Good morningYes, I know it's midnight. Sometimes life works out just like this.
Don't cop out
You crawled from the cancer to land on your feet
Are you crazy to want this
Even for a while?
Satan breezed in mid-morning, just as I was sitting in the garage in the car listening to Matthew Good and feeling as if there could be no more of a desolate and lonely moment in my life than this one right now.
He wanted to drop all of the paperwork in my lap, which were essentially his relocation allowances for the boys and for me, spelled out in dollars and sense, contracts with words like 'arbitration' and 'moral property'.
Fine, just leave it on the kitchen table. I returned to my incredible sadness. I don't know what is is, just this deep unrelenting ache that, when addressed, blooms into breathtaking panic, and when ignored, retreats to the background, multitasking along with me, hurting enough to make its presence known and make it hard to breathe but still allowing me to do what needs to be done.
Had Caleb arrived in flames I probably wouldn't have noticed. I feel like finally the details are slipping away and the nitty-gritty things I always try to nail down don't even matter anymore. What matters is Ben, eight days already tacked on to the first absence, bringing the total to twenty but Bridget isn't counting because Bridget always focuses on the wrong things.
There is no allowance for my drama and things are very difficult at best.
Sure, I continue to chip away at the house. Some touch up paint here, a plant there, a picture moved, decluttering. Plasterwork and sanding and big ticket painting too but still I cough and cough and my eyes water (half cold virus, half drama) and I have the winter blues and cabin fever and fear of everything and the I-miss-Bens. I feel like the house will never be good enough because it's a hundred years old and there's not enough time or energy to make it perfect and really I don't think I want it perfect because it looks so lovely and I won't get to have this ever again and before I turn this into another ode to the castle of my dreams, I'll remind myself right here that the castle sits in a kingdom that is entombed in ice.
Oh, quite literal, I am. No drama there. It is so cold I can't trust Henry not to dawdle on the way home and far too icy on the roads to run the snow-rally car so I walk with them, four times a day. I swear to God winters here are an endless ballet of boots on, coat on. Boots off, coat off.
And so Caleb frowns.
What's wrong, Bridget.
What's right, Cale?
Stop being dramatic.
Yeah. Fine.
He frowns deeper. He looks very scary when he does that but I'm not sure I can find the generosity to reassure him. I am far too busy feeling sorry for myself. Endless winter, horror-Prairie, what in the fuck am I doing here, we shouldn't be here.
I scare myself with the voices. On days like this one I was really beginning to believe everything everyone says. Not about how incredibly beautiful I am (ha), but about my issues and whether or not I can manage them appropriately anymore, under these circumstances.
My doubts have begun.
Caleb is too busy adjusting bottom lines and coordinating people from all four corners of the globe and he doesn't have time to assuage petty concerns, worries I have invented and then magnified so that they are big green hairy monsters that chase me, screaming, down the hall. Worry is a nightmare hole I fell into and can't fall out of and I've pulled Matthew Good over the hole to obscure me and maybe the fear won't find me again but the apathy can stay because it's less agonizing.
Caleb remained at the house just long enough to make sure I had everything I needed to distribute to the boys and to spend a few moments with the children, who are also minding the cold and the isolation now but are elastic enough to find distractions without effort (hereafter to be referred to as DWE because I'm sure it will be a recurring theme) and were happy to see him and then as I walked him to the door, I guess my newfound detachment struck a chord, or perhaps a nerve, because he reached down and held the back of my head as if he was going to embrace me and instead his unshaven jaw razed a burn down my cheek and his lips were so warm, just under my temple that I flinched but was held fast in his arms.
You're doing just fine, princess. You're capable. Everything is going to be better.
I couldn't even tell him where to put his reassurance. Ben is gone. Doesn't anyone get that? Ben is my air and he isn't here and I'm lightheaded and soon I'll be dead from the lack of oxygen.
He kissed me hard and then he was gone. My pupils constricted and Strange Days came flooding back into my brain.