Bay boy.

When your husband of two weeks takes you home for the first time it's bound to be an adventure of revelations, and a journey of discoveries that further melts your hearts together into one.

This is the story of Jacob's closet.

This past summer we took a long and windy trip on a very large ferry home to Jacob's Newfoundland. His mother and father were ready and waiting for me with open arms, photo albums and the memories of his first twenty six years on the rock, before I knew him. He was already well versed in the history of Bridget, as we know her, because my parents and friends have had years to subject Jacob to my past whenever we all were together. Jacob moved to Halifax to attend graduate school and that's where I grew up. He's been privy to odd things like my figure skating badges and camping photos of chubby little Bridget in dirty swimsuits when she was six years old for an embarrassing amount of time.

So it was time for him to fill in the blanks, the places marked for completion in our new book of memories, the one we started writing when our lives intersected for good, never to separate ever again.

I wanted to see his room first. Why? I don't know. I guess because it would have represented the nucleus of Jacob's whole being. The bulk of his time was spent there. He grew there, changed there, and wished and hoped there. His faith was planted there. He became the man he is now there.

On the very top floor of the Reilly house is the room where Jake grew up. A white painted door at the top of the stairs leads in to a small bedroom with a wide wooden plank floor and baby blue walls, crowded by steep eaves that require you to stand in the centre of the room so that you don't bump your head. The only thing on the walls are bookshelves, a cork board over the desk and a painting of a boat, his father's boat, that he painted in junior high school.

The bookshelves were atypical for a young adult male. Classics. Homer. Melville. Stevenson. Hemingway. Three bibles. Tattered Hardy Boys tucked in amongst never-opened Star Wars comics. National Geographic in stacks. A microscope. A homemade sock monkey that might be as old as Jacob, later confirmed to be his favorite toy from toddlerhood. Records. Dozens of records. Zeppelin, Floyd, Rush, Eagles, Doors, Lightfoot, Beatles.

On the corkboard were pinned now-faded pictures from the early nineties-Jacob and his younger sister Erin at a wedding, Jacob hauling traps, Jacob and three of his high school friends with his once rustbucket truck, before he and his father restored it. Stubs to an Aerosmith concert in Halifax. A tiny floating buoy keychain with his very own boat keys, because his father trusted him with the true family vehicle.

It's a very small room. Tiny considering Jacob had reached his full six foot four status just before high school started. The only furniture is a double captain's bed and a small plain wooden desk with a plain wooden chair. I was told Jacob helped his father make the furniture when he was around nine years old, in his dad's workshop, which is part of the garage.

On the bed was a mariner's star quilt made by his grandmother in shades of yellow and blues and green. On the floor, a braided blue rug, because the floors are so cold in that house. A lamp on the desk cast a soft warm light so that he could read and study and dream.

From the window he has a view I might pay for, nothing but blue water and a bit of the cliffs across the bay. The wind beats a constant presence on the ripply-glassed, chipped paint window frame. If you stand there too long you get cold. There's a constant draft. Jacob never minded, he likes a cold room to sleep in.

There is a smaller door in the wall beside the closet and for a brief moment I thought maybe he was one of those really lucky kids who had their own bathroom off their bedroom growing up. Instead it was another ice cold spot, this time leading up seven wooden painted stairs to another door. An outside wooden door which leads to the widow's walk which is perched on top of their white-painted house like a steeple and his mother told me she always found him up there and he was never in his room much at all. She said growing up it was his favorite place in the world.

The biggest discovery for me wasn't that he had a secret hideaway. No, my favorite revelations came from his closet. His folks never asked him to take the rest of his things, or made any plans to take over his space, it's just there, as he left it. His, to come and go if he pleases, taking something if he needs it, leaving things behind that he doesn't need for a bit. That surprised me, because my old bedroom was transformed into an office for my mom within a few weeks of my leaving home, and my sister Bailey's room is an upstairs library.

