Reluctance.

Indict the blameless, transparent designs
Pathetic and shameless, crucified
A legend in his own mind, enthroned by lies
A cheap Machiavelli plots his demise

Caught in your words, sever the knot this time
Somebody show me their true face
Face me once as I leave all that I despise
Face me as I unleash this hate refined
Face me as I leave all this far behind

Good evening.

It's three hundred and twenty-four degrees below zero tonight and I just stopped moving. Which means I'll probably get cold. I just went around the house delivering steaming mugs of hot chocolate (the kind with the sugar cane and coconut bits) to everyone. I've got a big warm black sweater on. I even took my hair down and I still find my shoulders creeping up and the shivering settling in. I turned up the heat. The woodstove is all but red-hot. There isn't much left that I can do so my action of choice will be to find the warmest guy and curl up beside him for a bit. It's always too bad that's never ever Ben.

This morning we had wind chill warnings and slippery roads to wake up to so I took my car and went and got some gas and a load of groceries. Why? Because it's too easy for me to depend on the boys and I need to get away from that a little. Maybe a lot. Do one thing every day that scares you, she said. Sometimes I actually give that a shot. Driving on slippery roads may not be scary for you but Cole taught me how to drive when I was sixteen and we lived on a hill until I was thirty years old and it was always easier to just stay home.

I dunno. I'm still having a hard time with being able to get through a day without dissolving into huge blubbery inconsolable tears at the thought of Ben being away for such long periods into the new year. He hates the blubbering because it makes him feel bad and it makes him sad so he's trying to just keep busy/occupied/removed which only succeeds in making me feel worse.

More than a few moments have completely degenerated into who is going to be more miserable.

Obviously I will win. I am Bridget. Hear me cry.

Heh.

Aw, geez.

Hence the never-ending busywork. Only I think right through whatever I'm doing. I can't get away from it. In my head my fucked-up brain is telling me I'm being abandoned. It's relentless. A fucking woodpecker inside my head that just makes every step some sort of agonizing litany of every last unhappy ending I must be in for between now and the spring.

Only I'm fighting it.

So hard.

You wouldn't know it by the way I can fall apart but at the same time I am making a concentrated effort to have fun over the next twenty days. We're winding down the involved work on the house, just a couple large projects left and the rest is all little projects I can manage and enlist some help with. Painting. Finishing up things here and there. Heavy cleaning once the house goes to market and continuing to keep things ordered and neat as a pin. Like it always is, because I insist. Even the messes are neat. Even the ruin orderly.

Ben worries. Oh, how he worries. Only I'm torn between feeling sorry for him and the doubt inside my head that ruins everything good. I'm working on it. Slowly, not in a procrastinating way, just in the Bridget-way. Damn thoroughly.

The good news is that for tonight my raging insecurity is frozen solid and the only heat signature in sight is soon to be joined by the princess and her petulant little icy scowl, that one that she wears when she's pretending everything is a-okay.

She's still not sure if it is, though. It is far too soon to ask.