(Thursdays at five, Ben shows up and stays with us for three days straight. It's wonderful.)
Oh. Well, just shit.
I hit a nerve. I hit several.
Way back when I started writing this journal, Ben started reading it with a vested interest. He left comments, dissected my entries and began his own blog, which he stopped using and all but erased after writing some less than stellar entries about me and getting grief for it, most likely in retaliation for me writing about him. I closed my comments. He took down his Flickr account too. It was just easier to write without the immediate feedback and without pictures of me all over the web. Sometimes I don't feel very self-assured. I even check the email for the site only when I feel like I won't be skinned alive for what I've put down here. I don't talk about this place with my friends. They read, they usually keep their feelings about it to themselves.
And it didn't seem to matter what I shared over the past two years. I kept a lot private though. Mostly for Ben's own privacy issues and some because, contrary to popular belief, my life isn't an open book. You don't know the half of it. All of it I hid under the guise of his double life. So he could have a quiet life when he is home and not on the road.
In any event, he's never had a problem with my honesty or my verbal spillage until tonight, when he reads that he 'gets to play Dad without recourse or responsibility', which he took as a full-on insult, personally. That he plays with our lives and doesn't have to answer for it. That he might be shallow or flippant and not interested in an investment.
Ben would now like me to tell the internet that he most definitely will take on whatever responsibilities we can throw at him and he will gladly be on the hook. In his world, there is much recourse and he wants it. Greedily so, but he's been very good with not pressuring me and I've been REALLY FREAKING GREAT at not molesting Christian and Joel in return.
Yeah. What a pair.
In any event, should I pass his involvement off as lightweight any time ever again, his Flickr account goes back up. It's extortion of a different kind, though I pointed out I don't want to see pictures from dinners and barbecues and sports events and camping trips. I don't want to see Jacob smiling and happy. Or me, for that matter.
Ben corrects me still and reminds me of the wardrobe malfunctions, the epic number of sticking-my-tongue-out replies to his request for photos and the few truly awful candids he feels belong on the internet for all to see.
I'm doomed.
So, yes, this is my convoluted apology and my comeuppance, all rolled into one bedtime snack of crow. I spoke out of turn. These boys are gold and I never forget it for a second. Ever. I would be lost without them. Possibly dead but I'll get shit on for saying that, so I'll just say thank you instead.
And that it goes both ways. If I had a nickel for every photo I took of a drunken Ben I'd be...well, just nevermind. His account stays empty and I will never cheapen their roles in our lives again.
