No, I'm serious, there are no naked pictures. No one believes me.
Because I am, as usual, completely untrustworthy.
Snort.
Monday, 30 April 2007
And again for the latecomers.
Bridget isn't on the web, guys. People regularly send me email with links to Flickr pictures labelled Bridget and Jake wondering if it's us (it isn't, most likely) or ask if I have Myspace or Facebook or other things I know little about. I did spend a couple of months flirting with Myspace but ultimately Loch took it down for me, I don't feel like I need more than this. Though if Blogger gets dodgy again, then I might reconsider a move to Wordpress or something.
But this website is definitely not me. I hope it's a line of cruise ships or fishing tackle supply and not some girl with the same nickname because well, just wow. But I have no right to be offended or upset because I didn't go and buy the domain.
But just so you know, saltwaterprincess.com isn't Bridget.
It's probably someone looking for payback in which case you'll soon see naked pictures of me there. Plus I'm offended by 'saltwater' being two words for some odd reason.
Oh, I'm kidding. No one's blackmailing me.
Of course, the day is young.
And notice I failed to deny the existence of naked pictures.
Oh dear lord.
(I'm still kidding, by the way. You have no faith in me at all, do you, internet?)
But this website is definitely not me. I hope it's a line of cruise ships or fishing tackle supply and not some girl with the same nickname because well, just wow. But I have no right to be offended or upset because I didn't go and buy the domain.
But just so you know, saltwaterprincess.com isn't Bridget.
It's probably someone looking for payback in which case you'll soon see naked pictures of me there. Plus I'm offended by 'saltwater' being two words for some odd reason.
Oh, I'm kidding. No one's blackmailing me.
Of course, the day is young.
And notice I failed to deny the existence of naked pictures.
Oh dear lord.
(I'm still kidding, by the way. You have no faith in me at all, do you, internet?)
Performance tranquility.
There's something really romantic and positively magical about running uphill in the pouring rain while your husband stands at the top and yells at you repeatedly to get your shoulders down, already. Christ.
Jacob is a perfectionist in the few sports he does enjoy. He's really loving running again. I'm less of a technical, more of a cathartic runner. Sometimes I care nothing for form, keeping track or training, I just run until I've left my worries behind. This is why I run each day, because I can't get away from them.
Halfway up the hill I dropped my hands to my knees and stopped dead and yelled for him to fuck off. And he laughed and told me to hurry up. What a sweetheart.
I keep telling him I'm going to take him out and lose him one of these days and he tells me I have to be able to pass him in order to do that. We trash-talk to each other so much when we run you'd think we were bitter rivals instead of husband and wife.
Then we come home and share a hot shower and forget we were ever exasperated. Because...eh, hot showers when you've come home soaked to the bone and freezing cold are the best things ever.
Today's blessing is a well-anchored towel rack. But I'm not telling you why.
Snort.
Jacob is a perfectionist in the few sports he does enjoy. He's really loving running again. I'm less of a technical, more of a cathartic runner. Sometimes I care nothing for form, keeping track or training, I just run until I've left my worries behind. This is why I run each day, because I can't get away from them.
Halfway up the hill I dropped my hands to my knees and stopped dead and yelled for him to fuck off. And he laughed and told me to hurry up. What a sweetheart.
I keep telling him I'm going to take him out and lose him one of these days and he tells me I have to be able to pass him in order to do that. We trash-talk to each other so much when we run you'd think we were bitter rivals instead of husband and wife.
Then we come home and share a hot shower and forget we were ever exasperated. Because...eh, hot showers when you've come home soaked to the bone and freezing cold are the best things ever.
Today's blessing is a well-anchored towel rack. But I'm not telling you why.
Snort.
Drive-thru girl.
In an effort not to be outdone by Loch, I present to you Duncan, your friendly neighborhood Irish Beat Poet. At first I laughed, but it's really freaking cool:
Down dusty roads choked with cars
a ribbon edged in black
traces the path your life has taken
like the map of your soul's travels
This path is marked with milestones
names and symbols you come
to recognize easily
before you are old enough to read
Which hunger are you filling, drive-thru girl?
Sometimes there's a passenger
slouched in the backseat
His name is deadly homesickness
and you wish he would go
Sometimes he likes to go away
while you take your repast.
food your mouth knows, your brain remembers
You feel less alone.
Littered beside the dusty road
like abandoned boxes
like empty houses
the drive-thrus tempt your hunger
Which hunger are you filling, drive-thru girl?
Sliding glass smeared with fingerprints
dirty dollar bills exchanged
a crumpled bag is handed out
and you are on your way
The window a link to your past
the road ahead a map of your future
your blood sugar a reluctant hostage
in your quest for miles before dark.
And once you have left
and eaten your fare
your belly is quiet, your thoughts are spare
and you know, in five hundred miles you'll do it again.
What hunger was that that you were filling again, drive-thru girl?
Down dusty roads choked with cars
a ribbon edged in black
traces the path your life has taken
like the map of your soul's travels
This path is marked with milestones
names and symbols you come
to recognize easily
before you are old enough to read
Which hunger are you filling, drive-thru girl?
Sometimes there's a passenger
slouched in the backseat
His name is deadly homesickness
and you wish he would go
Sometimes he likes to go away
while you take your repast.
food your mouth knows, your brain remembers
You feel less alone.
Littered beside the dusty road
like abandoned boxes
like empty houses
the drive-thrus tempt your hunger
Which hunger are you filling, drive-thru girl?
Sliding glass smeared with fingerprints
dirty dollar bills exchanged
a crumpled bag is handed out
and you are on your way
The window a link to your past
the road ahead a map of your future
your blood sugar a reluctant hostage
in your quest for miles before dark.
And once you have left
and eaten your fare
your belly is quiet, your thoughts are spare
and you know, in five hundred miles you'll do it again.
What hunger was that that you were filling again, drive-thru girl?
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Woozles.
What's with the Piglet nickname again?
I like it, it suits you.
Gee, thanks alot.
Well, not only is Piglet Pooh's best friend and constant companion, but we have to work together to capture all of your woozles and heffalumps.
Oh, I see. Pooh?
Yes, Piglet?
Nothing, I just wanted to be sure of you.
Man, you know more of these quotes than I do, princess.
Oh, thank heavens. I thought you forgot my real name.
It isn't princ-
Oh, yes it is.
Okay, Bridget the Saltwater Piglet.
Take that back!
No way, baby girl. I am the giver of nicknames.
Um.....
Yes?
You'll pay for this, Jacob.
Can't come up with anything?
Nope. I got nothing.
I like it, it suits you.
Gee, thanks alot.
Well, not only is Piglet Pooh's best friend and constant companion, but we have to work together to capture all of your woozles and heffalumps.
Oh, I see. Pooh?
Yes, Piglet?
Nothing, I just wanted to be sure of you.
Man, you know more of these quotes than I do, princess.
Oh, thank heavens. I thought you forgot my real name.
It isn't princ-
Oh, yes it is.
Okay, Bridget the Saltwater Piglet.
Take that back!
No way, baby girl. I am the giver of nicknames.
Um.....
Yes?
You'll pay for this, Jacob.
Can't come up with anything?
Nope. I got nothing.
Record smashed.
Jacob was home in time to offer to take us out for dinner with his characteristic wry smile at our argument. We had sort of made up on the phone but when he came home things were still a bit tense. Over dinner we worked out our remaining issues on the subject that caused our turmoil and then came home to get the kids in bed and warm up to each other. We called it a night at 9:30 and went to bed hand in hand.
And I swear I don't pick fights for this reason, but I would, in a heartbeat. Epic make-up sex.
Last night in his hurry to touch, Jacob managed to rip five buttons off my shirt, one off my skirt and two off his Levi 501s. I'm not sure how he managed that feat considering how tough those buttons are but he did it. It was a new record for us.
We didn't care much about the buttons. He gathered me up into his arms and into his lap and then turned me inside out and pushed me so far into the bed I had to talk him into slowing down. He's proving me wrong on so many levels it's positively joyful.
Afterwards I was lying across the foot of the bed watching him pick buttons up off the floor by candlelight, and I told him I loved him.
He laughed and stopped his button-hunt and sat down beside me on the edge of the bed, and he ran his hand down my back and rubbed the back of my thigh and said,
You drive me right up the wall, piglet, and I love you so very, very much.
And I swear I don't pick fights for this reason, but I would, in a heartbeat. Epic make-up sex.
Last night in his hurry to touch, Jacob managed to rip five buttons off my shirt, one off my skirt and two off his Levi 501s. I'm not sure how he managed that feat considering how tough those buttons are but he did it. It was a new record for us.
We didn't care much about the buttons. He gathered me up into his arms and into his lap and then turned me inside out and pushed me so far into the bed I had to talk him into slowing down. He's proving me wrong on so many levels it's positively joyful.
Afterwards I was lying across the foot of the bed watching him pick buttons up off the floor by candlelight, and I told him I loved him.
He laughed and stopped his button-hunt and sat down beside me on the edge of the bed, and he ran his hand down my back and rubbed the back of my thigh and said,
You drive me right up the wall, piglet, and I love you so very, very much.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Rebobinage.
Why are you here reading about me? It's a beautiful spring day and we should all be outside. I'm headed there now with a fresh cup of coffee and I'm going to try to reel in my crazy head and salvage the day. Because what's worse than going to bed angry is waking up still angry and then going off to spend the day angry and Bridget at home wishing she could learn to shut her mouth but it's hard when her feet are in it and everything spills out. I'm learning there's a fine, most unwelcome line between being able to share your darkest fears with your best friend and not alienating your husband in the process. Especially when they are one in the same.
Friday, 27 April 2007
Friday love letters.
Here, a post stolen directly from Jacob's newest journal, a pretty coffee-brown moleskin number I bought for him and in return he had to let me post entry number one, written three days ago, in which he explains the upcoming trip.
Sorry, I have nothing to add to this, walking with knees this weak is so much harder than I once hoped it might be.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
I expected in my lifetime to find someone I would be comfortable with. I would love a girl and in return she would love me too. I would always have a date to the movies. I would have a permanent dinner and travel partner. I would end each night lying beside someone who knew me well and someone I cared for greatly. Bridget is none of those things. She took my definition of marriage, of love itself and turned it inside out. She's the walking epitome of what it means to be in love. She falls asleep on my shoulder at the movies, every time. It's as if the dark room and the loud music signifies a rest for her little head. It's hard to get her to eat, she'd rather sit and watch me and talk. We haven't traveled much. I hope I can change that. Mostly at night I fall asleep not just beside Bridget but holding her so close in my arms that we breathe in unison. I become a cage around her, a human shield to keep her safe so that she can sleep, defender of her life against her nightmares and terrors. It isn't the comfort of being beside someone. It's the outpouring of emotions from within that have humbled me. I never expected to find such depth and breadth in love. I never expected to want to spend every moment-waking or asleep-with another person. She's like fire contained within her skin. She embodies every aspect of life in her beauty, in her lust for what she loves, her honest love for me, it defies measurement-it could bring down a mountain, a kingdom even. When I wake up in the morning I feel her skin in my hands, when I open my eyes I look into hers and my throat catches and I can do nothing except pause and let love overwhelm me. I say my thanks to God for her very presence in my life but this is more than I could have hoped for. I tell her I love her but it's never enough. "I love you." is not descriptive or encompassing enough for what I feel for my wife. She is the world-she is my world. When she chose me I expected to find a balance, to have a partner but coming up for air is a task I'd rather not undertake at this time. It's too beautiful being here with her, consumed by these feelings. I am a lucky man. If Bridget woke up tomorrow, changed her mind, crushed my heart and took me for everything I had to give her I would still love her forever. My heart is at her mercy, as is my soul. I'm taking her home next week. She needs a break, needs to get away and breathe some sea breezes and let the salt soak into her skin and claim her invisible crown that waits for her afloat in the waves, weaving seaweed through her hair and trying to hide the scales of her mermaid fin. When she has all that she can hold I'll bring her back and we'll continue on. She's doing very well and it's a good time for good things. Someday I'll learn how to hold the ocean in my hands and give it to her on my knees but until that day comes I must be content to take her to the very edge and see that smile that I only see when she's up to her knees in the saltwater and she turns to thank me without saying a word. She can't because it won't come out. I try to say it for her and then I can't speak. We smile at each other in silence because life is perfect now with my princess.
Two peas, one pod. One very sentimental pod.
And Jacob, honey, one more thing. Paragraphs, they are your friends.
(Edit: Since re-reading it a hundred times I've come to the conclusion that this was an extra-special entry heavy on the sweet because he knew I would share it. He's wicked that way, and I am a little slow on the draw. Not like I care much, the part about him learning to hold the ocean in his hands to give to me on his knees? That kind of thing is what makes him tick. Hopefully he'll figure out how to pull it off.)
Sorry, I have nothing to add to this, walking with knees this weak is so much harder than I once hoped it might be.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
I expected in my lifetime to find someone I would be comfortable with. I would love a girl and in return she would love me too. I would always have a date to the movies. I would have a permanent dinner and travel partner. I would end each night lying beside someone who knew me well and someone I cared for greatly. Bridget is none of those things. She took my definition of marriage, of love itself and turned it inside out. She's the walking epitome of what it means to be in love. She falls asleep on my shoulder at the movies, every time. It's as if the dark room and the loud music signifies a rest for her little head. It's hard to get her to eat, she'd rather sit and watch me and talk. We haven't traveled much. I hope I can change that. Mostly at night I fall asleep not just beside Bridget but holding her so close in my arms that we breathe in unison. I become a cage around her, a human shield to keep her safe so that she can sleep, defender of her life against her nightmares and terrors. It isn't the comfort of being beside someone. It's the outpouring of emotions from within that have humbled me. I never expected to find such depth and breadth in love. I never expected to want to spend every moment-waking or asleep-with another person. She's like fire contained within her skin. She embodies every aspect of life in her beauty, in her lust for what she loves, her honest love for me, it defies measurement-it could bring down a mountain, a kingdom even. When I wake up in the morning I feel her skin in my hands, when I open my eyes I look into hers and my throat catches and I can do nothing except pause and let love overwhelm me. I say my thanks to God for her very presence in my life but this is more than I could have hoped for. I tell her I love her but it's never enough. "I love you." is not descriptive or encompassing enough for what I feel for my wife. She is the world-she is my world. When she chose me I expected to find a balance, to have a partner but coming up for air is a task I'd rather not undertake at this time. It's too beautiful being here with her, consumed by these feelings. I am a lucky man. If Bridget woke up tomorrow, changed her mind, crushed my heart and took me for everything I had to give her I would still love her forever. My heart is at her mercy, as is my soul. I'm taking her home next week. She needs a break, needs to get away and breathe some sea breezes and let the salt soak into her skin and claim her invisible crown that waits for her afloat in the waves, weaving seaweed through her hair and trying to hide the scales of her mermaid fin. When she has all that she can hold I'll bring her back and we'll continue on. She's doing very well and it's a good time for good things. Someday I'll learn how to hold the ocean in my hands and give it to her on my knees but until that day comes I must be content to take her to the very edge and see that smile that I only see when she's up to her knees in the saltwater and she turns to thank me without saying a word. She can't because it won't come out. I try to say it for her and then I can't speak. We smile at each other in silence because life is perfect now with my princess.
Two peas, one pod. One very sentimental pod.
And Jacob, honey, one more thing. Paragraphs, they are your friends.
(Edit: Since re-reading it a hundred times I've come to the conclusion that this was an extra-special entry heavy on the sweet because he knew I would share it. He's wicked that way, and I am a little slow on the draw. Not like I care much, the part about him learning to hold the ocean in his hands to give to me on his knees? That kind of thing is what makes him tick. Hopefully he'll figure out how to pull it off.)
Thursday, 26 April 2007
More, because it's here.
I don't talk about therapy much anymore, do I? It's too hard. It's an increasingly productive rhythm now. I'm a very good patient when I try. When I don't try I'm a holy terror but I've been trying and it shows.
But I still don't think I'll talk about it for a bit. It seems to work better when I don't. My apologies, for those who come to pick my carcass.
Instead I'm going to bore you and feed the sweet people, the ones who care about me. You know who you are.
Jacob asked me to sing Landslide while he played it late last night after everyone left. Never mind that some nights the guitar comes to bed with him because he likes to lie down and play it with his back against the headboard and fiddle with new tunings and new songs.
Landslide.
I love that song. I used to think it was about an adult who suddenly realized she was an adult. Making her life her own.
I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Until the landslide brought it down
Oh, mirror in the sky -What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well I've been afraid of changing
because I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
So, take my love take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well the landslide will bring it down
The landslide will bring it down
And woog. Another epiphany, just like that.
Hi. I'm Bridget. Nice to meet me, slowpoke.
But I still don't think I'll talk about it for a bit. It seems to work better when I don't. My apologies, for those who come to pick my carcass.
Instead I'm going to bore you and feed the sweet people, the ones who care about me. You know who you are.
Jacob asked me to sing Landslide while he played it late last night after everyone left. Never mind that some nights the guitar comes to bed with him because he likes to lie down and play it with his back against the headboard and fiddle with new tunings and new songs.
Landslide.
I love that song. I used to think it was about an adult who suddenly realized she was an adult. Making her life her own.
I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Until the landslide brought it down
Oh, mirror in the sky -What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well I've been afraid of changing
because I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
So, take my love take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well the landslide will bring it down
The landslide will bring it down
And woog. Another epiphany, just like that.
Hi. I'm Bridget. Nice to meet me, slowpoke.
Rainstorming.
Let's begin with a wax and end with an epiphany, shall we?
Lying in the hammock reading existentialist prose this morning in the vague darkness of a rainy day, drinking strong tea, a firm shadow on the floor beneath me where previously one would glimpse only a fleeting wisp of movement and light. Birdy Nam Nam reverberates from the stereo, packing sound into every nook and cranny in the whole house and spilling out around the edges, under windowsills and through rippled glass only to be cut off by the roar of the rain.
