Tomorrow is going to be interesting. Andrew will be here bright and early to help Erin move what little she brought back to her apartment, where she'll live until roughly the new year. She'll have her things shipped out further into April. She's looking forward to getting back into the swing of things closer to the city in the meantime.
The kids go back to school as well, which will mean a hazardous jolt back into routine, which will take most of the week to sort through but I'm looking forward to it anyway. They've become wild heathens that I have had to use exemplary amounts of patience to wrangle. As it is, it's difficult not to let them get away with things simply on the basis of everything they have had to deal with, but one thing counseling taught me was consistency, limits and a firm, loving hand are what's best for them. Those who don't even know me who call me a shitty parent? I'm doing the best that I can, and the kids are doing very well, all things considering.
Ben goes back to work tomorrow, to the bland and not-exciting-in-the-least day job, running numbers from his cubicle on whatever floor they've put him on now. It changes every time he goes away. He and the insurance company coexist solely for cheap health plans and fighting off boredom with steady paychecks, something to do while everyone else toils in their less fortunate universes. He puts on his Clark Kents and hunkers down over spreadsheets with a ground-down pencil between his teeth and then spends the rest of his evening complaining that his neck aches.
And me? I'll be content to write and drink coffee and rattle around, with the music up loud and the pets sleeping peaceful in the sunny spots on the floor if there are any to be found, and you will hear from me at least once and the phone will ring and eventually Andrew will come back and take me somewhere for more caffeine and a break from the walls of my mental prison and then suddenly it will be closer to dinner and everyone will be home where it's warm and we'll put on a few more lights and for a while it won't seem like such a prison in my head, but a refuge.
One in the same.
And in the less like Cole, more like Jake division of all things Bridget being love or death, Ben's adopted an old habit of Jake's that I don't think he really acknowledges as Jake's, probably because it's not like it was patented or copyrighted or exclusive by any means, but it's still disturbingly wonderful nonetheless.
He holds my hand. Tightly, constantly. To the point where, once again, I find myself repeatedly pointing out that I need to go to the bathroom or pick up a heavy pot or maybe I want to pin up my hair but my hand is tight in a vise of invisible protection and ownership.
And I like that.
I forgot how much.