That night as we got ready for sleep after a day spent soaking up sunshine and wind, I asked him about all the girls he may have loved in that bed, and he smiled and said there may have been one or two or possibly three even. I could almost imagine him from his teenage and young adult pictures, with a girl, wrestling under the sheets, skin exposed, feelings on the line, lustful wishes granted in secret with his parents sleeping obliviously in their own bed two floors below, or maybe even away for a few nights. He said he felt like a teenager again when he took me in that bed and it was the quietest, warmest love we had ever made thus far. Then when he stretched out full length beside me he confided in whispers that there had been only one girl ever in his bed and that it was me but that I shouldn't think his father's boat wasn't a much more secretive place in which to take his girlfriends. And I was thrilled to know I'm not the only heartbreaker in our universe because Jacob spent his high school years breaking hearts and crushing spirits all over the place by falling in love and then right back out again, not sure what he wanted out of life quite yet. Half the town's adolescent female population was a bird in his hand at one point. His own memories are fond, but he was searching for meaning as far back as we could see.

Part of me had actually feared he might have grown up in a room completely devoid of creature comforts, reading a bible and possibly committing himself to a life of deprivation in God's name. He laughed and said if I looked very very hard in that closet I'd find a glass bong and a case of empty screech bottles. He said he spent years cultivating his world famous inability to consume anything logic-altering, except for me, of course.

And I did. The next morning I found everything he talked about in that closet. I also found a notebook that constituted one of his first journals. All this hidden up on the top shelf above a rod sagging in the middle with the weight of warm wool sweaters and flannel shirts and a heck of a lot of plaid in that flannel. Thermals by the dozen. Corduroy! An ancient jean jacket. A few early editions of his infamous moss green blazer. A funeral suit. Two rugby team shirts. His University frosh shirt. Hip waders. Hockey gear that would no longer fit him now with such muscular arms and thighs. A couple of pairs of 'good' shoes. Trophies. A toolbox. A record player on a pull-out shelf. A silver peace symbol on a leather cord hanging in with his belts. Everything smelled like salt and Old Spice and cedar.

When you love someone so deeply, returning to their childhood with them is a gift, a confirmation of your uncertain reasonings on how they became the person you know. I got to see that my husband did indeed grow up in a drafty, fiercely loving farmhouse perched on a windy cliff by the sea and that he was indeed a minimalist and a dreamer and he found God and loved and lost and won and cried and laughed too. He picked tomatoes from the garden for his mother and helped his father fix engines and he spent his free time hauling lobster traps and sailing and he lounged on beaches and wrote poetry and listened to music and he drank sometimes and he was grounded from taking the boat out for leisure trips and he tried to trip his sister on the back stairs every single morning and he drank all the milk back then too, just like he does now.

It was such predictable treasure I found there, in his room, that made me love him even more.

But mostly it was the book from the top shelf of his closet. An entry dated Thursday, June 22, 1989.

    I'm told that today is the first day of the rest of my life. Yesterday I graduated from high school and since then everyone has been asking me what I want to do with my life. I answer flippantly and Dad is not impressed. I say fame and fortune. Dad wants me to be humble, do a hard day's work and keep an honest living. I'm starting university in a few months and I don't have a plan quite yet, though I might go for my teaching degree. Maybe history or psychology. Right at this point the only thing I know is that I want to stay near the sea, have a good job that I love, a pretty wife that I love and hopefully a boy and a girl. I'd like to keep driving my truck if it still works and I'd like to keep the same friends even though most of them are going to away to school. No one wants to stay here and I might not. I'd like to see the planet before I settle down, I'd like to see what the girls are like that I haven't met before. I'd like to get better at guitar and maybe learn to cook. That's more than I can fit into a day, so maybe they mean to say this is the first year of the rest of my life. That would be better.

Standstill

We finally stopped arguing long enough to see what it was doing to us and have agreed to call off the battle until we find out if I'm pregnant or not. Then obviously we'll know where our energies need to be focused. If we're having another baby then all of this will have have been for naught. If we're not having a baby we'll resume hopefully with a breather and at least a little perspective lending us some help to get through it once more.