And so there are no lyrics today, but the next lapdance will be Escape. I never heard a song more in need of Stoli and a strobe light. At least that's what Jacob had to say about it.
A new chapter has begun in this novel.
Redefined lives, new boundaries and fresh hopes. New routines, renewed faith and an ache of experiences passed like tests in grade school.
I keep telling myself this over and over again. I keep breaking out into spontaneous smiles. I haven't done it in such a long time that Jacob has spent much of recent history on his knees praying his thanks,
One life lived and one more to go, on the cusp I tingle with anticipation, expectations I won't make in favor of just...seeing what happens. Just like the sunrise disintegrates into day only to be reborn in fire and fury at twilight. The stars push their way to the forefront of the sky's stage to silence us with awe.
I am a star, and I will light the way to the moon, my angel boy. To the moon.
I've got an Air Canada itinerary in my hands. But it isn't for the moon. It's for the coast. If the moon had a coast, I would be there, believe me. I'll talk about the trip shortly, but not today. Today I got a very short and distant email from Ben thanking me for not castrating him with my words here. I have no use for that. No, honestly had I written that entry the day after he cut me loose it might have been vastly different. You can tell when I'm not rational through what I write, and you can tell when the edge has been taken off what I'm saying. We seem to have returned to our adult ways, adult reactions and adult expectations. People come and go. Sometimes friendships are irreparably broken, like marriages, like homes, and like hearts.
It's life. It happens. Bridget's learning to roll with it, instead of being steamrolled by it.
There's nothing left to steamroll, maybe. No, probably not. The good news is I am good. Hearing aids, check. Medication-free, check. Rested, check. No longer grieving, check. No longer scared, check. No longer afraid to say things are good for fear of jinxing myself or appearing to pretend.
Bridget's not pretending nothing anymore.
She's also lost her ability to form sentences this morning. Blame it on an epic back massage in the big hammock. Blame it on naming tropical fish after impressionist painters and late night dim sum for eight. Blame it on bad weather clearing up a dusty fleeting city-spring and a very lovely dead tree in the backyard that I'm loathe to see cut down because it likes me. Or rather, I like it. It's dark and ugly in a sea of fresh green life. I named it Bridget's emo tree.
Snort.
No mind, Jacob promised I could have my giant angel statue where the tree used to be. The one Cole wouldn't go for.
Poetic justice, baby. Cole didn't want any life-sized angels in my sightlines. And now that's all I see.
And I ran today.
It was a short run, but a good one nonetheless.
Can't you tell?
Lying in the hammock reading existentialist prose this morning in the vague darkness of a rainy day, drinking strong tea, a firm shadow on the floor beneath me where previously one would glimpse only a fleeting wisp of movement and light. Birdy Nam Nam reverberates from the stereo, packing sound into every nook and cranny in the whole house and spilling out around the edges, under windowsills and through rippled glass only to be cut off by the roar of the rain.
And so there are no lyrics today, but the next lapdance will be Escape. I never heard a song more in need of Stoli and a strobe light. At least that's what Jacob had to say about it.
A new chapter has begun in this novel.
Redefined lives, new boundaries and fresh hopes. New routines, renewed faith and an ache of experiences passed like tests in grade school.
I keep telling myself this over and over again. I keep breaking out into spontaneous smiles. I haven't done it in such a long time that Jacob has spent much of recent history on his knees praying his thanks,
One life lived and one more to go, on the cusp I tingle with anticipation, expectations I won't make in favor of just...seeing what happens. Just like the sunrise disintegrates into day only to be reborn in fire and fury at twilight. The stars push their way to the forefront of the sky's stage to silence us with awe.
I am a star, and I will light the way to the moon, my angel boy. To the moon.
I've got an Air Canada itinerary in my hands. But it isn't for the moon. It's for the coast. If the moon had a coast, I would be there, believe me. I'll talk about the trip shortly, but not today. Today I got a very short and distant email from Ben thanking me for not castrating him with my words here. I have no use for that. No, honestly had I written that entry the day after he cut me loose it might have been vastly different. You can tell when I'm not rational through what I write, and you can tell when the edge has been taken off what I'm saying. We seem to have returned to our adult ways, adult reactions and adult expectations. People come and go. Sometimes friendships are irreparably broken, like marriages, like homes, and like hearts.
It's life. It happens. Bridget's learning to roll with it, instead of being steamrolled by it.
There's nothing left to steamroll, maybe. No, probably not. The good news is I am good. Hearing aids, check. Medication-free, check. Rested, check. No longer grieving, check. No longer scared, check. No longer afraid to say things are good for fear of jinxing myself or appearing to pretend.
Bridget's not pretending nothing anymore.
She's also lost her ability to form sentences this morning. Blame it on an epic back massage in the big hammock. Blame it on naming tropical fish after impressionist painters and late night dim sum for eight. Blame it on bad weather clearing up a dusty fleeting city-spring and a very lovely dead tree in the backyard that I'm loathe to see cut down because it likes me. Or rather, I like it. It's dark and ugly in a sea of fresh green life. I named it Bridget's emo tree.
Snort.
No mind, Jacob promised I could have my giant angel statue where the tree used to be. The one Cole wouldn't go for.
Poetic justice, baby. Cole didn't want any life-sized angels in my sightlines. And now that's all I see.
And I ran today.
It was a short run, but a good one nonetheless.
Can't you tell?
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Olive blush.
I'm sure it was well-meant.
On the other hand, I still think it was a bit rude.
Jacob took me to the Olive Garden for lunch today and just as we sat down a woman breezed to our table and picked up a lock of my hair and put her hand on Jacob's head, running her fingers through his hair (which made him cringe and made me laugh and cringe too) and began to loudly ask if our hair colors were natural (they are) and if I had extensions (I don't) and how bloody glorious our hair was and how lucky we were because people wished for hair like ours. Were we Scandinavian? (no, Irish) Did we know we would be great in TV commercials? (um, what?) She wouldn't let us answer a single question.
Lovely. Very complimentary. Nice even, that she commented instead of just staring.
But right in the middle of a private moment to cause a scene in front of a restaurant full of people at three hundred decibels? Unusual, to say the least.
Jacob politely thanked her and wished her a good lunch and she finally, mercilessly left us and we both struggled not to do the eye-rolling thing and be gracious, because the whole white-blonde straight shiny flippy wavy hair is a golden gift people wish for, and they were still staring. I could feel it.
Then Jacob grinned wickedly at me, winked and spoke very loudly.
Do you think we should have told her that we're both blonde all over?
And once again I spent an entire meal trying, and failing, to eat without laughing, choking and generally making a bigger spectacle of us than we already were. Next time I'm just going to save myself the effort and crawl under the table to hide.
And yeah, now everybody knows! May as well put it on the internet as well.
Dear God. I needed to be cheered up but seriously.
On the other hand, I still think it was a bit rude.
Jacob took me to the Olive Garden for lunch today and just as we sat down a woman breezed to our table and picked up a lock of my hair and put her hand on Jacob's head, running her fingers through his hair (which made him cringe and made me laugh and cringe too) and began to loudly ask if our hair colors were natural (they are) and if I had extensions (I don't) and how bloody glorious our hair was and how lucky we were because people wished for hair like ours. Were we Scandinavian? (no, Irish) Did we know we would be great in TV commercials? (um, what?) She wouldn't let us answer a single question.
Lovely. Very complimentary. Nice even, that she commented instead of just staring.
But right in the middle of a private moment to cause a scene in front of a restaurant full of people at three hundred decibels? Unusual, to say the least.
Jacob politely thanked her and wished her a good lunch and she finally, mercilessly left us and we both struggled not to do the eye-rolling thing and be gracious, because the whole white-blonde straight shiny flippy wavy hair is a golden gift people wish for, and they were still staring. I could feel it.
Then Jacob grinned wickedly at me, winked and spoke very loudly.
Do you think we should have told her that we're both blonde all over?
And once again I spent an entire meal trying, and failing, to eat without laughing, choking and generally making a bigger spectacle of us than we already were. Next time I'm just going to save myself the effort and crawl under the table to hide.
And yeah, now everybody knows! May as well put it on the internet as well.
Dear God. I needed to be cheered up but seriously.
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Don't make me prove it.
Today is heavy on the Salt. And fucked. Up.
I used to sit in the park with Ben, his head in my lap and I would stroke his hair and sing him Veruca Salt songs. It was our quiet time, downtime, when everything got loud and busy we would usually happen upon each other somewhere slightly removed from the fray and embrace it together because he was a quiet wild man. Perverted as all get out, but quiet nonetheless. We had a lot in common and were so close at one time. So close.
Take me away, I know
I could use the rest.
I wanna clear up this mess.
I need a few days with my good sense.
I need a few good days.
Benjamin, no. Benjamin, no.
where did you go?
When you were falling from my tree, I was not scared.
I thought you'd meet me back up there.
It never dawned on me you were home free.
It never dawned on me, no.
Benjamin, no. Benjamin, no.
where did you go?
You said that I could tie you down
Take me away, I know
I could use the rest.
He beat me to the finish line and it still smarts, and I am sad. It's been a week.
Ben is moving in with his girlfriend, they're doing well, having been together for what, twelve weeks? Maybe sixteen. They're doing great, and life is good for Ben again. He seems to have found his direction, more importantly he seems to have found love.
Most of the guys eventually forgave him for his indiscretions concerning me, as I did and encouraged them to, he and Jacob were even hanging out a little bit together, probably a mutual parasitic relationship in which Ben could utilize Jacob's uncharacteristic expertise at motorcycle repair and his brawn for moving furniture and Jacob, well, Jacob could keep an eye on Ben.
Because Jacob forgives so easily sometimes, as very good people often do, but don't fool yourself into thinking he ever forgets anything. He never trusted Ben one hundred percent. I did. I still do.
Ben has even brought his girlfriend over a few times for some group dinners and she is wonderful, sweet and has him wrapped. She's so beautiful, dark hair and eyes and skin, tall and graceful, with a wardrobe from a magazine and a flair for putting the guys in their places. She's everything I am not
On the basis of doing everything he can to make his relationship work, Ben requested a private meeting, just me and him, no chaperones, no husbands or well-meaning friends. He was barely granted it, Jacob conceding to letting him close the porch door so we could have a private conversation while he and the other guys were out back having a beer. Of course, I didn't know that Jacob knew the reason behind the meeting, but Ben was smart enough to think ahead so that I would once again have support around me right when I fell. And I'm sorry, but everyone other than Jacob is going to find out here because for once in my life I haven't talked about it at all.
Ben told me he wouldn't be coming around anymore. Ever. Including group activities, if I was going to be present he would skip it. In order for him to give his relationship a fighting chance, he doesn't want to be distracted. He doesn't want my presence in his life because I make him have doubts, I make his mind wander and I make it difficult for him to concentrate on the one he should be with.
Nothing was ever the same between Ben and I when I left Cole. He tried to find his own common ground and be friends with both of us, and he remained close when Cole died and he no longer had to choose who to call first. We stumbled and he went as nuts as I did, understandably, it was a stressful period. There were a lot of dumb moves made by everyone, we all reeled. It wasn't just about me. Things came out during that time period that knocked everyone flat. Ben caused a lot of problems but he helped make a lot of things better.
Maybe I should have written more about the good things Ben did.
I won't even forget some of the memories between us, the times he took up the cause of Cole being a family man and tore a strip off of Loch the night that Loch and Cole drove all night after drinking and Loch wrapped the car around a tree. Ben couldn't believe he could be so stupid to put Cole, a husband, a father in that amount of peril. Uncharacteristic, Ben's driven like that idiotically often in the past and we all gave him hell, but he said, no way, this is Bridget's husband you're taking chances with. They've got kids. I heard Ben's voice echoing in my ears that night long after the police came and removed him from the emergency room for causing a disturbance, he was so far into Loch's face Loch pressed the button for assistance. Luckily, Cole walked away with few scratches and Loch's result was over fifty stitches and a DUI charge.
Ben spending hours with then four-year old Ruthie and two-year old Henry making ice cream from scratch because he said it would blow their tiny little minds. It didn't work but they had a blast. They proceeded to waste a lot of time doing that for the next three summers and never got a decent batch.
Approximately twelve hundred fistfights in front of my eyes because Ben always left his corner swinging at some perceived atrocity, whether he was in hockey gear or not, whether it was his fight or not. He had everyone's back. He was all heart.
And Ben taking time off work to help look after me and the kids and Jacob, who was struggling to keep it all together under a massive workload and a life-altering spring, a wounded and threatened girlfriend, two children who were suddenly his sole responsibility and a best friend turned worst enemy. I remember one morning about three or four days afterward I was struggling to get into a sweater with my sling on and I was so frustrated I had started to cry and Ben went and got one of Jacob's big zip-up fleece sweaters and he put it on me over everything and zipped it up and even left my hair inside the collar like I like it and he sat with me for hours, bored out of his mind while I stared out the window in shock. He made dumb jokes and gently forced me outside for walks as soon as I was ready and he dropped everything to help out until I was healed. He stole every sprig of lilac bloom he could find off the neighbors' trees because he knew they cheered me up. He did intimate things he had no business doing in life but things that caregivers do every day when someone is hurt or unable and I marvelled at his objectivity. It was the one time he skipped the jokes and was serious. I met a version of Ben last May that I didn't know before.
He was one of my favorite people and now he's kissed me off, written me out of his life in favor of a different one, probably a calmer one, one that is full of love without tension, and without history weighing down the days. Friendship without pain. Breathing without coveting Bridget. Moving on already.
I can't blame him, but I'm allowing it to hurt. I bet it felt good for him. I wrote him out more than one over the past year out of necessity and maybe payback makes it okay. I know this isn't a temporary exclusion, it's permanent and it involves Jacob too. Ben has asked that I include him in the long-distance email updates I send out when the kids reach certain milestones and so I added his address to that group and removed it from everything else. His number is gone from my phone, all of his books, DVDs and orphaned sports gear have been collected and returned.
Unlike everyone else who has drifted or moved away, Ben didn't tell me that if I ever needed anything to call him, he knows that role has been filled many times over. He told me he would always love me but now it was time for him to go and find his own new untainted happiness, just for him, and that I fucked him up hard, and he wished that he had never met me.
I can see what you're saying
But I don't hear you at all.
It wasn't a gracious exit and it was intended to cause pain. It did, some of what he said being positively unprintable in his need to twist until I bled.
I didn't cry until he was gone. And then I think I cried for the rest of that day and some of the next.
It was a predictable finish to a fucked-up friendship and though we found each other a few times, it still hurts to lose a friend. It hurts a whole hell of a lot. I did love him. I think I always will.
Now everyone in my world is going to nod and proclaim that this is good, that Ben and I were so bad for each other (yeah, at one point our nickname was the toxic twins and we liked it.) and should have gone our separate ways a long time ago. I don't have a lot of friends, and I can't make new ones, for I don't know quite how to keep them at arms length. It's becoming a trend, can't you see it?
I always hold just a little too tight, just a little too long. It wasn't Ben, it was Bridget.
It's me.
Decembers all alone and he's calling me on the phone
But he sounds so cold
He says he loves me so
But how would I ever know?
Certain words grow old
Its a vicious kind of catch
It sides me blind now
I'm out of my mind
I want to scream
Don't you want to be happy with me?
I'm afraid if you don't come around soon
I'll turn sadder than you ever were
And you'll learn loneliness is worse
I will always love you, Ben.
I used to sit in the park with Ben, his head in my lap and I would stroke his hair and sing him Veruca Salt songs. It was our quiet time, downtime, when everything got loud and busy we would usually happen upon each other somewhere slightly removed from the fray and embrace it together because he was a quiet wild man. Perverted as all get out, but quiet nonetheless. We had a lot in common and were so close at one time. So close.
Take me away, I know
I could use the rest.
I wanna clear up this mess.
I need a few days with my good sense.
I need a few good days.
Benjamin, no. Benjamin, no.
where did you go?
When you were falling from my tree, I was not scared.
I thought you'd meet me back up there.
It never dawned on me you were home free.
It never dawned on me, no.
Benjamin, no. Benjamin, no.
where did you go?
You said that I could tie you down
Take me away, I know
I could use the rest.
He beat me to the finish line and it still smarts, and I am sad. It's been a week.
Ben is moving in with his girlfriend, they're doing well, having been together for what, twelve weeks? Maybe sixteen. They're doing great, and life is good for Ben again. He seems to have found his direction, more importantly he seems to have found love.
Most of the guys eventually forgave him for his indiscretions concerning me, as I did and encouraged them to, he and Jacob were even hanging out a little bit together, probably a mutual parasitic relationship in which Ben could utilize Jacob's uncharacteristic expertise at motorcycle repair and his brawn for moving furniture and Jacob, well, Jacob could keep an eye on Ben.
Because Jacob forgives so easily sometimes, as very good people often do, but don't fool yourself into thinking he ever forgets anything. He never trusted Ben one hundred percent. I did. I still do.
Ben has even brought his girlfriend over a few times for some group dinners and she is wonderful, sweet and has him wrapped. She's so beautiful, dark hair and eyes and skin, tall and graceful, with a wardrobe from a magazine and a flair for putting the guys in their places. She's everything I am not
On the basis of doing everything he can to make his relationship work, Ben requested a private meeting, just me and him, no chaperones, no husbands or well-meaning friends. He was barely granted it, Jacob conceding to letting him close the porch door so we could have a private conversation while he and the other guys were out back having a beer. Of course, I didn't know that Jacob knew the reason behind the meeting, but Ben was smart enough to think ahead so that I would once again have support around me right when I fell. And I'm sorry, but everyone other than Jacob is going to find out here because for once in my life I haven't talked about it at all.
