This morning I'm still riding on previous highs. Movies with faces I know almost as well as the ones I see every day in person. Celebrating new lines and graceful changes. Music that weaves in and out of my days, notes punctuated against the backdrop of muted noise that I travel through like fog around the shore.
Food so decadent yesterday I relented and wound up spending most of the afternoon and evening drunk on prime rib and lobster and wine and chocolate. I may never eat again, and jumped out at the gas pump hours later to get some fresh air and move around a little, if only to shake some of it down into my knees where there may have been some space remaining.
Plotting spring running shoes to buy this week and planning even more paint colors as we vow to finish the house this year and finally, a new, very quiet dream emerges, one of packing suitcases once again to clutch an international flight for a view that is unfamiliar yet comforting, a far away place we've decided to return to. Don't know when or how, but it's there, a new pot with a new dish, simmering quietly on the backburner of the dual-fuel stove that seems to be my life.
Hands so distracted they haven't had time to tremble or fumble. Busy hands. Chores and distractions choking off the flutters with flurries of activities all hellbent on filling voids that have become chasms. And instead of going through, or falling in, or just sitting there on the edge waiting for a change or a bridge or a tiny airplane to get me to the other side, I've been doing something different. Uncharacteristic and downright risky.
I don't know that I take risks. Everything is sewn up so tight. Double-stitched, securely knotted, evenly-spaced and then I burn a hole through the fabric and attempt to squeeze through it.
This time, well, just, no.
I packed up as much as I could carry, and I'm inching my way around the edge. There are no obstacles in the way, I can do this the whole way around and then I'll be on the other side. it's so slow-going. Progress takes forever. The ledge is narrow and crumbling slightly. Some places I hold my breath. Others I can sit and rest. But every time I finally give in to the urge to look back and see if I have made it anywhere, I'm surprised to see that I have. The starting place is hard to see now. Dammit, it's working. It's narrow and I'm terrified and I'm shaking because I'm afraid of heights and it gets worse as I go instead of better but there's no other way. I see no planes, I can't build a bridge and if I fall I know damn well that eight lives have been used up and I'm on my last.
I miss Ben. I miss him more than you could possibly understand. It feels like he's dead but he isn't and my brain wants to take the easy way out and just mark an x over his face and Bridget's Survivor gameshow will continue with nightly tribal councils and challenges designed to make the cream rise to the top but surprise! The game has changed and we're bringing this contestant back. Voted off but a second chance looms and this time Ben has plans to win because the stakes are high. So high. I'm balanced on one of them right now. On my brain, on this ledge, with these analogies tightly clutched in my fists.
(I am the teacup on the ruler on the hairbrush on the ball on the bowling pin on the seal's nose held by the clown on the unicycle at centre ring. My circus never seems to end or stop or pack up and leave this town for the next. We're a permanent installation and admission is free.)
My children will be home in an hour and I would bounce off the walls, but if I do that, I'll fall off my ledge. Instead I'll stop here and breath deeply and wait to hold them in my arms again, and then when I've rested enough and they are ready, we'll hold hands and resume the slow progress around this hole.
