Fridays are supposed to be easier days. Days that are light on working hard, days where I can almost breathe and hearts beat on my behalf and I don't have to lift a finger, I don't have to go to therapy, I don't have to answer to anyone.
Ben's days off, that he spends here with me.
Only early this morning as I called Ben and told him he was free from babysitting me for the day because I was going to keep my two coughing-and-miserable kids home on this bone-chilling day, an argument developed over my ability to spend a day home alone. One compounded by my assumption that he'd be relieved to not come over.
Since we both know better, I did it as a formality, a reminder that I am keeping whatever boundaries I worked so hard to build while Jacob was here. Nothing changes and lately there's been so much collective input in my life I'm trying to reel it back in. One of my biggest challenges in life now seems to be not giving over control to everyone else.
I'm finding as the shock wears off and the gravity sets in that aside from losing a good two or three hours a day to dry tears and breathless panic, I'm well versed in faking it and can cope, mostly. Mostly if I only think about Jacob in terms of the shallowest waters of my ocean. If I think too deeply I drown. He was the ocean. It spilled from his hands, it swam in his eyes and I am changed.
Constantly changing. Like the ocean. Carving a landscape with a motion that is relentless and cold.
But back on dry land, my abrupt change in Ben's plans caused a wrinkle and he wasn't happy to let it go and so we fought and it escalated and we both said some amazingly awful things and virtually hung up on each other, me in tears, angry ones that aren't touching in the least. Him with a broken voice spitting hurtfulness that leaves me dumbfounded.
And now I spend my day alone, probably with the kids on the couch, watching movies and snoozing and watching my phone vibrate across the table when people realize that I've shirked the schedule and broken the rules. Maybe it's something I needed to do. I just wish I could have done it while still being on speaking terms with Ben.