Ben told me he wouldn't be coming around anymore. Ever. Including group activities, if I was going to be present he would skip it. In order for him to give his relationship a fighting chance, he doesn't want to be distracted. He doesn't want my presence in his life because I make him have doubts, I make his mind wander and I make it difficult for him to concentrate on the one he should be with.
Nothing was ever the same between Ben and I when I left Cole. He tried to find his own common ground and be friends with both of us, and he remained close when Cole died and he no longer had to choose who to call first. We stumbled and he went as nuts as I did, understandably, it was a stressful period. There were a lot of dumb moves made by everyone, we all reeled. It wasn't just about me. Things came out during that time period that knocked everyone flat. Ben caused a lot of problems but he helped make a lot of things better.
Maybe I should have written more about the good things Ben did.
I won't even forget some of the memories between us, the times he took up the cause of Cole being a family man and tore a strip off of Loch the night that Loch and Cole drove all night after drinking and Loch wrapped the car around a tree. Ben couldn't believe he could be so stupid to put Cole, a husband, a father in that amount of peril. Uncharacteristic, Ben's driven like that idiotically often in the past and we all gave him hell, but he said, no way, this is Bridget's husband you're taking chances with. They've got kids. I heard Ben's voice echoing in my ears that night long after the police came and removed him from the emergency room for causing a disturbance, he was so far into Loch's face Loch pressed the button for assistance. Luckily, Cole walked away with few scratches and Loch's result was over fifty stitches and a DUI charge.
Ben spending hours with then four-year old Ruthie and two-year old Henry making ice cream from scratch because he said it would blow their tiny little minds. It didn't work but they had a blast. They proceeded to waste a lot of time doing that for the next three summers and never got a decent batch.
Approximately twelve hundred fistfights in front of my eyes because Ben always left his corner swinging at some perceived atrocity, whether he was in hockey gear or not, whether it was his fight or not. He had everyone's back. He was all heart.
And Ben taking time off work to help look after me and the kids and Jacob, who was struggling to keep it all together under a massive workload and a life-altering spring, a wounded and threatened girlfriend, two children who were suddenly his sole responsibility and a best friend turned worst enemy. I remember one morning about three or four days afterward I was struggling to get into a sweater with my sling on and I was so frustrated I had started to cry and Ben went and got one of Jacob's big zip-up fleece sweaters and he put it on me over everything and zipped it up and even left my hair inside the collar like I like it and he sat with me for hours, bored out of his mind while I stared out the window in shock. He made dumb jokes and gently forced me outside for walks as soon as I was ready and he dropped everything to help out until I was healed. He stole every sprig of lilac bloom he could find off the neighbors' trees because he knew they cheered me up. He did intimate things he had no business doing in life but things that caregivers do every day when someone is hurt or unable and I marvelled at his objectivity. It was the one time he skipped the jokes and was serious. I met a version of Ben last May that I didn't know before.
He was one of my favorite people and now he's kissed me off, written me out of his life in favor of a different one, probably a calmer one, one that is full of love without tension, and without history weighing down the days. Friendship without pain. Breathing without coveting Bridget. Moving on already.
I can't blame him, but I'm allowing it to hurt. I bet it felt good for him. I wrote him out more than one over the past year out of necessity and maybe payback makes it okay. I know this isn't a temporary exclusion, it's permanent and it involves Jacob too. Ben has asked that I include him in the long-distance email updates I send out when the kids reach certain milestones and so I added his address to that group and removed it from everything else. His number is gone from my phone, all of his books, DVDs and orphaned sports gear have been collected and returned.
Unlike everyone else who has drifted or moved away, Ben didn't tell me that if I ever needed anything to call him, he knows that role has been filled many times over. He told me he would always love me but now it was time for him to go and find his own new untainted happiness, just for him, and that I fucked him up hard, and he wished that he had never met me.
I can see what you're saying
But I don't hear you at all.
It wasn't a gracious exit and it was intended to cause pain. It did, some of what he said being positively unprintable in his need to twist until I bled.
I didn't cry until he was gone. And then I think I cried for the rest of that day and some of the next.
It was a predictable finish to a fucked-up friendship and though we found each other a few times, it still hurts to lose a friend. It hurts a whole hell of a lot. I did love him. I think I always will.
Now everyone in my world is going to nod and proclaim that this is good, that Ben and I were so bad for each other (yeah, at one point our nickname was the toxic twins and we liked it.) and should have gone our separate ways a long time ago. I don't have a lot of friends, and I can't make new ones, for I don't know quite how to keep them at arms length. It's becoming a trend, can't you see it?
I always hold just a little too tight, just a little too long. It wasn't Ben, it was Bridget.
It's me.
Decembers all alone and he's calling me on the phone
But he sounds so cold
He says he loves me so
But how would I ever know?
Certain words grow old
Its a vicious kind of catch
It sides me blind now
I'm out of my mind
I want to scream
Don't you want to be happy with me?
I'm afraid if you don't come around soon
I'll turn sadder than you ever were
And you'll learn loneliness is worse
I will always love you, Ben.
Monday, 23 April 2007
Ledded coffee.
Hallo. Short and sweet entry, just like your Bridget. Ah, but I am not yours. Or am I?
Tangerine, tangerine
Living reflection from a dream
I was her love, she was my queen
And now a thousand years between
Hi! I'm positive. I really am. I have fresh Sumatra beans here to grind, some cake in the fridge, a Monday off from life and a list of house projects a mile long and my thighs ache this morning and I don't have to tell you about that because if you were here with me much of the weekend catching up on my entries you already know why.
Perverts. I love you, seriously.
I think sometimes Jacob lets me take life out on him there, or he uses good, crazy sex to distract me from everything else. It keeps me in my dreamworld and makes it easier to gloss when Bridget needs to gloss over . I can't delve too deeply into feeling blue about things that will conspire to pull me right down off my high. I really can't.
Not now.
I also have long bangs cut again and the world's cutest camouflage pants on and I swear to God I'm not fourteen, in fact I'm almost two weeks away from turning 36. Holy fucking shit.
Tangerine, tangerine
Living reflection from a dream
I was her love, she was my queen
And now a thousand years between
Hi! I'm positive. I really am. I have fresh Sumatra beans here to grind, some cake in the fridge, a Monday off from life and a list of house projects a mile long and my thighs ache this morning and I don't have to tell you about that because if you were here with me much of the weekend catching up on my entries you already know why.
Perverts. I love you, seriously.
I think sometimes Jacob lets me take life out on him there, or he uses good, crazy sex to distract me from everything else. It keeps me in my dreamworld and makes it easier to gloss when Bridget needs to gloss over . I can't delve too deeply into feeling blue about things that will conspire to pull me right down off my high. I really can't.
Not now.
I also have long bangs cut again and the world's cutest camouflage pants on and I swear to God I'm not fourteen, in fact I'm almost two weeks away from turning 36. Holy fucking shit.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
What princesses dream about.
Last night's two a.m. awakening included Jacob kissing my neck until I moaned softly and rolled away from him, far off in a dream in which we were having a picnic by the medieval ruins of a castle I didn't recognize. He was picking forget-me-nots for me and wearing a cape.
I didn't say it was logical. But my God, it was so romantic.
When I finally tore myself away from my conjured image, Jacob whispered that it was thundering outside and raining again. He was kissing me, down into the hollow of my throat and then all the way back out again to the back of my shoulder. His rough but warm hands slid up my arms and found their rest under my ears as his lips found my eyelashes.
He loves sleepy sex, I can barely wake up let alone make requests we both know he'll rarely, if ever grant. And I went to heaven anyway, where coincidentally it was crashing with thunder and lightning too. Funny how that works.
And then he disappeared, just like the Jacob who was wearing the cape and I lay in the dim candlelight drifting in and out of sleep once more, my sore limbs and fingertips tingling, throbbing from his touch.
I found the caped version of my husband in my sleep again and we resumed our picnic, clinking glasses in a toast. So...realistic. Neat. Another kiss landed on my forehead and I opened my eyes with so much effort. There was the Jacob with no cape but the clinking of glasses was real. A middle-of-the-night picnic with warm chocolate cake and glasses of pineapple juice, on a tray in the middle of our bed. On our best dishes. Which are the same dishes we use every day because they're new but give me allowance for my fantasy.
Warm cake at four in the morning is a luxury that all princesses require, so much so that it comes before sleep. And unclothed princes with muscles in places you wouldn't expect to see muscles is also required in as much that the prince is the icing himself.
God bless men who climb, for they are the best-looking naked men around and have stamina that can't be matched.
And God bless cake for tasting so good, night or day.
And God bless pretty little Bridget, who deserves this at long last. Though we all know she would have settled for the cape and the imaginary picnic with nary a complaint.
I didn't say it was logical. But my God, it was so romantic.
When I finally tore myself away from my conjured image, Jacob whispered that it was thundering outside and raining again. He was kissing me, down into the hollow of my throat and then all the way back out again to the back of my shoulder. His rough but warm hands slid up my arms and found their rest under my ears as his lips found my eyelashes.
He loves sleepy sex, I can barely wake up let alone make requests we both know he'll rarely, if ever grant. And I went to heaven anyway, where coincidentally it was crashing with thunder and lightning too. Funny how that works.
And then he disappeared, just like the Jacob who was wearing the cape and I lay in the dim candlelight drifting in and out of sleep once more, my sore limbs and fingertips tingling, throbbing from his touch.
I found the caped version of my husband in my sleep again and we resumed our picnic, clinking glasses in a toast. So...realistic. Neat. Another kiss landed on my forehead and I opened my eyes with so much effort. There was the Jacob with no cape but the clinking of glasses was real. A middle-of-the-night picnic with warm chocolate cake and glasses of pineapple juice, on a tray in the middle of our bed. On our best dishes. Which are the same dishes we use every day because they're new but give me allowance for my fantasy.
Warm cake at four in the morning is a luxury that all princesses require, so much so that it comes before sleep. And unclothed princes with muscles in places you wouldn't expect to see muscles is also required in as much that the prince is the icing himself.
God bless men who climb, for they are the best-looking naked men around and have stamina that can't be matched.
And God bless cake for tasting so good, night or day.
And God bless pretty little Bridget, who deserves this at long last. Though we all know she would have settled for the cape and the imaginary picnic with nary a complaint.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Gentle evil (all shades of blonde).
I promise you
I will treat you well
My sweet angel
So help me, Jesus
I'll admit, watching Jacob walk around the house with Possum Kingdom stuck in his head, singing such sinister lyrics kind of has me liking today. I'll blame Guitar Hero. Or maybe I'll thank it. He is so sexy.
This morning I was woken up at two a.m. and he said listen. It was raining. He went and opened the window all the way up and we sat wrapped in a sheet together in the dark moonless night and listened to the drops fall through the tree branches and watched the curtains billow up like smoke coiling from a just blown out candle. It was magical. I couldn't fall asleep once the rain ebbed a little and I didn't have to, instead choosing to succumb to Jake's strong arms and insistent mouth, as he pushed me back down and pulled my hips up effortlessly into his lap and eventually I drowned out the rain with the sound of our ragged breathing filling my ears. It's very hard to catch your breath when you're upside-down.
In any event, we are doing nothing today. Nothing including pouring out the rest of Thursday nights' Stoli. Rather wasteful if you ask me but no one did so there you go.
I promised him a long walk this afternoon and he has promised a roaring fire and some cake tonight. And in between there will be some kite-flying and grocery shopping and not listening to people who tell me I am corrupting him after all. Jealousy does funny things to my friends. They turn into jerks.
And I haven't corrupted him. No sir, not me. Fragile Miss Bridget wouldn't hurt a fly. So says the gentle giant, who might, but not on purpose.
I will treat you well
My sweet angel
So help me, Jesus
I'll admit, watching Jacob walk around the house with Possum Kingdom stuck in his head, singing such sinister lyrics kind of has me liking today. I'll blame Guitar Hero. Or maybe I'll thank it. He is so sexy.
This morning I was woken up at two a.m. and he said listen. It was raining. He went and opened the window all the way up and we sat wrapped in a sheet together in the dark moonless night and listened to the drops fall through the tree branches and watched the curtains billow up like smoke coiling from a just blown out candle. It was magical. I couldn't fall asleep once the rain ebbed a little and I didn't have to, instead choosing to succumb to Jake's strong arms and insistent mouth, as he pushed me back down and pulled my hips up effortlessly into his lap and eventually I drowned out the rain with the sound of our ragged breathing filling my ears. It's very hard to catch your breath when you're upside-down.
In any event, we are doing nothing today. Nothing including pouring out the rest of Thursday nights' Stoli. Rather wasteful if you ask me but no one did so there you go.
I promised him a long walk this afternoon and he has promised a roaring fire and some cake tonight. And in between there will be some kite-flying and grocery shopping and not listening to people who tell me I am corrupting him after all. Jealousy does funny things to my friends. They turn into jerks.
And I haven't corrupted him. No sir, not me. Fragile Miss Bridget wouldn't hurt a fly. So says the gentle giant, who might, but not on purpose.
Friday, 20 April 2007
Trust (you belong to me).
(Oh God, don't read today.)
It's my problem and so I had to drop it. And now I'm confused because he picked it up again. And no one is going to understand very much of this entry. It isn't for you. It's for me.
Down to the earth I fell
With dripping wings
Heavy things won't fly
And the sky might catch on fire
And burn the axis of the world
That's why I prefer a sunless sky
To the glittering and stinging in my eyes
Last night Jacob checked the kids, made sure everyone was asleep and then locked down the house and then he locked us in our room with the bottle of Stoli. I know how it sounds but it's not what it sounds like. It's a safe place to blow off steam, and to get a true barometer with no facades on my part. A personal one, just for Jacob.
Three things:
1-I have no tolerance anymore. Two shots and I was typing badly and had to stop working, even though I only sat down for a moment to dicker with a new idea. Two more shots upstairs and the world was my best friend. I'll give you anything.
2-When I'm drinking, I have no inhibitions (see #1). If you have wronged me you'll hear about it. If I have concerns, you'll hear about it. If I have needs, oh, man, you'll hear about it.
3-Alcohol no longer dulls my emotions, pain or any other ones. That was the one he's been waiting for. And he got it.
It's been a while since I wrote about our sex life. Don't cringe, okay, it's been one of the most difficult aspects of our relationship. We've run the gamut of therapy, experimentation, hell, humiliated each other and become so disillusioned we had resigned ourselves to one way only (his) and nothing more and god forbid Bridget asks for anything that's forbidden lest the spell be broken and he walks away from me.
I gave up under duress. Some things he would acquiesce to, but the majority of it has gone and it's never coming back and I'm forced to just let it go and it hasn't been easy. I meant to share it, I did. The continuation of Jacob's efforts that began that weekend he drank too much. An odyssey begun in earnest. He tried and we failed.
And last night was a test for Bridget. A test to see if when I was three sheets into the atmosphere would I rebel and fall back on my old habits, my brutal little demands that he can't stand for?
I'm not so sure anymore if Bridget's demons are stronger than Jacob's angels. He may have extended my faith to the point where I never thought it would stretch so far and I have succeeded in slightly corrupting him. Over the years I developed my own fetishes. Being held down, being restrained. My submissiveness. It has a charm all it's own. Jacob was more than reluctant to go there, but at the same time always thoroughly intrigued by it. He's a wildly adventurous, enthusiastic adrenaline junkie every place but one. Or he was anyway. He isn't quite so wild and I'm glad, honestly. I just wish my head would fall in line.
We've had arguments at four in the morning in which I have backed him right up off the bed and out the door with my tiny, desperate requests of him, we've had professional help, we've tried everything. I'm freaky, I have an abundance of energy for crazy vaguely violent sex. I instigated it in the first place with Cole as a way to turn something that was violent into something that was okay, something I could live with. I turned it and then surprised myself by liking it and I won't apologize for saying that because it's me.
Sort of like how a piece of chocolate cake is really really yummy but then ice it and it's heaven. Okay, now throw some very sweet sprinkles on the top and it's the most decadent treat you have ever had. That's me. I want the sprinkles when Jacob thought the icing was perfect. Don't misunderstand me, he's insane, incredibly gifted, patient, energetic and a lot more creative than I ever expected. Just not as sick and depraved as I want him to be consistently.
He's still worried I'm going to get hurt somehow. He's worried he's going to turn into Cole and wreck everything. The fragility with which I exist in his head knows no bounds, and so he reiterated how much safer I'll be if he's in full control of our experiences, based on our striking size differences (his 6'4" to my 5'0"). Better slow than sorry, he said, hating every moment of it, if only for a moment. My twisted brain heard full control, stopped listening after that and smiled very wide.
Trust me, just trust me, princess.
Last night I went with it. I didn't do anything he wasn't comfortable with and I didn't ask him to do anything I know he won't. And as soon as I let go of the past he stopped being so goddamned perfect and let loose on me.
I passed the test.
He said the hell with it and held me down and stopped being so gentle and then when we were finished he kissed me again, checking me all over for injuries.
And then Jacob smiled and drank his first shot and said,
You belong to me.
Because it's not perfect until it's ruined. Kind of like Bridget. He passed the test right there and then.
And then my head exploded.
It's my problem and so I had to drop it. And now I'm confused because he picked it up again. And no one is going to understand very much of this entry. It isn't for you. It's for me.
Down to the earth I fell
With dripping wings
Heavy things won't fly
And the sky might catch on fire
And burn the axis of the world
That's why I prefer a sunless sky
To the glittering and stinging in my eyes
Last night Jacob checked the kids, made sure everyone was asleep and then locked down the house and then he locked us in our room with the bottle of Stoli. I know how it sounds but it's not what it sounds like. It's a safe place to blow off steam, and to get a true barometer with no facades on my part. A personal one, just for Jacob.
Three things:
1-I have no tolerance anymore. Two shots and I was typing badly and had to stop working, even though I only sat down for a moment to dicker with a new idea. Two more shots upstairs and the world was my best friend. I'll give you anything.
