What the hell have I meantBen's call kind of threw me off. No, I mean it really threw me off. Alternately, I expected the charming, everything will be fine Ben or I expected the stripped-down bare bones I can't do this Ben. That's what I got. Yes, both. Everything. He talked a mile a minute, one minute planning our future into old age and the next minute giving me away again, dropping that permission between us that he would not blame me for a second if I ran for the hills, or to one of his friends, one, in particular. Telling me he was relieved to be there and the next minute he was crawling out of his skin because he was there.
If this how the day ends, I regret,
Close your eyes and dream now the world so far
Your heart sounds alone and I connect,
In all the ways I've dreamed you,
I chose a song to reach you,
But why it's sad again,
Only now I see it,
It's beautiful, no, baby, it's horrible. I love you, I hate you. I wish you hadn't done this to me, go away. I need you. I'm fine by myself, got this far didn't I? Are you okay? I don't care if you are or not.
I've been reassured by virtually everyone on the planet (and then some) who know much better than me and at this early stage, for once, it means Ben is doing well. Really well. And I have been promised that they'll put him back together so I will still recognize him when he makes it back to me. Sometime at the end of April, but hey let's please not talk about how far away that is because Bridget will put her head down between her elbows and slide right out of your grasp, okay?
Because seriously, I've been picked up off the floor enough since that call.
One bad thing to come out of this was Lochlan's attitude, which was a take-charge kind of resolution because his spin on the confusion was to decide Ben is too messed up to be human and will never come home and the time has come to take back what he had before Cole came into my life and maybe do it right this time.
And Lochlan maybe is going deaf now that he's in his forties and maybe he's not paying attention but I didn't take Ben's advice and I'm not going to be forced or coerced into being with Lochlan in any kind of permanent way. In fact, I would prefer that he stop with the proposals and stop forcing my head around, making it move so that I am looking in his eyes and I wish he would know that no, well it means no. It means stop touching me like that. It means I don't want to play games and it means get your priorities straight and it means even though it appears everyone else has?
I'm not giving up on Ben.
I'm not letting go of him, I'm not letting him go and once again I think it's time that I shore up my strength and I ball up my fists and I invoke every last measure of borrowed expectation that I can find, and I'm going to wait. Wait for my husband to get better and come home and be the man he promised he would be and wow, if he manages to come back and we follow through with even half the plans he spelled out in one of his more hopeful moments in which we could hear each other's voices, well, then I will be a happy girl. I will be a happy girl if he can lay some of his demons to rest once and for all, plans or no plans. I don't care. I want him to get better and come home to me.
And if he never makes it and never comes back and none of this works out and I pop another attempt at a fairy tale like a bubble landing in the tall grass on a hot summer day?
Well, I'll tell you right now, the plan will not be Lochlan.