I fixed all of my typos from the previous post, including the one where I miswrote Bucharest as Budapest. I've never lived in Budapest but sometimes my brain picks the first syllable and just runs with it and I had no time to edit. Caleb is demanding, cutting and in control when it comes to what I have come to call my 'outside time', that is the time in which I can see what is happening in the world or write here a little bit so that people understand that I am still alive, still happily ensconced in my Collective, frayed and worn as it may be. And Lochlan is world-weary and not interested in butting heads with the devil over something as inconsequential as the internet.
An essential service, I venture and from his chair at the table PJ snorts a laugh.
A mindless distraction, Caleb reiterates.
Okay, Boomer, I mutter to myself. I have things to do online. I want to add to my Netflix queue. I want to start looking at my taxes. I want go back to doing online banking because I like charts on paper and being able to do all of my transactions on a screen without having to talk to someone. The OCD doesn't want to be explained and neither does anything else.
The doctor is soon, for my checkup for the all of the not-easily-dismissable side effects of all these medications, including my poor busted heart which is going through the wringer with skipped beats and double beats and no beats where there should be beats. It's like a bad song, but as Lochlan whispered to me more than once as of late,
Any song is better than the quiet.
And I believed him.
He is human. We screwed up, or rather, he did and I took the brunt of the mistake.
Once again.
In any case, I think the doctor will send me back to soberland, back to anxious nail-biter hand-flapper, lip-biter Bridget. My drive to create will come back. My energy and sleep will come back. My vision and semi-regular heartbeat will come back. My stoic, pragmatic and silly husband will be back instead of the spooked rigid boat-steadier/passive guy who seemingly took his place. A stranger. In a strange land.
I told them I was an occasional benzo girl and this wouldn't work. It's been two years and I'm FINALLY vindicated. I can finally fight for my rights. For control. For access.
I understand why he did it. I hope he understands why I can't anymore.