2-When I'm drinking, I have no inhibitions (see #1). If you have wronged me you'll hear about it. If I have concerns, you'll hear about it. If I have needs, oh, man, you'll hear about it.
3-Alcohol no longer dulls my emotions, pain or any other ones. That was the one he's been waiting for. And he got it.
It's been a while since I wrote about our sex life. Don't cringe, okay, it's been one of the most difficult aspects of our relationship. We've run the gamut of therapy, experimentation, hell, humiliated each other and become so disillusioned we had resigned ourselves to one way only (his) and nothing more and god forbid Bridget asks for anything that's forbidden lest the spell be broken and he walks away from me.
I gave up under duress. Some things he would acquiesce to, but the majority of it has gone and it's never coming back and I'm forced to just let it go and it hasn't been easy. I meant to share it, I did. The continuation of Jacob's efforts that began that weekend he drank too much. An odyssey begun in earnest. He tried and we failed.
And last night was a test for Bridget. A test to see if when I was three sheets into the atmosphere would I rebel and fall back on my old habits, my brutal little demands that he can't stand for?
I'm not so sure anymore if Bridget's demons are stronger than Jacob's angels. He may have extended my faith to the point where I never thought it would stretch so far and I have succeeded in slightly corrupting him. Over the years I developed my own fetishes. Being held down, being restrained. My submissiveness. It has a charm all it's own. Jacob was more than reluctant to go there, but at the same time always thoroughly intrigued by it. He's a wildly adventurous, enthusiastic adrenaline junkie every place but one. Or he was anyway. He isn't quite so wild and I'm glad, honestly. I just wish my head would fall in line.
We've had arguments at four in the morning in which I have backed him right up off the bed and out the door with my tiny, desperate requests of him, we've had professional help, we've tried everything. I'm freaky, I have an abundance of energy for crazy vaguely violent sex. I instigated it in the first place with Cole as a way to turn something that was violent into something that was okay, something I could live with. I turned it and then surprised myself by liking it and I won't apologize for saying that because it's me.
Sort of like how a piece of chocolate cake is really really yummy but then ice it and it's heaven. Okay, now throw some very sweet sprinkles on the top and it's the most decadent treat you have ever had. That's me. I want the sprinkles when Jacob thought the icing was perfect. Don't misunderstand me, he's insane, incredibly gifted, patient, energetic and a lot more creative than I ever expected. Just not as sick and depraved as I want him to be consistently.
He's still worried I'm going to get hurt somehow. He's worried he's going to turn into Cole and wreck everything. The fragility with which I exist in his head knows no bounds, and so he reiterated how much safer I'll be if he's in full control of our experiences, based on our striking size differences (his 6'4" to my 5'0"). Better slow than sorry, he said, hating every moment of it, if only for a moment. My twisted brain heard full control, stopped listening after that and smiled very wide.
Trust me, just trust me, princess.
Last night I went with it. I didn't do anything he wasn't comfortable with and I didn't ask him to do anything I know he won't. And as soon as I let go of the past he stopped being so goddamned perfect and let loose on me.
I passed the test.
He said the hell with it and held me down and stopped being so gentle and then when we were finished he kissed me again, checking me all over for injuries.
And then Jacob smiled and drank his first shot and said,
You belong to me.
Because it's not perfect until it's ruined. Kind of like Bridget. He passed the test right there and then.
And then my head exploded.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
This is my 'something better to do.'
Snapshot. Because Loch keeps bugging me to post more daily-type stuff. Right now Nina Gordon is serenading us with her beauty, Jacob is contemplating dinner ingredients with his head bent down into the freezer, which is almost empty anyway, as I need a lot of groceries but I never go until Saturdays anyhow.
There's no cake and no Stoli. I am now medication-free and cleared to drive again. I will not be going to buy alcohol with that freedom, in fact, I'll probably use that freedom to drag my butt to Home Depot for the three millionth time this year.
I'm doing well. I should be cleaning a few rooms upstairs. We're shifting some stuff. Jacob has decided he wants us to live in the summer bedroom. I don't blame him, it's the nicest room in the whole house. A sunny alcove slightly removed from the rest of the house with windows on three sides of the room and lovingly freshly painted in white and dark green. It's a romantic room. The door is tiny. I don't see how he'll fit our bed in that room but he told me to leave it to him. He has to duck to go in. On second thought I don't see how he'll fit in there on a regular basis.
How did we spend today? Working on the house. Being funny. Sitting in the sun. Making tandem grilled cheese at lunch and ignoring the phone. Walking the kids back and forth and a morning rescue in which I ran down to the river and was in too much pain to run back. I couldn't walk back, actually so I phoned my pace car for backup. That would be Jacob in his truck (with lots of scolding because I shouldn't be running until I have another checkup to make sure my ribs have healed).
Did I tell you his truck is leaving us? Another day I will.
Did I tell you he is the most stubborn man on the planet? Tomorrow, then. Which means porn.
And for Chase, who asked twice and seems impatient:
BR: Bridget Rebekah.
RB: Ruth Bailey (for my favorite sister.)
HJ: Henry Jacob (on purpose.)
JTF: Jacob Thomas Finnian. (Tell no one. He HATES it. Shhhhhhhh!)
And no, I am not over his new tattoo yet. I still can't believe it or him half the time.
There's no cake and no Stoli. I am now medication-free and cleared to drive again. I will not be going to buy alcohol with that freedom, in fact, I'll probably use that freedom to drag my butt to Home Depot for the three millionth time this year.
I'm doing well. I should be cleaning a few rooms upstairs. We're shifting some stuff. Jacob has decided he wants us to live in the summer bedroom. I don't blame him, it's the nicest room in the whole house. A sunny alcove slightly removed from the rest of the house with windows on three sides of the room and lovingly freshly painted in white and dark green. It's a romantic room. The door is tiny. I don't see how he'll fit our bed in that room but he told me to leave it to him. He has to duck to go in. On second thought I don't see how he'll fit in there on a regular basis.
How did we spend today? Working on the house. Being funny. Sitting in the sun. Making tandem grilled cheese at lunch and ignoring the phone. Walking the kids back and forth and a morning rescue in which I ran down to the river and was in too much pain to run back. I couldn't walk back, actually so I phoned my pace car for backup. That would be Jacob in his truck (with lots of scolding because I shouldn't be running until I have another checkup to make sure my ribs have healed).
Did I tell you his truck is leaving us? Another day I will.
Did I tell you he is the most stubborn man on the planet? Tomorrow, then. Which means porn.
And for Chase, who asked twice and seems impatient:
BR: Bridget Rebekah.
RB: Ruth Bailey (for my favorite sister.)
HJ: Henry Jacob (on purpose.)
JTF: Jacob Thomas Finnian. (Tell no one. He HATES it. Shhhhhhhh!)
And no, I am not over his new tattoo yet. I still can't believe it or him half the time.
Forever man.
How many times must I say I love you
Before you finally understand?
Won't you be my forever woman?
I'll try to be your forever man,
Try to be your forever man.
An aside first off, yesterday Jacob left on a vague errand and came home in time to take me out for a quick coffee so that I wouldn't fall asleep during the movie. He came home empty-handed and made some reference to seeing a friend about a long-overdue project. He needs irons in the fire to keep busy, it makes him happy. I salvaged yesterday with help, I'm okay. I'm always okay now.
It wasn't until we were home from the movie that was so bad it was funny and PJ had been dispatched with the rest of the chicken pot pie that I had made for him that we were getting ready for bed and I discovered the nature of Jacob's errand. He unbuttoned his favorite flannel shirt and there was a white bandage on his chest, right over his heart.
I was staring at it. I knew what it was. He followed my eyes and looked down.
Oh, right. I completely forgot.
You didn't.
Of course I did.
He went into the bathroom and took a quick shower and came back without the bandage but with my name tattooed on his flesh. He already has a BR on his back, in his angel wings, along with his own JTF, Ruth's RB and Henry's HJ initials plus the baby we lost, already named, but this...this said Bridget. Right there clear as day on the front of his body.
It's bad luck, Jacob.
No, princess. It's statement of fact. My heart belongs to you. It has nothing to do with us, it's just the way things are, the way things have been, since the night we met. You control the speed of my heartbeats. Did you know that?
I'm forever grateful he turned out to be this romantic. Oh you have no idea. He is marked with my name. He's mine. All mine. It goes both ways, I am his.
Thank you God.
A year ago today, I jumped. I bent my knees very low and summoned every ounce of power and courage I could muster and I jumped
I didn't have a clue where I would land. I couldn't see. There was no firm ledge, no guaranteed soft fall, no promises of anything, contrary to popular belief.
I didn't know what would happen to my kids, my finances, my house or my heart. I didn't know if jumping would really make me happy or just give me something new to think about. I hoped that it would save my life.
Jumping out of a burning building, off a crumbling ledge, or across a crack in the ice as it widens is almost like being pushed. If you don't jump, you know you'll die standing still. It's a fear and a relief all mixed up together and it makes you feel like you're going to throw up. I can touch myself all over today and know that I made it. I'm in one piece, more or less. My battle scars seem invisible, my war wounds are fading, my heart is mending, my soul feels full.
I still smile hugely every time I see him. I miss him when he goes to the other room, I yearn for him when he's not within reaching distance, I want for nothing now.
It was like landing in a giant pillow. And I didn't have to fear for my life because in the instant that I jumped, I was spared, flaming skirt hem and all. And I could say the same for him, so let's reverse it for a moment. He stood on the edge of a cliff, below the flaming building, on the safe side of the iceberg that was breaking away and he opened his arms wide.
He stood on his faith and held his arms up and waited, not knowing what he would catch, if he could hold it, or what it would be. He caught the girl with the flaming skirt and a broken heart, two children who needed to be protected at all costs, and a solid and square hundred year old Victorian house. He also caught the ire and judgement of his very best friends in the process and he put his own heart and his own soul on the line, with the patience of Job and the shoulders of Atlas.
He saved my life. He put me down and touched me all over and he knew that I made it, with few scars and invisible wounds and a heart as brittle as a snowflake and a wide open emotional playground inside my head. But his soul is full now, he's helping to heal me, he's getting to know me. And he loves what he sees. He still smiles wide when he sees me, he misses me when I brush my teeth and thinks of me while he walks or drives.
He became a giant soft landing, a human resounding buffer zone, a collective force built into one man designed to withstand flaming broken-hearted girls seeking refuge.
We fell together, maybe, in a way. Yes.
One year later I thank God that for once I felt reckless and desperate and scared enough to make the leap even though it seemed scarier than standing still. At least with Cole I knew what to expect. I knew that we were provided for and he hurt me privately so the kids were safe and we were still a nuclear family. Cole had his sterling reputation as an artist, we lived a dream on the outside and for so long that imaginary dream was a security blanket I wasn't going to give up.
Until faced with a choice. Lose Jacob forever or blindly jump into the arms of a friend, knowing full well he was a Good Man but otherwise not getting any guarantees. I like guarantees. I like warranties and extended service plans and insurance and when I do something I want it to be forever. And I never told you that I knew damn well he would always rescue me but I was never sure if he could love me forever, if he was cut out for a long term life with me because he is a runner, an impulsive, adventurous guy or if I was a challenge for him, his faith and his curiosity. The moment I landed, however, I think I knew.
Jacob is my forever man.
I used to turn up my nose at people who joked about their 'starter' marriages, or people who seemingly divorced without having tried hard enough.But then again I still scoff at people who insist that opposite-sex best friends can be just friends, without tension of any kind. Because if there is one thing that did change drastically during the past year, it would be our friendship. Once consummated legitimately everything changed and the laid-back friend I could cuddle with became so intense, a formal protector/judge taking over where the hands-off little-input friend left off. Jacob took the power he was given and wielded it with enthusiasm and it was so difficult for us to both become used to how that felt. To say that it didn't swell his ego and bring a confidence to all aspects of his life would be underestimating his weaknesses. He can't let go of me. Ever.
I love it.
I am his weakness but in my love he finds his strength. I belong to him now and I am not strong enough to stand on my own but when I stand beside him I can do anything.
Such is my life, the way I want it. With Jacob.
A whole year behind us now and a hundred left to go.
Before you finally understand?
Won't you be my forever woman?
I'll try to be your forever man,
Try to be your forever man.
An aside first off, yesterday Jacob left on a vague errand and came home in time to take me out for a quick coffee so that I wouldn't fall asleep during the movie. He came home empty-handed and made some reference to seeing a friend about a long-overdue project. He needs irons in the fire to keep busy, it makes him happy. I salvaged yesterday with help, I'm okay. I'm always okay now.
It wasn't until we were home from the movie that was so bad it was funny and PJ had been dispatched with the rest of the chicken pot pie that I had made for him that we were getting ready for bed and I discovered the nature of Jacob's errand. He unbuttoned his favorite flannel shirt and there was a white bandage on his chest, right over his heart.
I was staring at it. I knew what it was. He followed my eyes and looked down.
Oh, right. I completely forgot.
You didn't.
Of course I did.
He went into the bathroom and took a quick shower and came back without the bandage but with my name tattooed on his flesh. He already has a BR on his back, in his angel wings, along with his own JTF, Ruth's RB and Henry's HJ initials plus the baby we lost, already named, but this...this said Bridget. Right there clear as day on the front of his body.
It's bad luck, Jacob.
No, princess. It's statement of fact. My heart belongs to you. It has nothing to do with us, it's just the way things are, the way things have been, since the night we met. You control the speed of my heartbeats. Did you know that?
I'm forever grateful he turned out to be this romantic. Oh you have no idea. He is marked with my name. He's mine. All mine. It goes both ways, I am his.
Thank you God.
A year ago today, I jumped. I bent my knees very low and summoned every ounce of power and courage I could muster and I jumped
I didn't have a clue where I would land. I couldn't see. There was no firm ledge, no guaranteed soft fall, no promises of anything, contrary to popular belief.
I didn't know what would happen to my kids, my finances, my house or my heart. I didn't know if jumping would really make me happy or just give me something new to think about. I hoped that it would save my life.
Jumping out of a burning building, off a crumbling ledge, or across a crack in the ice as it widens is almost like being pushed. If you don't jump, you know you'll die standing still. It's a fear and a relief all mixed up together and it makes you feel like you're going to throw up. I can touch myself all over today and know that I made it. I'm in one piece, more or less. My battle scars seem invisible, my war wounds are fading, my heart is mending, my soul feels full.
I still smile hugely every time I see him. I miss him when he goes to the other room, I yearn for him when he's not within reaching distance, I want for nothing now.
It was like landing in a giant pillow. And I didn't have to fear for my life because in the instant that I jumped, I was spared, flaming skirt hem and all. And I could say the same for him, so let's reverse it for a moment. He stood on the edge of a cliff, below the flaming building, on the safe side of the iceberg that was breaking away and he opened his arms wide.
He stood on his faith and held his arms up and waited, not knowing what he would catch, if he could hold it, or what it would be. He caught the girl with the flaming skirt and a broken heart, two children who needed to be protected at all costs, and a solid and square hundred year old Victorian house. He also caught the ire and judgement of his very best friends in the process and he put his own heart and his own soul on the line, with the patience of Job and the shoulders of Atlas.
He saved my life. He put me down and touched me all over and he knew that I made it, with few scars and invisible wounds and a heart as brittle as a snowflake and a wide open emotional playground inside my head. But his soul is full now, he's helping to heal me, he's getting to know me. And he loves what he sees. He still smiles wide when he sees me, he misses me when I brush my teeth and thinks of me while he walks or drives.
He became a giant soft landing, a human resounding buffer zone, a collective force built into one man designed to withstand flaming broken-hearted girls seeking refuge.
We fell together, maybe, in a way. Yes.
One year later I thank God that for once I felt reckless and desperate and scared enough to make the leap even though it seemed scarier than standing still. At least with Cole I knew what to expect. I knew that we were provided for and he hurt me privately so the kids were safe and we were still a nuclear family. Cole had his sterling reputation as an artist, we lived a dream on the outside and for so long that imaginary dream was a security blanket I wasn't going to give up.
Until faced with a choice. Lose Jacob forever or blindly jump into the arms of a friend, knowing full well he was a Good Man but otherwise not getting any guarantees. I like guarantees. I like warranties and extended service plans and insurance and when I do something I want it to be forever. And I never told you that I knew damn well he would always rescue me but I was never sure if he could love me forever, if he was cut out for a long term life with me because he is a runner, an impulsive, adventurous guy or if I was a challenge for him, his faith and his curiosity. The moment I landed, however, I think I knew.
Jacob is my forever man.
I used to turn up my nose at people who joked about their 'starter' marriages, or people who seemingly divorced without having tried hard enough.But then again I still scoff at people who insist that opposite-sex best friends can be just friends, without tension of any kind. Because if there is one thing that did change drastically during the past year, it would be our friendship. Once consummated legitimately everything changed and the laid-back friend I could cuddle with became so intense, a formal protector/judge taking over where the hands-off little-input friend left off. Jacob took the power he was given and wielded it with enthusiasm and it was so difficult for us to both become used to how that felt. To say that it didn't swell his ego and bring a confidence to all aspects of his life would be underestimating his weaknesses. He can't let go of me. Ever.
I love it.
I am his weakness but in my love he finds his strength. I belong to him now and I am not strong enough to stand on my own but when I stand beside him I can do anything.
Such is my life, the way I want it. With Jacob.
A whole year behind us now and a hundred left to go.
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Brief moments now.
I had a brief few moments late this afternoon in that I thought I was losing it, ever so fleetingly. Life got overwhelming, just enough for the panic to begin. Will the backyard ever be finished, can I ask my folks not to come out for a visit this year, how many parents will be supervising Ruth's friend's birthday party this weekend, why do I never want to cook or eat, can we afford to spend a little extra on some building materials, what am I so afraid of all the time and oh my God, could I please just drive myself to the store and buy one bottle of Stoli?
I can work myself into a lather over so little. You would see me and nod your head in agreement, yes, she's a mess.
