Looking for some hope
Polished off the whiskey tonight
You turned a man to stone
For looking at you straight in the eyes
So I'll drive away with all my things
Though I've a faint belief in everything
I wished your love away
I suppose that it would be too much to ask that the universe align tomorrow and send Jacob home for his birthday? I baked a cake this morning. If he doesn't come home I'll give it to the neighbors. If he does we can have a food fight because I'd probably throw it at him at this point.
Today is a day of petty frustrations. The zipper on my waterproof winter coat (the warm one) broke. My awesome new hikers? Worn copiously without breaking them in and lightweight, not so much. My feet hurt and I'm back to my oldest running shoes. Butterfield got the shortest walk in the world earlier as a result and I limped home from the school this morning. I won't be running for a couple of days but I don't feel like it anyway. The endorphins seem just out of my reach, I don't stretch enough, I don't get warm enough and Joel, my only running buddy now, is indulging in mutual annoyance with me. We don't get along. He overstepped and he doesn't get it and neither do I but I'm not the world's best limit-setter so I have to push him away.
Ben isn't faring much better.
He sat at the table last night singing along with Cary Brothers on the stereo after the kids went to bed while we sipped tea and didn't even talk, just sitting and listening. He put up all the storm windows in the piano windows on the south side of the house that I always forget about. He reminded me to eat a little more and to call him if I need anything, and that after next week he's back in town for good and on four-day weeks for the rest of the year so he can be handy. I didn't say much. Then he started getting his stuff together to go back to the hotel and finally he asked if I wanted him to stay.
I told him no, that I was fine, that it was a bad idea and for the sake of my sanity never to offer something like that again.
He left and once again we weren't on speaking terms but he called this morning from the airport and told me to call him, that he'd be back for a day at the end of the week and again, he loves me. I told him I loved him too. We always say that. We're close enough to say it and not have it bear the kind of weight that it should.
Sometimes that's half the problem. By default I dilute my love and spread it around, trying to give everyone attention and a place in my life and sometimes lines that seem so clear to me are not to everyone else. Sometimes I get caught up and distracted, sometimes I get thrown off my position and can't figure out where the lines are anymore. And Jacob left because I didn't erase all those lines for his benefit.
Oh, and sometimes too I just pick the most temperamental/flightiest/biggest longshots in the world to fall in love with. Which means Jacob left because he always planned to and he held on long enough to make sure we were okay. Sometimes I pick the sweet ones who don't have a clue the kind of hurt they can cause.
I need to not do that anymore. Both things.