Jake brings far more baggage to this marriage than either of us initially realized. He has an unrelenting biological clock that is ticking away madly and he can't seem to control his desires when it comes to sex or fertility and this has less to do with me than I realized. Neither one of us are being selfish, we're being human. Difficult, troubled, confused humans who sometimes don't have answers for why we feel the way we do. He gets something in his head and pursues it relentlessly and I get something in my head, am permanently scarred by it and subsequently flinch for the rest of my life. Oddly I have discovered a lot of my biggest fears surrounding another baby are not scenarios that I need to be concerned with this time anyway. It was a revelation to say the least but we still need to put it all aside, for now.

Believe it or not no one in this house has a book on remarriage kicking around the house. He is as unprepared as I am for this new experience and therefore we're going to follow the marriage counseling advice we thus far attempted to wait out. My God, we're like two kids playing house, only with consequences. It's so unreal, being in love with Jacob, that sometimes it literally doesn't even feel real and I have to remember that this is it. This IS my life now. The cautionary fairytale.

I'm also going to leave unrelated problems out of this fight and I'm not going to cave in to his charms. He's going to not bully me and he's definitely not going to play his soothing comforts off my insecurities to get what he wants. He's a little too smooth and I'm too unsophisticated to see it. I would have thought it would have been the other way around but he's the enigmatic worldly one and me, well, I'm just a pretty, albeit messed up girl. He only has this power with me. Surprise. That makes him sound like he plays head games with me. It's not deceitful, it's honest. Instead of saying nothing he simply wears his heart on his sleeve and lets the chips fall where they may. This is how I fell in love with him. He'll tell you what he wants and then deal with the consequences. In any other situation it's positively endearing. In this situation it's stupifyingly painful.

But I got my hug. And when we finally let go I got another. I'm about to go get one more, and some food now. And then some sleep if I can convince the kids to go to bed at 7.

Goodnight.

Tomorrow, something uplifting like one of my short stories or maybe our very first kiss. I need some good words.

Through the motions anyway.

I had a long, exposed and very painful rant written and when I was about to hit publish I realized something.

It's pointless.

Posting it would serve to open my brand new husband to the scorn and judgment of everyone we know and don't know, the same people who would love to point out that possibly I fell into the same hole all over again just with different variables, this time. And right now that's the last thing I need.

I could detail the continuing argument and you would hate both of us, and I won't have anyone hating him. Hate me all you like.

Right now what I need is no more yelling, no more pain and no more upheaval. What I need is to find a way around today's new irritable mood, and the shaking, God, to be able to hold a plate long enough to wash it without breaking it and to be able to sleep through the night without waking up my entire family with my screams of fright.

All of that might be too much to ask but I have asked anyways. A hug would be nice too, but my nice guy has so many raw nerve endings today he's offering up nothing, just to protect what's left of his own emotions. He's tired of talking, he's tired of groundhog day, he's tired of me and was in his office before 7 am. It was still dark out. I got the kids ready for school and then we walked over and now I'm back home alone and no one appears to care. That's something new, too.

Addicitve bittersweet.

Bridget's paying the piper, having requested a forbidden song. Whoops.

I have almost two weeks or so to wait out this music and expect my period. And yes, I'm effectively abashed, having not paid close enough attention to the instructions on the patches that tell you to use a back-up method of birth control for the first week. Which means last weekend wasn't the problem, but last month was.

So I can begin testing in about 6 days and until then I've been yanked off all medications (which I would have stopped anyway) and am going to cold-turkey my way through til Christmas because I have no idea whether I'm going to land upside down or rightside up right now. The good news is I feel fine, and I never feel fine when I'm pregnant.

We had no answers for our recklessness in therapy today, the only thing we could all seem to collectively acknowledge was that based on Jacob's spectacularly painful and very recent grief over the last two attempts at biological fatherhood, it is too soon to be gambling against the odds. Far too soon and instead of taking his knocks, Jacob attacked me verbally for writing about it. Hell, I think at that point he was attacking me for being me, for being there. I don't even know. But it's all too much too soon and I'm watching him get his hopes up while mine plummet again because right now I'm in no state to be running around this world unmedicated and the idea of having a newborn to care for when I'm so fragile frightens me.

We were less irresponsible when we weren't married to each other. You would have thought all the fallout would have taken place then. It's difficult when something you can't really seem to agree on carries such high stakes. And as much as I changed my mind when I found out I was pregnant in September, he had also changed his mind and decided he didn't want to endure the heartache involved or the physical risks I would have to face.