The biggest question of all, why is the affection never enough? I could eat Jacob alive, I can spend entire days and whole nights in those arms and the moment he lets go I am lost, cold, feeling abandoned and cast aside. He had to run out for a couple of hours just now, before dinner and the moment he was gone I felt alone in the world, going through my motions, struggling to just learn how the fuck to be alone. I am never alone. Ever. I never have been. I love to be by myself in the house but if there is no one else in the house then I can't handle it.
It's an irrational fear, losing Jacob is. I have been asked to face it, embrace it and plan for it, by my doctor, because my doctor doesn't believe that any amount of need placed on Jacob is healthy.
I never said it was healthy. Not once. I know what it is. I know how devastating it could become and I know simply that it can't be fixed.
I also know that I have a date tonight thanks to PJ who is flexing a little counselling muscle of his own and declaring that a two-hour distraction in the form of coffee and a movie is just what Bridget needs to reign her fears back in and keep the demons away so that Jacob and I can enjoy this momentous week of ours without the bottom falling out like it always seems to. He offered to babysit yet again. He's adorable.
We're ignoring the lack of medication, ignoring the absence of my cathartic running that I desperately need and ignoring all ghosts and cogs in the machinery of our life right now and just living moment by moment.
Some of them are just tougher than others.
But it's being fixed as we speak. And I lean heavily in the meantime. And hope. Because it's better than it used to be.
Bye, I'm headed to change. I'm looking forward to our time tonight, out in the stars and the cool spring air.
I'm breathing.
I can work myself into a lather over so little. You would see me and nod your head in agreement, yes, she's a mess.
The biggest question of all, why is the affection never enough? I could eat Jacob alive, I can spend entire days and whole nights in those arms and the moment he lets go I am lost, cold, feeling abandoned and cast aside. He had to run out for a couple of hours just now, before dinner and the moment he was gone I felt alone in the world, going through my motions, struggling to just learn how the fuck to be alone. I am never alone. Ever. I never have been. I love to be by myself in the house but if there is no one else in the house then I can't handle it.
It's an irrational fear, losing Jacob is. I have been asked to face it, embrace it and plan for it, by my doctor, because my doctor doesn't believe that any amount of need placed on Jacob is healthy.
I never said it was healthy. Not once. I know what it is. I know how devastating it could become and I know simply that it can't be fixed.
I also know that I have a date tonight thanks to PJ who is flexing a little counselling muscle of his own and declaring that a two-hour distraction in the form of coffee and a movie is just what Bridget needs to reign her fears back in and keep the demons away so that Jacob and I can enjoy this momentous week of ours without the bottom falling out like it always seems to. He offered to babysit yet again. He's adorable.
We're ignoring the lack of medication, ignoring the absence of my cathartic running that I desperately need and ignoring all ghosts and cogs in the machinery of our life right now and just living moment by moment.
Some of them are just tougher than others.
But it's being fixed as we speak. And I lean heavily in the meantime. And hope. Because it's better than it used to be.
Bye, I'm headed to change. I'm looking forward to our time tonight, out in the stars and the cool spring air.
I'm breathing.
Odds and evens.
Today is a day so special I woke up early and went and got the champagne, and woke Jacob up with a glass and a toast, but he was awake anyway. He always wakes up when I stir in the mornings.
A toast to us. To him.
Today is the very last day of year one. Our first year together as a couple. As a couple of I-don't-know-whats, but a couple nonetheless. The final, three hundred and sixty fifth day of a long, arduous, perilous trip around the moon with detours to heaven a good six hundred times and back again. A journey of epic proportions in which I think my heart was dropped and picked up and broken and stitched and glued back together so many times I am a human mosaic from the inside out.
A year in which I tried to destroy my best friend and yet he is still here and as strong as ever and hopeful and full of his goofy faith-branded goodness that keeps him going even as I'm pulling so hard on the brakes I have permanent burns on my fingers and heels from digging in.
A year in which I was threatened, pushed and goaded past every insurmountable obstacle that sprang up one after the other and when I screamed for a break he simply set his mouth and pushed me more. If you think I am so hard on him just know that I rarely talk about how hard he is on me.
A year that saw a tiny bloom on a plant long left for dead flourish and expand until it outshone everything else in the garden. Our love, long denied, allowed to fly free like a bird and oh my fuck, have we ever soared. Sometimes we crash and burn and we pick ourselves up or we pick each other up and keep going.
I am the most perfect and the most imperfect human bean alive.
And I am loved.
And I love. Still. In spite of life I fell so hard in love I expected to shatter when I hit bottom. I'm still falling though and it won't stop.
So hard it floors me. Daily. And I've come to write about fights and awkward times and difficult moments and yet at the end of almost every single one of those three hundred and sixty five nights, give or take a couple of hospital stays, a business trip or two and some really stupid arguments I have fallen asleep in Jacob's arms, safe and warm and lucky and well aware that he is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with and I'm glad I get to live with him. And so crushed that I have ever hurt him, made him sad, made him angry or made him regret his choices. I write the trouble that I am for him as penance sometimes.
He maintains he wouldn't have it any other way, that despite the hardships this year has held, despite the ups and downs and the heartache and the pain when he looks at me he is filled with joy, with hope and with gratitude, but most of all with love.
Big love, he says, for his little Bridget. And through most of the past decade, everything aside, he says he is happy, because he got exactly what he wished for, so hard for so long.
Me.
But he is not the lucky one. I am.
We're spending this final day of our first year together, like we spend all our days now, hand in hand. In arms. In love.
I know. God, Bridget, the cheese! Enough.
Oh you think there's excitement today, just you wait until tomorrow.
Section chief: Are you damaged?
Condor: Damaged. No.
A toast to us. To him.
Today is the very last day of year one. Our first year together as a couple. As a couple of I-don't-know-whats, but a couple nonetheless. The final, three hundred and sixty fifth day of a long, arduous, perilous trip around the moon with detours to heaven a good six hundred times and back again. A journey of epic proportions in which I think my heart was dropped and picked up and broken and stitched and glued back together so many times I am a human mosaic from the inside out.
A year in which I tried to destroy my best friend and yet he is still here and as strong as ever and hopeful and full of his goofy faith-branded goodness that keeps him going even as I'm pulling so hard on the brakes I have permanent burns on my fingers and heels from digging in.
A year in which I was threatened, pushed and goaded past every insurmountable obstacle that sprang up one after the other and when I screamed for a break he simply set his mouth and pushed me more. If you think I am so hard on him just know that I rarely talk about how hard he is on me.
A year that saw a tiny bloom on a plant long left for dead flourish and expand until it outshone everything else in the garden. Our love, long denied, allowed to fly free like a bird and oh my fuck, have we ever soared. Sometimes we crash and burn and we pick ourselves up or we pick each other up and keep going.
I am the most perfect and the most imperfect human bean alive.
And I am loved.
And I love. Still. In spite of life I fell so hard in love I expected to shatter when I hit bottom. I'm still falling though and it won't stop.
So hard it floors me. Daily. And I've come to write about fights and awkward times and difficult moments and yet at the end of almost every single one of those three hundred and sixty five nights, give or take a couple of hospital stays, a business trip or two and some really stupid arguments I have fallen asleep in Jacob's arms, safe and warm and lucky and well aware that he is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with and I'm glad I get to live with him. And so crushed that I have ever hurt him, made him sad, made him angry or made him regret his choices. I write the trouble that I am for him as penance sometimes.
He maintains he wouldn't have it any other way, that despite the hardships this year has held, despite the ups and downs and the heartache and the pain when he looks at me he is filled with joy, with hope and with gratitude, but most of all with love.
Big love, he says, for his little Bridget. And through most of the past decade, everything aside, he says he is happy, because he got exactly what he wished for, so hard for so long.
Me.
But he is not the lucky one. I am.
We're spending this final day of our first year together, like we spend all our days now, hand in hand. In arms. In love.
I know. God, Bridget, the cheese! Enough.
Oh you think there's excitement today, just you wait until tomorrow.
Section chief: Are you damaged?
Condor: Damaged. No.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
I don't know what I was, but I know I wasn't mad.
Therapy this morning was helpful to the point of being an overpriced gentle reminder that not everyone in the world is on my timetable, nor do people share my opinions on things, and might possibly make up their own minds.
Lord only knows, if you don't shove and push Bridget very hard sometimes, she won't get out of her own way. Maybe I needed this. Maybe this signifies our sugar-line in a more concrete fashion. After all, this life is not about just me, and it's not about Jacob. It's about all four of us, and Ruth and Henry's happiness is a blessing on all counts. They're my troopers. They come before my bullshit.
Besides, no one cares how I feel outside of this bubble. The world is turning. I think today a lot of people wish it would turn backward so that they could prevent, or save or have just one more blessed minute. I read the news. My problems, real or perceived, are so small.
The best part from the morning was Jacob's thumb again, resting on the back of my neck and tracing my tattoo like it was a rail. After the first fifteen minutes it became raw and painful but he continued to do it for the entire two hours and I endured it because I liked it. It gave me something to focus on besides the reaction my rather uncharacteristic one-word responses were evoking from Claus and from Jacob.
After lunch Jacob and I headed out with work gloves and rakes and tackled the front yard together. We haven't had a nice word for each other for the better part of a day and a half, as I am a legendary non-talker when I'm thinking and he likes to give people as much room as possible to put their thoughts together without infringing on their private ruminations. He waits for me to speak, and I wait for him to give up and get pissed off and walk out.
He won't do it now. He knows me so well. And I push him right back because that's what we do and since we're aware then it's still healthy. I just love the gentle bonks on my head to remind me that I'm not special. Even though I am. He talks out both sides of his gorgeous mouth and I know he's dealing platitudes until something sticks and I start talking.
And I did.
Halfway through putting a pile of leaves into the wheelbarrow, I threw the rake down and started in. He stood patiently in the middle of the front yard with his hands crossed on the top of his rake handle and paid close attention while I let it all out. My anger, my betrayal, my fear, my remorse, my trepidation and he only interrupted once to remind me so gently just to breathe while I prattled on and on.
Because secretly he loves playing therapist to me, and he loves it when I erupt with chaotic verbal onslaughts after saying so little for three days. I think sometimes he remembers that as long as I'm talking I'm okay.
When I was done I took a very deep shaky breath and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for an equally cutting tirade to begin. Jacob has a gift for that and he's so much better at it than I am.
After a minute a handful of leaves landed on my head and I opened my eyes narrowly to see him grinning at me.
Are you done, princess?
Yes, I think so.
Good, I'd like to take you out for lunch and it's always a nicer time when we're on speaking terms, don't you think?
He took us out for soup and sandwiches, which was relaxed, and then we took Ruth back to school late and we came home to put away the yard tools and rest for a bit. I still had laundry to do and breakfast dishes to wash and Jacob pitched in without prompting. We made short work of the chores and then he turned and leaned on the doorframe and untied his shoes. He took them off and headed for the porch to leave them out there but then he stopped and gazed at me. His look stopped me in my tracks, it was a rare self-conscious, almost doubtful expression without a hint of Jacob's usual self-assurance.
It is better, though, isn't it? Life? Us?
Yes. So much better, Jacob.
Then trust me. Please, Bridget? Can you do that for once in your life?
I do.
No, you don't. But you should. Because I would do anything for you. And for the kids.
I know you would.
Then please, just trust me. Trust us.
I nodded, because my voice was drowned in the tears that came out of nowhere. And a new gift I've discovered: I can make him cry too. Sometimes too easily. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and for the first time since I met him didn't instantly regain his composure as if nothing had ever happened. He just let the rest of his tears roll down his face and he nodded back at me.
Good, then. Because you have no idea how much I love you.
I do.
No, you don't.
Are you trying to start an argument?
Maybe. We seem to resolve a lot of things when we take the gloves off.
We could resolve even more if we took our clothes off.
Can I get a raincheck on that?
What?
At least until the kids are in bed?
Oh, I suppose that would help. Oh and Jake?
Yeah, princess?
I love you. More than you know.
Some days you have really no idea how happy I am to hear that, princess. Today is one of those days.
Lord only knows, if you don't shove and push Bridget very hard sometimes, she won't get out of her own way. Maybe I needed this. Maybe this signifies our sugar-line in a more concrete fashion. After all, this life is not about just me, and it's not about Jacob. It's about all four of us, and Ruth and Henry's happiness is a blessing on all counts. They're my troopers. They come before my bullshit.
Besides, no one cares how I feel outside of this bubble. The world is turning. I think today a lot of people wish it would turn backward so that they could prevent, or save or have just one more blessed minute. I read the news. My problems, real or perceived, are so small.
The best part from the morning was Jacob's thumb again, resting on the back of my neck and tracing my tattoo like it was a rail. After the first fifteen minutes it became raw and painful but he continued to do it for the entire two hours and I endured it because I liked it. It gave me something to focus on besides the reaction my rather uncharacteristic one-word responses were evoking from Claus and from Jacob.
After lunch Jacob and I headed out with work gloves and rakes and tackled the front yard together. We haven't had a nice word for each other for the better part of a day and a half, as I am a legendary non-talker when I'm thinking and he likes to give people as much room as possible to put their thoughts together without infringing on their private ruminations. He waits for me to speak, and I wait for him to give up and get pissed off and walk out.
He won't do it now. He knows me so well. And I push him right back because that's what we do and since we're aware then it's still healthy. I just love the gentle bonks on my head to remind me that I'm not special. Even though I am. He talks out both sides of his gorgeous mouth and I know he's dealing platitudes until something sticks and I start talking.
And I did.
Halfway through putting a pile of leaves into the wheelbarrow, I threw the rake down and started in. He stood patiently in the middle of the front yard with his hands crossed on the top of his rake handle and paid close attention while I let it all out. My anger, my betrayal, my fear, my remorse, my trepidation and he only interrupted once to remind me so gently just to breathe while I prattled on and on.
Because secretly he loves playing therapist to me, and he loves it when I erupt with chaotic verbal onslaughts after saying so little for three days. I think sometimes he remembers that as long as I'm talking I'm okay.
When I was done I took a very deep shaky breath and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for an equally cutting tirade to begin. Jacob has a gift for that and he's so much better at it than I am.
After a minute a handful of leaves landed on my head and I opened my eyes narrowly to see him grinning at me.
Are you done, princess?
Yes, I think so.
Good, I'd like to take you out for lunch and it's always a nicer time when we're on speaking terms, don't you think?
He took us out for soup and sandwiches, which was relaxed, and then we took Ruth back to school late and we came home to put away the yard tools and rest for a bit. I still had laundry to do and breakfast dishes to wash and Jacob pitched in without prompting. We made short work of the chores and then he turned and leaned on the doorframe and untied his shoes. He took them off and headed for the porch to leave them out there but then he stopped and gazed at me. His look stopped me in my tracks, it was a rare self-conscious, almost doubtful expression without a hint of Jacob's usual self-assurance.
It is better, though, isn't it? Life? Us?
Yes. So much better, Jacob.
Then trust me. Please, Bridget? Can you do that for once in your life?
I do.
No, you don't. But you should. Because I would do anything for you. And for the kids.
I know you would.
Then please, just trust me. Trust us.
I nodded, because my voice was drowned in the tears that came out of nowhere. And a new gift I've discovered: I can make him cry too. Sometimes too easily. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and for the first time since I met him didn't instantly regain his composure as if nothing had ever happened. He just let the rest of his tears roll down his face and he nodded back at me.
Good, then. Because you have no idea how much I love you.
I do.
No, you don't.
Are you trying to start an argument?
Maybe. We seem to resolve a lot of things when we take the gloves off.
We could resolve even more if we took our clothes off.
Can I get a raincheck on that?
What?
At least until the kids are in bed?
Oh, I suppose that would help. Oh and Jake?
Yeah, princess?
I love you. More than you know.
Some days you have really no idea how happy I am to hear that, princess. Today is one of those days.
Monday, 16 April 2007
When honesty is completely unwelcome.
How do I feel?
I don't like it.
So, yes, honestly it was something I would have wished for maybe as Ruth was leaving for university or when Henry gets married someday, that they would have taken Jacob aside as almost-adults and asked him if it was okay. I know I have wished so hard in the past that he would have turned out to be Henry's father but that was for his comfort, not mine.
No, in true impulsive fashion that they have now learned from all three of their parents, it's throw yourself headlong into it and see what happens.
It's too soon. He hasn't been dead for a year and they've switched alliances and it's so okay by everyone I can't even breathe. It's fine, it's normal, they're young enough to be resilient yet old enough to understand the gravity of a word.
Jacob is so happy who in the hell am I to say it isn't right? Or that it's too soon for me? Who am I to deny him any more of anything?
Oh no. Now, now, he has it all.
And it's like Cole never existed except for in Bridget's pretty little crazy head and that...that's fucking weird. And different. And slightly unbearable.
I feel guilty. But it has nothing to do with me, and I have to pluck a resiliency out of thin air that doesn't even belong to me, because I am not seven years old.
I may as well be. Because I feel like a total unappreciative brat for even thinking this, let alone saying it out loud for all to hear. You all want the fucking barometer? Here you go. Come figure me out now.
I don't like it.
So, yes, honestly it was something I would have wished for maybe as Ruth was leaving for university or when Henry gets married someday, that they would have taken Jacob aside as almost-adults and asked him if it was okay. I know I have wished so hard in the past that he would have turned out to be Henry's father but that was for his comfort, not mine.
No, in true impulsive fashion that they have now learned from all three of their parents, it's throw yourself headlong into it and see what happens.
It's too soon. He hasn't been dead for a year and they've switched alliances and it's so okay by everyone I can't even breathe. It's fine, it's normal, they're young enough to be resilient yet old enough to understand the gravity of a word.
Jacob is so happy who in the hell am I to say it isn't right? Or that it's too soon for me? Who am I to deny him any more of anything?
Oh no. Now, now, he has it all.
