Looks like I have three minutes so I can update those of you I haven't emailed already. There is hardly internet access here, so I doubt there will be any more updates until we're home again.
We're, I said.
I'm flying home Saturday, Ben will follow on Sunday. He would have been home last week but he wasn't quite ready, he really wanted us to have this week here so we can get as much help as we can get before we head home to a new sponsor for him, a new plan for support, a new pretty-much-everything. A fresh start.
Seems fitting, as our first wedding anniversary is on Sunday.
Yesterday was difficult. Ben took the whole day to warm up to me, to see that I really am on board with this and I'm really not switching teams to play for Lochlanville for the remainder of the season. Once he warmed up we were off and running and aside from a rather spectacular ten minutes when I went to rubber and blacked right out mid-conversation (which is NOT FUN, let me tell you and put me on the sidelines for half of today because I haven't eaten or slept or unclenched all that much but I'm feeling better and whoever started the pregnant rumor, once again, can kiss it and you know what IT is) everything has been going really well.
Really well. Cautiously well. Good. Steadily forward and upward.
(Okay, Duncan is coming. I've got too much downtime stuck-in-a-hotel-driving-myself-mad time and haven't slept yet.)
Ben has worked really hard over the past five weeks. I thought he did it because of the fear of the mass migration to Lochlanville. But not. He worked hard because he wanted to. He wanted to stop and he wanted to feel whole again and he wanted to stop escaping into Ben-land where everything is hypnotic swirls and black hallways that tilt crazily and loud guitars that ring in your ear long after the switch on the amplifier has been flicked off.
He wanted to be Ben again and with however many stops and starts he has had over the past four years, he finally put his fear aside and his pride on the shelf and he's doing what he set out to do. He wants to be a good role model for his stepchildren because it's something he would like to do for them, instead of failing them like everyone else has. A need to make something right out of all this wrong.
With any luck and all this hard work continuing, with the plans and the support he has falling into place now, I think he's got a very good chance, but I won't say any more, I can't jinx it. I can't predict it. He's going to do it or he's not, and nothing I do or don't do will change a thing, I'm just the back-up singer.
But oh, what a lovely song. I've waited forever to hear it, and I'm not disappointed.
Enjoy the rest of the week. See you soon.
(PJ! Please record Ice Road Truckers for me. They don't have it here and I forgot to ask you before. Love you guys. b. )
