn't abandoned me before. Does the marriage count?
Logically it shouldn't.
Logically he should be the one with trust issues.
Logically it stands to reason that I would do this again. I would run. I would waffle. I would continue down a self-destructive path and work my way through my male friends because I'm trying to fill some gaping hole that I don't even remember what used to fill it.
Maybe because nothing did until now. It is filled and I'm not used to this. And I didn't mean that. Because I would never do that.
I wouldn't because I never felt for anyone else what I feel for Jake. Not even Cole. Honestly not even Cole.
So why? Why now?
Maybe because I'm so used to Cole yanking the rug out from underneath my comfort zone. I'm looking for excuses to fuck things up again because it's so goddamned unfamiliar. Feeling good. How sad is that?
Someone once told me that the devil gave me a beautiful face and the charisma of a thousand women in exchange for being able to control my emotions. And yet I believe that beauty doesn't come from the outside, it comes from within. Making me the ugliest person alive. And the devil is having fun with me now. I don't want this. This brimming with such enthusiastic self-doubt. I hate this.
What I want I might never have. Because I can't get a grip anymore. I can dig in with both tiny hands and hold on as tight as I possibly can and it isn't working. I'm slipping. And Jacob has me by the hand and I know he won't let go on purpose but eventually his body will give out or win over his heart and I will fall. And there will be no one left to catch me. Maybe if I think hard enough and I become strong enough I can fly. And then I won't get hurt.
And no that isn't what I said, okay, it's exactly what I said but it isn't what I mean and so please don't go there so I DON'T GO THERE. No worries. I'm not hanging off the gingerbread today.
Because I cannot fly. And no matter how strong I get, I cannot fly. Bridget doesn't have wings, she has stones tied to her arms. Jacob has wings. He can fly. He can do anything.
He saved me from Cole. But can he save me from myself? And how is it fair to ask him to do something for me, when I can't even do it myself?
I can't save Bridget. She's up there on the stupid roof trying to fly. Because she's an idiot. Because she's just not as freewheeling and cute as she would have you believe. She's a mess.
A beautiful mess.
Guess who said that?
Yes. The one with the wings. The one with no wings? Well, she believes every word of it.
I have to fix this. Me.