And it's like Cole never existed except for in Bridget's pretty little crazy head and that...that's fucking weird. And different. And slightly unbearable.
I feel guilty. But it has nothing to do with me, and I have to pluck a resiliency out of thin air that doesn't even belong to me, because I am not seven years old.
I may as well be. Because I feel like a total unappreciative brat for even thinking this, let alone saying it out loud for all to hear. You all want the fucking barometer? Here you go. Come figure me out now.
Sometimes they are ready but I am not.
I sail to the moon
I spoke too soon
And how much did it cost
I was dropped from the moonbeam
And sailed on shooting stars
Maybe you'll be president
But know right from wrong
Or in the flood you'll build an Ark
And sail us to the moon
It's been 275 days since her father died, and Ruth was out yesterday afternoon jumping in puddles with triumphant glee, soaked to her ears, covered with mud. Wearing green wellies, a yellow raincoat and carrying her ladybug umbrella aloft, Ruth was heralding spring all by herself on the sidewalk in front of the house while I sat on the front steps with all three doors behind me into the house wide open to welcome the warmer air after the rain. Warmer being six degrees, and so we wore sweaters buttoned up tight against the chill.
Jacob was beside me on the steps frowning into his paperwork and scribbling lines and lines of writing, stopping every now and again to ask me if I was cold enough yet or more softly, if I wanted a new hot cup of coffee or some toast. He's spent most of the past week and a half sitting next to me and stroking my hair or holding my hand tightly in his, things he does perpetually anyway, with his new customary touch of concern, a dash of extra patience and more than a little sympathy and regret. When I tell him I'm fine and I can still do just about all the boring things myself he lets an edge of pride round out his expression, because physically I am tougher than you would expect. I heal fast, and I rarely slow down for long.
I'm just about one hundred percent again.
Physically anyhow.
Some of Ruth's friends from school came by and she came in to ask if they could stay for a quick tea party and I went to get a towel when I saw her coming and by the time I got to the top of the staircase, she was running in through the porch trying to get Jake's attention.
Only she wasn't yelling Jake! Jake!
She was yelling Dad.
And oddly I could feel his smile before I even saw it.
You couldn't miss it. It was a thousand-watt beam coming straight from his heart.
I spoke too soon
And how much did it cost
I was dropped from the moonbeam
And sailed on shooting stars
Maybe you'll be president
But know right from wrong
Or in the flood you'll build an Ark
And sail us to the moon
It's been 275 days since her father died, and Ruth was out yesterday afternoon jumping in puddles with triumphant glee, soaked to her ears, covered with mud. Wearing green wellies, a yellow raincoat and carrying her ladybug umbrella aloft, Ruth was heralding spring all by herself on the sidewalk in front of the house while I sat on the front steps with all three doors behind me into the house wide open to welcome the warmer air after the rain. Warmer being six degrees, and so we wore sweaters buttoned up tight against the chill.
Jacob was beside me on the steps frowning into his paperwork and scribbling lines and lines of writing, stopping every now and again to ask me if I was cold enough yet or more softly, if I wanted a new hot cup of coffee or some toast. He's spent most of the past week and a half sitting next to me and stroking my hair or holding my hand tightly in his, things he does perpetually anyway, with his new customary touch of concern, a dash of extra patience and more than a little sympathy and regret. When I tell him I'm fine and I can still do just about all the boring things myself he lets an edge of pride round out his expression, because physically I am tougher than you would expect. I heal fast, and I rarely slow down for long.
I'm just about one hundred percent again.
Physically anyhow.
Some of Ruth's friends from school came by and she came in to ask if they could stay for a quick tea party and I went to get a towel when I saw her coming and by the time I got to the top of the staircase, she was running in through the porch trying to get Jake's attention.
Only she wasn't yelling Jake! Jake!
She was yelling Dad.
And oddly I could feel his smile before I even saw it.
You couldn't miss it. It was a thousand-watt beam coming straight from his heart.
Sunday, 15 April 2007
Road warrior.
When I was a child I endured very long car drives. I traveled hundreds of miles every few months and just about every major holiday to visit one set of grandparents or the other, both sets living in a different province from my third to my seventh year.
I have vivid memories, not of the visits themselves but of the backseat of the 1972 Olds Vista Cruiser that we drove in. I was the typical youngest, mostly ignored until I was howling, running after everyone to catch up. Whatever part of my life up until age seven that I didn't spend on the beach or in the ocean was spent sitting in the backseat of this station wagon that was the sickliest shade of green ever. Avocado. The only shade of green I don't enjoy to the fullest. The inside was tan vinyl.
I would be sunburned and overtired, keyed-up and wide-eyed, hanging over the front headrest looking at my dad's balding spot or my mom's perfectly sprayed twiggy haircut and chewing on the stick from a lollipop long-finished. My hair was in an unruly ponytail, my white t-shirt and red shorts stained from grass and chocolate and coca cola. I stood and watched the glint of cars as they appeared on the opposite hill and marveled at the mirage made when the sun broiled the pavement on the flat straightaways. I talked nonstop but no one listened until at some point my father would yell at me to be quiet.
Soon I would become dizzy and nauseous and my mother would pass back a chewable motion sickness tablet and tell me to sit down. This was long before seatbelt laws. I would sit back down and poke my fingers out the top of my window, left open a crack for fresh air. The wind rushing past the window would freeze my fingers into tiny icicles, and then I would put them against my hot forehead and relish the cold. The car always smelled like stale Easter candy and potato chips and eventually I would panic and ask my father to pull over. Once I had been sick I would usually sleep for the rest of the trip, only to be rudely awakened by Bailey pulling on my arms and yelling at me to Bridgie, get up, we're here! Bailey never got car sick. I hated her for that.
For some reason the drives back home were always magical in comparison. There was something special about being out in the dark, up past my bedtime, far from home. Wrapped in a too-big handmedown sweatshirt and more sunburned I would take my place in the car behind my father and sit watching closely between the seats as headlights appeared on the road in front of us, drivers blinking their highbeams off when they saw our lights approaching. I would have a sticky face, a sore belly from all the extra treats that long-distance grandparents ply on their grandchildren, and be clutching Blythe, the doll that I dragged around for most of the seventies. My hair would be a wild halo of tangles around my face, in my eyes, in my mouth, with very little left in the ponytail. I smelled like sweat and candy.
I would just watch the lights and listen to the songs on the radio. Deep Purple, Journey, Kansas, The Eagles, Heart, Elton John, Creedence, Gordon Lightfoot, Fleetwood Mac, and I would sing along in my tiny little voice that I couldn't hear but no one else could either. Somewhere around the bay I would nod off at last and then wake up only as my father would miscalculate when he carried me into the house and bump his head on my doorframe as he tried to put me to bed without waking me up.
Those nights I would dream of floating lights set to music, a never-ending trip home.
I still don't like very long drives but I sit up front now and play all those same songs. That helps, at least a little.
I have vivid memories, not of the visits themselves but of the backseat of the 1972 Olds Vista Cruiser that we drove in. I was the typical youngest, mostly ignored until I was howling, running after everyone to catch up. Whatever part of my life up until age seven that I didn't spend on the beach or in the ocean was spent sitting in the backseat of this station wagon that was the sickliest shade of green ever. Avocado. The only shade of green I don't enjoy to the fullest. The inside was tan vinyl.
I would be sunburned and overtired, keyed-up and wide-eyed, hanging over the front headrest looking at my dad's balding spot or my mom's perfectly sprayed twiggy haircut and chewing on the stick from a lollipop long-finished. My hair was in an unruly ponytail, my white t-shirt and red shorts stained from grass and chocolate and coca cola. I stood and watched the glint of cars as they appeared on the opposite hill and marveled at the mirage made when the sun broiled the pavement on the flat straightaways. I talked nonstop but no one listened until at some point my father would yell at me to be quiet.
Soon I would become dizzy and nauseous and my mother would pass back a chewable motion sickness tablet and tell me to sit down. This was long before seatbelt laws. I would sit back down and poke my fingers out the top of my window, left open a crack for fresh air. The wind rushing past the window would freeze my fingers into tiny icicles, and then I would put them against my hot forehead and relish the cold. The car always smelled like stale Easter candy and potato chips and eventually I would panic and ask my father to pull over. Once I had been sick I would usually sleep for the rest of the trip, only to be rudely awakened by Bailey pulling on my arms and yelling at me to Bridgie, get up, we're here! Bailey never got car sick. I hated her for that.
For some reason the drives back home were always magical in comparison. There was something special about being out in the dark, up past my bedtime, far from home. Wrapped in a too-big handmedown sweatshirt and more sunburned I would take my place in the car behind my father and sit watching closely between the seats as headlights appeared on the road in front of us, drivers blinking their highbeams off when they saw our lights approaching. I would have a sticky face, a sore belly from all the extra treats that long-distance grandparents ply on their grandchildren, and be clutching Blythe, the doll that I dragged around for most of the seventies. My hair would be a wild halo of tangles around my face, in my eyes, in my mouth, with very little left in the ponytail. I smelled like sweat and candy.
I would just watch the lights and listen to the songs on the radio. Deep Purple, Journey, Kansas, The Eagles, Heart, Elton John, Creedence, Gordon Lightfoot, Fleetwood Mac, and I would sing along in my tiny little voice that I couldn't hear but no one else could either. Somewhere around the bay I would nod off at last and then wake up only as my father would miscalculate when he carried me into the house and bump his head on my doorframe as he tried to put me to bed without waking me up.
Those nights I would dream of floating lights set to music, a never-ending trip home.
I still don't like very long drives but I sit up front now and play all those same songs. That helps, at least a little.
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Soothing Saturdays.
I'm sitting on the patio right now in the warm early morning sun drinking coffee and working a little bit while Jacob and Henry go up and down the driveway. Over and over and over. Jacob is teaching Henry how to balance on two wheels, having taken the training wheels off earlier this morning. I can tell which heartbeat he hesitates in before he lets go of the back of the bike seat, and I hear the pride and love in his voice as he calls out reinforcement and encouragement once Henry pedals out of reach.
Then he runs to catch up because every time Henry stops he falls off.
Jacob has always been incredibly involved with the kids, from before their births, if you could believe that, as I was gently steered from unhealthy cravings for wonderful things like cheeseburgers and onion rings to salads and wholewheat sandwiches when he would take me out for lunch. He was their surrogate father when Cole worked himself invisible for the past seven years and he was their champion when it seemed like everyone else was busy. I was never sure how Jacob managed to maintain such a presence in our lives when he spread himself so sparing with work commitments and everything else but he did, and he was consistent except and even when he traveled, with postcards, calls and souvenirs.
It is yet one more sign to me that he was meant to be ours.
Then he runs to catch up because every time Henry stops he falls off.
Jacob has always been incredibly involved with the kids, from before their births, if you could believe that, as I was gently steered from unhealthy cravings for wonderful things like cheeseburgers and onion rings to salads and wholewheat sandwiches when he would take me out for lunch. He was their surrogate father when Cole worked himself invisible for the past seven years and he was their champion when it seemed like everyone else was busy. I was never sure how Jacob managed to maintain such a presence in our lives when he spread himself so sparing with work commitments and everything else but he did, and he was consistent except and even when he traveled, with postcards, calls and souvenirs.
It is yet one more sign to me that he was meant to be ours.
Friday, 13 April 2007
Happy sparklies.
Yes! Drive is on the stereo. I love Incubus.
It's driven me beforrrre,
and it seems to have a faaaaint,
haunting mass appeal.
But lately I, am beginning to find that IIII
should be the one behind the wheel.
Anything to get Down with the Sickness out of my head, because I love Disturbed more. Jake cracks up every time I sing it.
Especially the beginning.
Oh-ah-ah-ah-ah! Oh! Oh! Will you give it to me?
In my really Scary Voice. Yeah. Bridget's hardcore.
I am so using that song for my next lap dance. Whenever the hell I can manage it.
It's driven me beforrrre,
and it seems to have a faaaaint,
haunting mass appeal.
But lately I, am beginning to find that IIII
should be the one behind the wheel.
Anything to get Down with the Sickness out of my head, because I love Disturbed more. Jake cracks up every time I sing it.
Especially the beginning.
Oh-ah-ah-ah-ah! Oh! Oh! Will you give it to me?
In my really Scary Voice. Yeah. Bridget's hardcore.
I am so using that song for my next lap dance. Whenever the hell I can manage it.
Sugar high.
Last night after we returned home from Claus, Jacob walked inside, went straight in through the kitchen to the pantry and got the big 10-pound bag of sugar, to represent sand, because we're far from our familiar beaches, and drawing lines in the sand to mark boundaries and starting off points is a long-standing tradition we have. He came back outside and poured the whole thing on the walkway at the bottom of the steps. He then drew a line across the middle with his finger and held his hand out for me to take. I took it and we walked solemnly over that line. A grand gestures that makes his point perfectly.
The line is drawn here and there will be no steps back now, okay, princess?
Okay, Jake.
We're going to be fine.
I know we are.
Why?
Because we want it.
How bad?
So, so bad, Jake.
Yeah, princess. So bad.
By now we're whispering to each other, heads together and standing in the backyard beside this pile of sugar like it was the great divide and we had somehow survived a border war.
Maybe we did.
He stared at it for around three or four minutes and then shook his head at it and said ants and then went and got out the hose. I guess we'll be growing sweetgrass this year.
Should be fun.
Stood on the corner for a while
To wait for the wind to blow down on me
Hoping it takes with it my old ways
And brings some brand new look upon me
Oh it's taking so long I could be wrong, I could be ready
Oh but if I take my heart's advice
I should assume it's still unsteady
I am in repair
I am in repair
The line is drawn here and there will be no steps back now, okay, princess?
Okay, Jake.
We're going to be fine.
I know we are.
Why?
Because we want it.
How bad?
So, so bad, Jake.
Yeah, princess. So bad.
By now we're whispering to each other, heads together and standing in the backyard beside this pile of sugar like it was the great divide and we had somehow survived a border war.
Maybe we did.
He stared at it for around three or four minutes and then shook his head at it and said ants and then went and got out the hose. I guess we'll be growing sweetgrass this year.
Should be fun.
Stood on the corner for a while
To wait for the wind to blow down on me
Hoping it takes with it my old ways
And brings some brand new look upon me
Oh it's taking so long I could be wrong, I could be ready
Oh but if I take my heart's advice
I should assume it's still unsteady
I am in repair
I am in repair
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Torch songs.
So what do you think?
It's beautiful! Who does it belong to?
Me.
You're joking, right?
No, I bought it. Because you made fun of my tiny apartment.
Oh my god. Seriously, Jacob.
I am serious, Bridget.
Wow. Then you did really well. I didn't think you had any money.
Well I don't anymore.
I was standing on the polished wood floor of a living room that had a wall that was all windows. The windows overlooked the ocean, straight out, facing east so there was no land as far as your eyes could see on the horizon. It wasn't a huge house, two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom and a great room that was a kitchen with a breakfast bar and the huge living room. He paid for the view and the beachfrontage, I think and the fact that it had a roof was just the icing on the cake.
We had an awkward, tension-filled dinner one night. Back in 1999 once the shock of death wore off and my pregnancy advanced and we settled in as fledgling best friends, Jacob knew I spent my nights alone and he invited me to dinner, he said he wanted to cook for me.
Jacob is not a legendary chef by any means, but I relished his company and so I agreed and he offered to pick me up from work and bring me over to his apartment for dinner and then drive me home afterward.
At 5 pm I left work and he was there. Standing by the door with his truck parked a bit of the way up the hill. He took my bag and extended his arm and we walked to the truck. He opened the door for me and made nice small talk on the way back out of the city.
He reminded me where he lived and mentioned he was looking for a house closer to the south shore, maybe on the water, because he grew up on the water in Newfoundland.
I smiled and told him I loved the beach. I lived for the beach, for the ocean. It was my comfort.
Surprisingly it turned out that he lived about 10 minutes past where I did, along the harbour. I was on his way back and forth to the university.
He introduced me to his tiny apartment, cluttered with stacks of books and CDs. He owned a desk, a table, a bed and a stereo, wedged into two tiny rooms with a bathroom and a kitchen somehow built out of no space at all. When he was standing there was no room for me to stand beside him. He hung up my coat and put the satchel by the door and pulled a chair out from the table for me.
He smiled and asked if I was thirsty. I said I was and he pulled a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge. The pitcher still had the sticker on the outside and I could see his hands shaking as he poured.
Why are you nervous?
Am I?
You're positively quivering.
Been a while since I had a da-friend over for a meal.
Ah.
Tell me about things, Bridget.
Okay. My new friend is weirdly nervous around me and he shouldn't be, because I'm having a nice time.
Aw, geez, Bridge. Tell me how you really feel.
Are you psychoanalyzing me?
No, are you?
Of course not. My expertise is in financial affairs.
Maybe I should let you do my taxes.
I'd be happy to.
Would you like to help with dinner? I could use a pot-stirrer.
Oh, I've been called that before, let me get it.
He started cracking jokes while he sawed up the bread to butter it and I dutifully stirred pots of pasta and sauce. I laughed, I was wide awake, I wasn't mourning anymore, he was like a breath of fresh air. There was barely room for both of us to stand and yet we did, and we ignored the overwhelming tension between us, a connection I still can't adequately describe. Every time my hand moved to the left I would bump elbows with him. When he laughed I could feel his breath on my hair. It sent shivers right through me.
We ate slowly and talked for hours. Before I knew it I was almost falling asleep on my plate and Jacob smiled and suggested we call it a night. We both stood up and cracked heads. I winced. He asked me if I was okay and then he rubbed my head and stopped cold, as if we both realized at once that it was not right to be so close and yet we were, albeit with hesitation.
You're a big guy, you need a bigger place.
That's why I invited you over now, before your belly starts to get in our way.
Oh, so it's me.
No, I'm teasing, Bridge.
