Since my friends addle me when I don't write until after lunchtime.
Rattled today.
I don't know where today is rushing off to, my brain isn't even awake yet and I feel as if I've been left by the side of the freeway during rush hour and have to run to catch up but no one noticed yet and so I'm just going to sit on the guardrail and bundle my coat around me a bit tighter and wait for someone with a friendly face to remember to come back for me.
The kids are home this afternoon. Ruth had a stomach ache. Henry was coughing. I sent them this morning and turned around and went back to get them almost immediately. We simply weren't ready for this to be Monday, I guess. Of course, they're fine now. Shrieking with laughter and playing a game, sweaters buttoned to the chin because it's so cold out you don't even want to know how cold it is. It's nice and warm inside, unless you go downstairs or stand right beside the front or back doors. Or the side doors. Or any of the windows. Or...I think you get the picture.
But you know what is warm today? The AA medallion I'm wearing, Ben's one-month chip that he put on a chain and gave to me to hold for him. I haven't taken it off, it's inside my camisole, warmed against my skin. He wants me to have it but he didn't say why or if it will become a tradition, just that I needed to take this one and keep it close.
It was given to him last night and I was there to see him get it. Suddenly admitted to the inner sanctum of Ben's unfinished mental edits, I finally am able to see the stories that he wanted to protect me from before. Which I've read and I don't find as horrific as he seems to think I should.
I am so proud of him. Even if he jumped right back on his road to getting better and forgot that I was sitting here waiting for a ride. See, the problem is my stories. They're the ones that take up all the space, and that's why everyone keeps passing me by.
