Wow, it's so nice to have a few quiet days without extra people around. Not that I don't love and appreciate my team of bodyguard boys and all but a girl needs a break now and then from the stifling testosterone fumes and we're safe for now.
I hung out my lacy unmentionables on the clothesline and sang silly songs with the kids. I plucked my eyebrows (try doing that with Ben going through your makeup bag and threatening to eat your cherry lipgloss if you don't feed him lunch soon.). We walked to the store and bought chips and were able to eat them instead of watching them disappear into PJ.
We watched Bear in the Big Blue House without a single singalong in off color language.
We played outside without looking over the fence to scan the sidewalks four hundred times in half an hour. Jacob came home early with the pizza and the surprising awful Kirsch, which is a sickly sweet brandy but we made a toast and planned the next Hemingway adventure.
So what's with the word of the day, you ask?
Puerile.
That word was in my email, because some of my readers have reduced their contact to namecalling.
The simple solution would be not to come visit my journal if you don't approve. Simple. Easy. Bye.
And I don't think so.
I can say that I am, but you can't. Hypocritical to the maximum and yes I put everything all out there so I should expect judgement. But your judgement is ignorance in the extreme, because you haven't lived my life.
Had you walked miles in my shoes then you can stand back and speak from your place of all-knowing.
Jake says to ignore it all.
I can't.
Maybe not a good day to read emails. Here's the difference. It's luck. I'm lucky. How could I be lucky? Being smashed into walls by someone you once loved with every filament of your soul hurt like hell. Being passed off to a friend like you were no longer useful stung. It was exactly what I wanted but the undercurrent still stung. Cole didn't start fighting for me until I was long gone. He never gave a shit. Halfway through the euphoria of this whole thing I realized I didn't mean so much to him. Or maybe I did. I have no idea. But is it luck? I'm lucky I ended this standing upright with my heart intact. So yeah.
I'm not spoiled by life. Life has dealt me illness, near-death, life and death, cheating death, and more death. Life has brought me total abandonment and isolation of the worst kind. And then brief respites with the euphoria in between.
You really sit there and think I write about everything?
I don't. Unapologetically I write about what I want to write about and if that forms a skewed picture that doesn't quite mesh for you then I can do no better. Take each entry for what it is, string them together to sort of see the history of Bridget and never forget that it is mostly undocumented history. Some things I will never ever write about because I would rather forget. Wouldn't we all? Everyone has those times. I am not special. I could horrify you with my words but that only dredges up pain for me so what's the point? This is voyeuristic enough.
I have spent my life being judged for what people see on the surface. Long blonde hair and a pretty face will get you almost everything your heart desires. To a point. Being demure and sexkittenish gets you a little further. A lot of times that will bring you the wrong kind of attention. And Ben's right. It's a put-on. A long cultivated put-on that took over my personality sometime shortly after I grew boobs and discovered the power I had over men. A power that was in place long before I ever met Jake or realized that Cole was looking at me, and not the same way he used to when he was 12 and I was 9. This was a new look. And suddenly I couldn't turn it off anymore.
The rest is chance, fate and kismet and you have less control then you might think.
So yes. I make mistakes. A lot of them. I alternate between having an ego that shines so bright people might go blind and being so low I'm under the floor and no one can find me. And Jacob makes mistakes. He is human, though I know I have elevated him to angel status too many times to allow anyone to consider him to be just a man anymore. He had two goals in his life and he has achieved them both. One was to be closer to God and the second was to be closer to me. The means to this end he will struggle with forever. And he does.
And he will never be just a man to me and I will never apologize for that to him or to you.
Or maybe I'm just tired and sensitive this morning. And sad listening to the singing preacher boy this morning singing the bitter songs, like Best of You. I wish he'd stick to happy stuff some days.
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
The life, the love
You'd die to heal
The hope that starts
The broken hearts
Your trust, you must
Confess
And now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go saw the chip off my shoulder. Perhaps the Friday afternoon rhapsody will bring about a happier second entry to end a very long week with. Cross your fingers. And think about how much better you would have handled your life if you were in my place. Good luck with that.