So why did you really invite me over?
I hate to eat alone.
Oh, okay.
And because you eat alone.
So?
That's sad.
That's life. Sometimes couples work opposite hours.
He handed me my coat and helped me into it and I stuck my arm through the sleeve and accidentally punched him square in the chest. He laughed.
Maybe you should come to my place for dinner next time.
No, I don't think Cole would want that.
Well, this room is going to be too tiny soon. I can't fasten my skirts anymore.
How do you keep them up?
I have hips now.
So I need a bigger place if I want to keep having dinner with you?
Yeah, I think so.
Then maybe I'll find something you might like, right on the beach if that's what you like most.
I thought he was kidding, to humor me. We didn't say much on the drive back to the apartment I shared with Cole. I felt a little strange about his intensity and I think he realized it had become a bit awkward. When he walked me to my door he said that maybe sometime we could do it again, and he kissed my hand and squeezed it and then left when I went inside. I was aware that he had backed off significantly from when we were at his place but I was slightly relieved because when he gets intense I always felt like I was unable to control my attraction to him.
I knew I was falling. Falling hard.
We chatted superficially on the phone a few times a week and met for coffee each Friday for the next two months and then one evening he called and asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. I did, and so he picked me up and we drove for 30 minutes down the shore to this beautiful house.
I still couldn't believe he now owned this view.
So, do you want to go down and see my beach?
Sure, let's go.
He took my hand and I followed him down the steps off the deck and onto the sand. There were torches lit and stuck in the sand and a blanket spread on the sand with a picnic basket. A radio playing songs I don't even remember now, and how often does that ever happen?
He looked at me in the twilight and asked me if this was enough room for us to have dinner.
Oh wow.
He made peanut butter and jelly. He said because it keeps well and he needed something that did for his surprise. And lemonade in bottles because he said he knew I liked it last time. And it seemed like that moment when we both acknowledged the intensity of our friendship and gave up trying to fight it everything changed again and the electricity that had charged the air before quieted down just enough so that we found a comfortable place somewhere past best friends and on to surrogate spouses, permanent company, sought comfort.
It still remains the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had. He maintains the best part was the tiny bit of peanut butter he kissed off the corner of my mouth before we left to drive back to the city.
Sometimes I miss that house, sometimes he does too, but he said it was infused with a frustration after I would leave that made him grow to resent it and so it becomes just another part of our forbidden history and that's why he bought the cottage instead. So we could have our view back, and our beach picnics back, with no painful memories stuck in the sand like torches on a warm spring evening.
It's beautiful! Who does it belong to?
Me.
You're joking, right?
No, I bought it. Because you made fun of my tiny apartment.
Oh my god. Seriously, Jacob.
I am serious, Bridget.
Wow. Then you did really well. I didn't think you had any money.
Well I don't anymore.
I was standing on the polished wood floor of a living room that had a wall that was all windows. The windows overlooked the ocean, straight out, facing east so there was no land as far as your eyes could see on the horizon. It wasn't a huge house, two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom and a great room that was a kitchen with a breakfast bar and the huge living room. He paid for the view and the beachfrontage, I think and the fact that it had a roof was just the icing on the cake.
We had an awkward, tension-filled dinner one night. Back in 1999 once the shock of death wore off and my pregnancy advanced and we settled in as fledgling best friends, Jacob knew I spent my nights alone and he invited me to dinner, he said he wanted to cook for me.
Jacob is not a legendary chef by any means, but I relished his company and so I agreed and he offered to pick me up from work and bring me over to his apartment for dinner and then drive me home afterward.
At 5 pm I left work and he was there. Standing by the door with his truck parked a bit of the way up the hill. He took my bag and extended his arm and we walked to the truck. He opened the door for me and made nice small talk on the way back out of the city.
He reminded me where he lived and mentioned he was looking for a house closer to the south shore, maybe on the water, because he grew up on the water in Newfoundland.
I smiled and told him I loved the beach. I lived for the beach, for the ocean. It was my comfort.
Surprisingly it turned out that he lived about 10 minutes past where I did, along the harbour. I was on his way back and forth to the university.
He introduced me to his tiny apartment, cluttered with stacks of books and CDs. He owned a desk, a table, a bed and a stereo, wedged into two tiny rooms with a bathroom and a kitchen somehow built out of no space at all. When he was standing there was no room for me to stand beside him. He hung up my coat and put the satchel by the door and pulled a chair out from the table for me.
He smiled and asked if I was thirsty. I said I was and he pulled a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge. The pitcher still had the sticker on the outside and I could see his hands shaking as he poured.
Why are you nervous?
Am I?
You're positively quivering.
Been a while since I had a da-friend over for a meal.
Ah.
Tell me about things, Bridget.
Okay. My new friend is weirdly nervous around me and he shouldn't be, because I'm having a nice time.
Aw, geez, Bridge. Tell me how you really feel.
Are you psychoanalyzing me?
No, are you?
Of course not. My expertise is in financial affairs.
Maybe I should let you do my taxes.
I'd be happy to.
Would you like to help with dinner? I could use a pot-stirrer.
Oh, I've been called that before, let me get it.
He started cracking jokes while he sawed up the bread to butter it and I dutifully stirred pots of pasta and sauce. I laughed, I was wide awake, I wasn't mourning anymore, he was like a breath of fresh air. There was barely room for both of us to stand and yet we did, and we ignored the overwhelming tension between us, a connection I still can't adequately describe. Every time my hand moved to the left I would bump elbows with him. When he laughed I could feel his breath on my hair. It sent shivers right through me.
We ate slowly and talked for hours. Before I knew it I was almost falling asleep on my plate and Jacob smiled and suggested we call it a night. We both stood up and cracked heads. I winced. He asked me if I was okay and then he rubbed my head and stopped cold, as if we both realized at once that it was not right to be so close and yet we were, albeit with hesitation.
You're a big guy, you need a bigger place.
That's why I invited you over now, before your belly starts to get in our way.
Oh, so it's me.
No, I'm teasing, Bridge.
So why did you really invite me over?
I hate to eat alone.
Oh, okay.
And because you eat alone.
So?
That's sad.
That's life. Sometimes couples work opposite hours.
He handed me my coat and helped me into it and I stuck my arm through the sleeve and accidentally punched him square in the chest. He laughed.
Maybe you should come to my place for dinner next time.
No, I don't think Cole would want that.
Well, this room is going to be too tiny soon. I can't fasten my skirts anymore.
How do you keep them up?
I have hips now.
So I need a bigger place if I want to keep having dinner with you?
Yeah, I think so.
Then maybe I'll find something you might like, right on the beach if that's what you like most.
I thought he was kidding, to humor me. We didn't say much on the drive back to the apartment I shared with Cole. I felt a little strange about his intensity and I think he realized it had become a bit awkward. When he walked me to my door he said that maybe sometime we could do it again, and he kissed my hand and squeezed it and then left when I went inside. I was aware that he had backed off significantly from when we were at his place but I was slightly relieved because when he gets intense I always felt like I was unable to control my attraction to him.
I knew I was falling. Falling hard.
We chatted superficially on the phone a few times a week and met for coffee each Friday for the next two months and then one evening he called and asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. I did, and so he picked me up and we drove for 30 minutes down the shore to this beautiful house.
I still couldn't believe he now owned this view.
So, do you want to go down and see my beach?
Sure, let's go.
He took my hand and I followed him down the steps off the deck and onto the sand. There were torches lit and stuck in the sand and a blanket spread on the sand with a picnic basket. A radio playing songs I don't even remember now, and how often does that ever happen?
He looked at me in the twilight and asked me if this was enough room for us to have dinner.
Oh wow.
He made peanut butter and jelly. He said because it keeps well and he needed something that did for his surprise. And lemonade in bottles because he said he knew I liked it last time. And it seemed like that moment when we both acknowledged the intensity of our friendship and gave up trying to fight it everything changed again and the electricity that had charged the air before quieted down just enough so that we found a comfortable place somewhere past best friends and on to surrogate spouses, permanent company, sought comfort.
It still remains the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had. He maintains the best part was the tiny bit of peanut butter he kissed off the corner of my mouth before we left to drive back to the city.
Sometimes I miss that house, sometimes he does too, but he said it was infused with a frustration after I would leave that made him grow to resent it and so it becomes just another part of our forbidden history and that's why he bought the cottage instead. So we could have our view back, and our beach picnics back, with no painful memories stuck in the sand like torches on a warm spring evening.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
What I did today.
Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely
means that I don't know
You would almost expect to find Jacob walking around singing those lyrics, wouldn't you? Yes, I would too. He is, nonstop.
Loch pointed out in a phone call that I never write about what I'm doing.
I don't get how you can write three pages of how you feel without once pointing out a single action. Oh, aside from him kissing you. Christ, Bridge.
Loch is gently kidding me. But it might be true anyway because I rarely talk about how I'm spending my time. Maybe it's a omission in error, maybe it's on purpose. I have no idea. But since it's not a mommy blog, or a family blog, or even a therapy blog, it seems to be a tiny bit of everything, leaning very heavily on the aspect of a very personal place for me in which I can say and do say..anything. Everything. I sit down and something winds up here. I wish I could plan it a little better but it plans me.
And I don't care who reads it and I'm no longer so concerned about what you think of it. If I want to explore the incredible news that I feel better for eighteen weeks in a row then oh boy, will you ever be bored.
If it all turns to porn, well, aren't you lucky.
(Of course it will, don't be silly.)
Christian said Jacob's entry from seven years back made him sound like a gentleman stalker. If so, then he was the most unproductive stalker ever born, because never once did he stand outside my window in the pouring rain looking at my house, like the guy in that Maroon 5 song. That guy was a stalker.
I have a laundry list of similar things for him, romantic gestures he hasn't made (yet), like rowing a boat for me or having my name tattoed on his chest. It's a fun joke between us. I've also never picked him up at work wearing only a trench coat with nothing underneath, something he teases me about. Usually because when I used to walk down to meet him I would either have the kids with me or wind up taking off a coat for an hour to answer phones, do some filing or water plants. Or the fact that I don't own a trench coat. Or the fact that his office is a church but hey, we've already christened it so did it matter if I started in a dress anyway?
He laughed and said it didn't, and besides, had he stood outside our house in the rain as some sort of sentry yearning for my heart, Cole would have come out and started swinging.
No, instead Jacob was always warmly welcomed in, so maybe he did do that, starting out. It was a brief stand then, and he is off the hook.
And please, every man I know inhales a woman as she comes within a certain closeness. Men do that. Women don't do it until they are holding a man. It's a fundamental difference, but it's there.
Did you want me to write that we play Mystery Tea in the evenings now? I have fifty teabags I can't identify. I must have been seriously loopy the day I took them all out of their boxes and put them into a large square tin so that I would have everything together, being a serial organizer. Only the earl grey had tags, the rest are a motley bunch. So each night after dinner I make us each a cup of tea and then Jacob will take a sip and contemplate it for a few moments and then exclaim something silly like,
Oh! This would be green.
Or,
This is the spicy chai, I do believe.
In an Irish-Newfie accent.
And so I laugh and the next night follows suit with cinnamon or Chinese black. We have rhythms and routines and lover's rituals and near sexual satisfaction now and no, I didn't write about sex with cracked ribs because it was a given that we became experts at Bridget-injured sex almost a year ago and so we picked up familiar patterns and it's a little frustrating but I'm going to save that for another day. It needs a separate post. The progress, not some detailed paragraph on how we manage, no worries.
Of course...this is Bridget's journal so I shy away from nothing. No apologies for that, you know me better than that by now.
In the evenings over the winter we would put the kids to bed and then pop in a movie and snuggle together and sometimes I would watch a movie alone if Jacob had work to do. Or we'd retire to the den to just talk, or sometimes hit the floor of the living room because he builds nice, perfect fires to lounge around and we'd talk some more. For some reason we can talk forever. We always could. There's been few examples of times where we had to search for things to say but being together has unleashed a verbal waterfall. Or perhaps we're making up for lost time, for all the things we couldn't say.
Now that the warmer weather has come we find ourselves sitting on the front steps so we can watch people stroll by with their dogs and their strollers (which is very very hard because I would be eight months..no, I'm not going there. Not now) and we speak for a few moments always and it's so nice to feel a warm breeze and watch the sky turn to fire and then lavender and then darkest blue.
And Jake is an incredibly hands-on dad. He asks the kids for help and input on so much. He lets them put bows in his beard. He gets down on his belly full-length on Ruth's floor with from the knees down hanging out into the hall and tries to put outfits on her Barbie dolls and then holds ballroom dancing sessions for them. For the record he does not know how to ballroom dance, so we are perfect for each other, because I have no use for that. I'll take my darkened-house midnight waltzes any old time. He and Henry spend hours building model planes and perfecting their jokes to tell the girls (Ruth and I). And they sneak through the kitchen stealing cookies or apples every chance they get. They call it snack-recon. It's a riot.
I'm usually a tornado, twisting through the house in the usual balancing act of meals, cleaning, laundry, budget, chores, disaster declarations, though now I have full-time help with everything. He was a capable bachelor, and so he never moved in expecting me to do anything, though I go and do it anyway because he didn't have time to do laundry or make a meal if he was in all-day meetings or double-booked counselling. Or certification testing. Or dedication rehearsals. Or the myriad of other stuff. When he opens the drawer in our bureau and finds a stack of clean hemp t-shirts he thanks me like I'm doing him a favor.
I simply remind him it's easy to do laundry while I write. I can do just about anything and write at the same time.
I want to take care of Jacob. Which is harder than I expected, because he is capable with a capital C and that is no match for me. He says I do, but it's about more than shirts. He says I fill his heart and his soul and he sleeps at night and he does, he doesn't thrash all over the place anymore in his sleep, did you know that? No, because I didn't tell you but I fail to see sometimes how just being here is taking care of him. He insists.
And then he repeats it until I let it go.
And he has been my biggest fan. When I met Jacob I wasn't so much a writer, I was a white-collar banker smashing my head repeatedly on a glass ceiling that would never break. I was sexually harassed and overburdened and unpaid and when Ruth was born I realized I could never go back and so I started writing and Jacob was my first critic/editor. Yes, he is thanked in the acknowledgements, always. He wants to read everything I write, even if it's nothing special. He takes it seriously and personally. Sometimes it creates arguments, sometimes it gives him a new appreciation for who I am. Nothing impresses him more than this journal, maybe because it's about us, or maybe he enjoys seeing himself through my eyes. He won't confirm or deny. But I have no trepidation over taking anything I've written to him, good or bad, for first pickings, because he's been there since word one.
I like that, word one.
And today I have a headache, so will be diving into the mystery tea just as soon as this pot of coffee is gone.
Oh, and I have the shakes. Which is fun, a side-effect of the DTs from the medication leaving my body. I feel whole. I feel real. I feel pretty fucking good today. Even with the slight flutter.
I can't wait to tell Claus when I see him later this morning. He will be pleased.
I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
She will be loved. Oh yes, you bet she will.
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely
means that I don't know
You would almost expect to find Jacob walking around singing those lyrics, wouldn't you? Yes, I would too. He is, nonstop.
Loch pointed out in a phone call that I never write about what I'm doing.
I don't get how you can write three pages of how you feel without once pointing out a single action. Oh, aside from him kissing you. Christ, Bridge.
Loch is gently kidding me. But it might be true anyway because I rarely talk about how I'm spending my time. Maybe it's a omission in error, maybe it's on purpose. I have no idea. But since it's not a mommy blog, or a family blog, or even a therapy blog, it seems to be a tiny bit of everything, leaning very heavily on the aspect of a very personal place for me in which I can say and do say..anything. Everything. I sit down and something winds up here. I wish I could plan it a little better but it plans me.
And I don't care who reads it and I'm no longer so concerned about what you think of it. If I want to explore the incredible news that I feel better for eighteen weeks in a row then oh boy, will you ever be bored.
If it all turns to porn, well, aren't you lucky.
(Of course it will, don't be silly.)
Christian said Jacob's entry from seven years back made him sound like a gentleman stalker. If so, then he was the most unproductive stalker ever born, because never once did he stand outside my window in the pouring rain looking at my house, like the guy in that Maroon 5 song. That guy was a stalker.
I have a laundry list of similar things for him, romantic gestures he hasn't made (yet), like rowing a boat for me or having my name tattoed on his chest. It's a fun joke between us. I've also never picked him up at work wearing only a trench coat with nothing underneath, something he teases me about. Usually because when I used to walk down to meet him I would either have the kids with me or wind up taking off a coat for an hour to answer phones, do some filing or water plants. Or the fact that I don't own a trench coat. Or the fact that his office is a church but hey, we've already christened it so did it matter if I started in a dress anyway?
He laughed and said it didn't, and besides, had he stood outside our house in the rain as some sort of sentry yearning for my heart, Cole would have come out and started swinging.
No, instead Jacob was always warmly welcomed in, so maybe he did do that, starting out. It was a brief stand then, and he is off the hook.
And please, every man I know inhales a woman as she comes within a certain closeness. Men do that. Women don't do it until they are holding a man. It's a fundamental difference, but it's there.
Did you want me to write that we play Mystery Tea in the evenings now? I have fifty teabags I can't identify. I must have been seriously loopy the day I took them all out of their boxes and put them into a large square tin so that I would have everything together, being a serial organizer. Only the earl grey had tags, the rest are a motley bunch. So each night after dinner I make us each a cup of tea and then Jacob will take a sip and contemplate it for a few moments and then exclaim something silly like,
Oh! This would be green.
Or,
This is the spicy chai, I do believe.
In an Irish-Newfie accent.
And so I laugh and the next night follows suit with cinnamon or Chinese black. We have rhythms and routines and lover's rituals and near sexual satisfaction now and no, I didn't write about sex with cracked ribs because it was a given that we became experts at Bridget-injured sex almost a year ago and so we picked up familiar patterns and it's a little frustrating but I'm going to save that for another day. It needs a separate post. The progress, not some detailed paragraph on how we manage, no worries.
Of course...this is Bridget's journal so I shy away from nothing. No apologies for that, you know me better than that by now.
In the evenings over the winter we would put the kids to bed and then pop in a movie and snuggle together and sometimes I would watch a movie alone if Jacob had work to do. Or we'd retire to the den to just talk, or sometimes hit the floor of the living room because he builds nice, perfect fires to lounge around and we'd talk some more. For some reason we can talk forever. We always could. There's been few examples of times where we had to search for things to say but being together has unleashed a verbal waterfall. Or perhaps we're making up for lost time, for all the things we couldn't say.
Now that the warmer weather has come we find ourselves sitting on the front steps so we can watch people stroll by with their dogs and their strollers (which is very very hard because I would be eight months..no, I'm not going there. Not now) and we speak for a few moments always and it's so nice to feel a warm breeze and watch the sky turn to fire and then lavender and then darkest blue.
And Jake is an incredibly hands-on dad. He asks the kids for help and input on so much. He lets them put bows in his beard. He gets down on his belly full-length on Ruth's floor with from the knees down hanging out into the hall and tries to put outfits on her Barbie dolls and then holds ballroom dancing sessions for them. For the record he does not know how to ballroom dance, so we are perfect for each other, because I have no use for that. I'll take my darkened-house midnight waltzes any old time. He and Henry spend hours building model planes and perfecting their jokes to tell the girls (Ruth and I). And they sneak through the kitchen stealing cookies or apples every chance they get. They call it snack-recon. It's a riot.
I'm usually a tornado, twisting through the house in the usual balancing act of meals, cleaning, laundry, budget, chores, disaster declarations, though now I have full-time help with everything. He was a capable bachelor, and so he never moved in expecting me to do anything, though I go and do it anyway because he didn't have time to do laundry or make a meal if he was in all-day meetings or double-booked counselling. Or certification testing. Or dedication rehearsals. Or the myriad of other stuff. When he opens the drawer in our bureau and finds a stack of clean hemp t-shirts he thanks me like I'm doing him a favor.
I simply remind him it's easy to do laundry while I write. I can do just about anything and write at the same time.
I want to take care of Jacob. Which is harder than I expected, because he is capable with a capital C and that is no match for me. He says I do, but it's about more than shirts. He says I fill his heart and his soul and he sleeps at night and he does, he doesn't thrash all over the place anymore in his sleep, did you know that? No, because I didn't tell you but I fail to see sometimes how just being here is taking care of him. He insists.
And then he repeats it until I let it go.
And he has been my biggest fan. When I met Jacob I wasn't so much a writer, I was a white-collar banker smashing my head repeatedly on a glass ceiling that would never break. I was sexually harassed and overburdened and unpaid and when Ruth was born I realized I could never go back and so I started writing and Jacob was my first critic/editor. Yes, he is thanked in the acknowledgements, always. He wants to read everything I write, even if it's nothing special. He takes it seriously and personally. Sometimes it creates arguments, sometimes it gives him a new appreciation for who I am. Nothing impresses him more than this journal, maybe because it's about us, or maybe he enjoys seeing himself through my eyes. He won't confirm or deny. But I have no trepidation over taking anything I've written to him, good or bad, for first pickings, because he's been there since word one.
I like that, word one.
And today I have a headache, so will be diving into the mystery tea just as soon as this pot of coffee is gone.
Oh, and I have the shakes. Which is fun, a side-effect of the DTs from the medication leaving my body. I feel whole. I feel real. I feel pretty fucking good today. Even with the slight flutter.
I can't wait to tell Claus when I see him later this morning. He will be pleased.
I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
She will be loved. Oh yes, you bet she will.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Voyeurism Tuesday.
Because I love you, and I'm not kidding when I talk about how this was meant to be. A permitted excerpt from Jacob's old-fashioned paper journal (note the date because he went and dug it out after he read today's entry):
Monday, April 10, 2000
Halifax, Nova Scotia
I think I have a new goal in life, her name is Bridget. She is difficult, impulsive, stubborn, beautiful. I spend enough time with her that I am surprised that I spend so much of our time apart with her still on my mind. She has a hold on me. I don't know what it is. We have settled into a platonic routine but I still covet every second I can touch her, smell her, be the recipient of her attention or her smile. She's been leaving me phone messages all week for fun-I can't even remember how many times I have listened to them just to hear her laugh at the end when she says goodbye. Being in love with my best friend is a curse. Having her know and do nothing about it is torture. It's agony knowing she loves me. This can't end well but I don't push her. It is a goal I could never follow up on and so I torture myself with inactivity, then I torture myself with regret. The only time she is mine is in my dreams and dreams so rarely come true.
It appears that dreams do come true, Jake. They did for me, too.
And...spooky!
Monday, April 10, 2000
Halifax, Nova Scotia
I think I have a new goal in life, her name is Bridget. She is difficult, impulsive, stubborn, beautiful. I spend enough time with her that I am surprised that I spend so much of our time apart with her still on my mind. She has a hold on me. I don't know what it is. We have settled into a platonic routine but I still covet every second I can touch her, smell her, be the recipient of her attention or her smile. She's been leaving me phone messages all week for fun-I can't even remember how many times I have listened to them just to hear her laugh at the end when she says goodbye. Being in love with my best friend is a curse. Having her know and do nothing about it is torture. It's agony knowing she loves me. This can't end well but I don't push her. It is a goal I could never follow up on and so I torture myself with inactivity, then I torture myself with regret. The only time she is mine is in my dreams and dreams so rarely come true.
It appears that dreams do come true, Jake. They did for me, too.
And...spooky!
Offroad girl.
I'll beg for you
You know I'll beg for you
Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave
If you should die before me
Ask if you can bring a friend
Pick a flower, hold your breath
And drift away
No, I'm not about to unleash a torrent of admissions upon you. No, I am not falling into a low. No, I'm not having too difficult of a time coming down off the medications. No, I haven't done anything wrong.
In fact, everything is wonderful. Life has become the fairytale I wanted. The one that I was meant for. The one about me.
Minus the lingering doubts.
Last night I had one of those blisteringly cathartic sobfests. Usually my method of crying is a quivering lower lip and some giant tears that well up and spill over my cheeks and I'll wipe them away in an impatient haste on the back of my fist and keeping on fighting through it. But then sometimes I am reduced to the point where my whole face becomes pink and stained with so many tears as if water has been splashed on my skin and it becomes hard to breathe as I choke through endless sobs and shake all over. I simply laid my head against Jacob's chest and he wrapped his arms around me and tucked his head down beside mine and just squeezed and I let it all out until there was nothing left. One of those good cries.
I wake up in the mornings not believing my luck, relishing the shiver of anticipation when he touches me and sleepily smiles at me, so full of love and he wants nothing else ever. He has relaxed, he has unwound just enough and he is now fully immersed in his self-induced caretaker vacation in order to see me better once and for all and the only thing that will take him away for any length of time will be his chaplain shifts and anytime he goes out with the guys, to pick up wood or help someone with their truck repairs or go out for lunch, or to his own therapy sessions, separate from mine and from our joint ones, to deal with his temper, to find balance between his obsessiveness and his distance, to help him be a better person as if that were somehow possible. That would be like trying to perfect the smoothness of an egg to me.
I said that and was treated to that loud goofy guffaw laugh that he punctuates with his dimples.
And I want nothing else ever, just him. This is sort of like the moment in your life (if you've ever had this moment you'll understand what I mean) when you pick up your Life Goals list and cross off the big one at the top, you know, the one that you wrote down for fits and giggles, knowing full well that you'd never achieve it, but wouldn't it be nice.
And then you do.
Suddenly I'm faced with needing a few new goals, I've worked my way through a lofty assortment of them and my list is now a clean slate, almost, I'm just waiting for my man in the white coat to come along with his dustpan and sweep away the remaining particles of the waning stress, the grit of dealing with a life that had so many hairpin curves for a while there, I wound up carsick and then crushed, wrapped around tree somewhere down the embankment, far out of sight of rescue.
And then I dug my fingers into the crumbling dirt on the side of that hill and pulled myself back up and noticed the rest of the road was straight. I wiped the trickle of blood off my temple and felt around for all my pieces. I looked behind me and saw that I was pushed up, helped, pulled and dragged by my hands. He has traction in life, guys.
And do you know something? Bridget is still intact. Whole.
Complete, even.
Fully intact and only slightly dented and misshapen and bruised, on the inside, fading now, and it does absolutely nothing to counteract the brimming love that just spills over and over and is a fountain inside my soul.
This is very good. Cheer for me, would you? Just the tiniest of hurrahs would suffice and I will be ever so grateful.
Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't believe it was Jacob's goal in life to ever wind up with a wife so fragile and weak, that his strength would dissolve like ice in hot water when confronted with a princess made of glass, his resolve crumbling, unable to resist. I take my place in history as the one weakness of his magnificent design. The one goal he ever had. The one person he ever wanted so badly that he would shove everything else to one side to get it, taking risks he wouldn't normally take, acting out in ways so uncharacteristic of the sweet and goofy handsome preacher boy, making promises that he has woven into the finest silk, goals rubbed and polished to a shine so bright we went blind somewhere along that long, dangerous road.
Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't think I deserve this, him, anything good. Sometimes I want to scream with frustration at not doing things better, not acting faster, not trying harder.
Not being tougher.
Sometimes I want to point out that I may never live up to the image of me that he keeps in his mind. I'm still sure he sees her, not me. The potential of who I could be, instead of the mess that I am.
And when I tell him that, he simply smiles and kisses my face and tells me to hush, and reminds me that we're two now, we're together, we're it, and I am everything to him, whole or fractured. And that we will fix it and if we don't that's okay too, because he can hold me in his arms without guilt, and I can be in his arms without fear. And that the whole mess is wrapped in love and love can fix anything.
Just wait and see, princess.
I will.
That's good. Because I love you.
I love you too.
You know I'll beg for you
Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave
If you should die before me
Ask if you can bring a friend
Pick a flower, hold your breath
And drift away
No, I'm not about to unleash a torrent of admissions upon you. No, I am not falling into a low. No, I'm not having too difficult of a time coming down off the medications. No, I haven't done anything wrong.
In fact, everything is wonderful. Life has become the fairytale I wanted. The one that I was meant for. The one about me.
Minus the lingering doubts.
Last night I had one of those blisteringly cathartic sobfests. Usually my method of crying is a quivering lower lip and some giant tears that well up and spill over my cheeks and I'll wipe them away in an impatient haste on the back of my fist and keeping on fighting through it. But then sometimes I am reduced to the point where my whole face becomes pink and stained with so many tears as if water has been splashed on my skin and it becomes hard to breathe as I choke through endless sobs and shake all over. I simply laid my head against Jacob's chest and he wrapped his arms around me and tucked his head down beside mine and just squeezed and I let it all out until there was nothing left. One of those good cries.
I wake up in the mornings not believing my luck, relishing the shiver of anticipation when he touches me and sleepily smiles at me, so full of love and he wants nothing else ever. He has relaxed, he has unwound just enough and he is now fully immersed in his self-induced caretaker vacation in order to see me better once and for all and the only thing that will take him away for any length of time will be his chaplain shifts and anytime he goes out with the guys, to pick up wood or help someone with their truck repairs or go out for lunch, or to his own therapy sessions, separate from mine and from our joint ones, to deal with his temper, to find balance between his obsessiveness and his distance, to help him be a better person as if that were somehow possible. That would be like trying to perfect the smoothness of an egg to me.
I said that and was treated to that loud goofy guffaw laugh that he punctuates with his dimples.
And I want nothing else ever, just him. This is sort of like the moment in your life (if you've ever had this moment you'll understand what I mean) when you pick up your Life Goals list and cross off the big one at the top, you know, the one that you wrote down for fits and giggles, knowing full well that you'd never achieve it, but wouldn't it be nice.
And then you do.
Suddenly I'm faced with needing a few new goals, I've worked my way through a lofty assortment of them and my list is now a clean slate, almost, I'm just waiting for my man in the white coat to come along with his dustpan and sweep away the remaining particles of the waning stress, the grit of dealing with a life that had so many hairpin curves for a while there, I wound up carsick and then crushed, wrapped around tree somewhere down the embankment, far out of sight of rescue.
And then I dug my fingers into the crumbling dirt on the side of that hill and pulled myself back up and noticed the rest of the road was straight. I wiped the trickle of blood off my temple and felt around for all my pieces. I looked behind me and saw that I was pushed up, helped, pulled and dragged by my hands. He has traction in life, guys.
And do you know something? Bridget is still intact. Whole.
Complete, even.
Fully intact and only slightly dented and misshapen and bruised, on the inside, fading now, and it does absolutely nothing to counteract the brimming love that just spills over and over and is a fountain inside my soul.
This is very good. Cheer for me, would you? Just the tiniest of hurrahs would suffice and I will be ever so grateful.
Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't believe it was Jacob's goal in life to ever wind up with a wife so fragile and weak, that his strength would dissolve like ice in hot water when confronted with a princess made of glass, his resolve crumbling, unable to resist. I take my place in history as the one weakness of his magnificent design. The one goal he ever had. The one person he ever wanted so badly that he would shove everything else to one side to get it, taking risks he wouldn't normally take, acting out in ways so uncharacteristic of the sweet and goofy handsome preacher boy, making promises that he has woven into the finest silk, goals rubbed and polished to a shine so bright we went blind somewhere along that long, dangerous road.
Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't think I deserve this, him, anything good. Sometimes I want to scream with frustration at not doing things better, not acting faster, not trying harder.
Not being tougher.
Sometimes I want to point out that I may never live up to the image of me that he keeps in his mind. I'm still sure he sees her, not me. The potential of who I could be, instead of the mess that I am.
And when I tell him that, he simply smiles and kisses my face and tells me to hush, and reminds me that we're two now, we're together, we're it, and I am everything to him, whole or fractured. And that we will fix it and if we don't that's okay too, because he can hold me in his arms without guilt, and I can be in his arms without fear. And that the whole mess is wrapped in love and love can fix anything.
Just wait and see, princess.
I will.
That's good. Because I love you.
I love you too.
Monday, 9 April 2007
Cryptic comes in small packages too.
Just hear me out
If it's not perfect I'll perfect it till my heart explodes
I highly doubt
I can make it through another of your episodes
Lashing out
One of the petty moves you pull before you lose control
You wear me out
But it's all right now
Henry is fine, for the record. He ate a light lunch and then a normal dinner and was running around on his mini-skateboard like an animal by 3 pm yesterday, and so yesterday was redeemed.
I never pointed out how much the easter bunny resembles our tooth fairy.
I never told you a lot of things.
Maybe I should.
Maybe I will.
If it's not perfect I'll perfect it till my heart explodes
I highly doubt
I can make it through another of your episodes
Lashing out
One of the petty moves you pull before you lose control
You wear me out
But it's all right now
Henry is fine, for the record. He ate a light lunch and then a normal dinner and was running around on his mini-skateboard like an animal by 3 pm yesterday, and so yesterday was redeemed.
I never pointed out how much the easter bunny resembles our tooth fairy.
I never told you a lot of things.
Maybe I should.
Maybe I will.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
A change in schedule.
A note that next year I won't be so generous and let Henry eat a 'few' chocolate eggs before church, since he threw up all over the sidewalk (and me) halfway down the road. I carried him home and we're going to miss the morning. I think I strained myself. Jacob simply has too much to do today and so Ruth will be brought home by the neighbors, and we'll just play it by the hour.
My poor baby.
My poor baby.
Lay your weary head to rest, Bridget.
I'm going to paint you a picture of my living room last night, circa oh....midnight.
Jacob and I had a four-hour Guitar Hero II marathon.
Yes, alone, just the two of us, because we're goofy like that. We went through far too much of root beer and the songs kept getting better and better. Because Kiss! Then Van Halen!
And oh my God, Kansas.
(Caffeine. Far too much caffeine.)
Carry On Wayward Son is a very old favorite song of ours. I consider us extra talented for being able to sing along with the words and use our 'star power' at the same time. I think I topped out at 83% and Jacob 90%. He's more coordinated. Playing this game to me was like when I learned to drive a standard. I remember telling Cole I didn't think I would ever be coordinated enough to work both feet and both hands at the same time but I did it, eventually and I will master this too.
But maybe not with any more marathons because I am so sleepy this morning and we have a busy day ahead. The Easter bunny has been here and so I'll have two chocolate monsters to keep busy this morning too. Who eats chocolate before 9 a.m.? I'm not sure if Jacob's foreboding facial expression will be enough to quiet the kids should he need to deploy it during services (he is assisting today and doing a reading) but it will have to do.
Happy Easter. Because I rock!
Well, according to Guitar Hero II I do, so there.
Jacob and I had a four-hour Guitar Hero II marathon.
Yes, alone, just the two of us, because we're goofy like that. We went through far too much of root beer and the songs kept getting better and better. Because Kiss! Then Van Halen!
And oh my God, Kansas.
(Caffeine. Far too much caffeine.)
Carry On Wayward Son is a very old favorite song of ours. I consider us extra talented for being able to sing along with the words and use our 'star power' at the same time. I think I topped out at 83% and Jacob 90%. He's more coordinated. Playing this game to me was like when I learned to drive a standard. I remember telling Cole I didn't think I would ever be coordinated enough to work both feet and both hands at the same time but I did it, eventually and I will master this too.
But maybe not with any more marathons because I am so sleepy this morning and we have a busy day ahead. The Easter bunny has been here and so I'll have two chocolate monsters to keep busy this morning too. Who eats chocolate before 9 a.m.? I'm not sure if Jacob's foreboding facial expression will be enough to quiet the kids should he need to deploy it during services (he is assisting today and doing a reading) but it will have to do.
Happy Easter. Because I rock!
Well, according to Guitar Hero II I do, so there.
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