And here we are all over again. Him with the joy, me with the fear. And if there's anything I do know for sure it's that Jacob gets what Jacob wants. Eventually. Every time. And yet we're stuck again.

I really hope the therapist thinks we're both crazy.

But I'm absolutely not allowed to write about it anymore. So you didn't hear any of this from me. I hate being yelled at for doing something that is supposed to be beneficial. Even if it's not private.

    It's easier to leave
    It's easier to lie
    It's harder to face ourselves at night
    Feeling alone,
    What have we done?
    What is the monster we've become?
    Where is my soul?

On a more exciting note, tickets for Switchfoot's spring tour go on sale this week. I'm so excited I could burst because seeing a band you adore play live is like....well, it's like cake. It might even be better than cake.

Hugging trees and making fresh mistakes.

Jacob didn't cut off any limbs or digits while playing lumberjack on Saturday. He didn't scratch the new truck or break any of the wraparound porch windows bringing the tree inside the house and he absolutely declined somewhat impolitely to use any of the ornaments from my collection unless they belonged to the kids or were from pre-1986 Christmases. I refused to pack away the tiny white lace angels that my grandmother made over the years, and Jake refused to use them, saying they were joint gifts, not just for me, but for me and Cole.

We were probably overdue for an argument. Hence the cabin getaway to make up for his obstinance and my stubbornness. Because we once again managed to haul in everything but the kitchen sink into the argument, padding our insecurities and positions with things that had no business there. It was dumb, it was overblown and I sat through church yesterday looking everywhere but at Jacob while he struggled to get through his announcements without his mood distracting him. By the time he made it to his sermon I had softened, I was meeting his eyes and he walked down and squeezed my hand and treated us to one of his travelling orations, and then he smiled at me when he returned to the front and we were somehow back on track, trying to ignore the now-dull barbs we had stuck into each other on purpose.

His need for an identity within this marriage, fighting to call the shots in an established family unit, having come in at a time when our habits and traditions are well-entrenched and finding that he possesses a surprisingly fragile ego about it. My need to defer to him and hating myself for falling into old patterns of behavior, placing all my eggs in one proverbial basket, Jacob's.

I fight that every step of the way and I've been losing this battle for months now.

He brought up how much he HATES the birth control. That it's pointless. That if all of this is meant to be then we should just dispense with it and see what happens. I was incredulous, I had assumed that the baby subject had been resolved. So I threw my pill bottle at him and pointed out that lunatics have no business having babies. He yelled that I was not a lunatic and that I needed to trust him and work with him to get better and that I was going to be fine. I don't listen, much like a child, ignoring suggestions to get some food or go to bed at a reasonable time, and get a ton of fresh air and not wallow in my sad songs.

Jesus, Jacob, if I could fix this shit with some fresh air and a bagel would I be taking all these pills right now?

No, Bridget, I mean I think you ignore ideas that help you, and you like dropping all your responsibilities into my lap so that you don't have to be in charge. And then you resist.

Well, duh. And I hate that.

Why? What's wrong with it?

I'm an adult. I shouldn't have to rely on you for everything.

No one said you were.

But I do.

And someday you won't.

When, Jacob?

When you're ready, princess.
The cabin provided a cozy retreat, an unspoken no-fault zone in which we could simply get back to the basics, the blessings we have. We took turns having sled races in the snow, we built an igloo and then we played Old Maid and had hot chocolate by the fire before bedtime. The kids were asleep before 7:30 pm, exhausted from a second full day of fresh air, and it gave Jacob and I many uninterrupted hours of hardly talking at all, just holding each other and kissing and him tracing every inch of my skin, eventually realizing he hadn't found the birth control patch I should have been wearing but wasn't anymore.

And then he hesitated.

Don't do this if you're simply trying to please me.

I would do anything for you.

Then we won't do anything, because this isn't my decision, it's ours and we're not ready, even if I am.

I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, Jake.

Then make me a new promise. Never do something unless you want it. Not for me, not for anyone. We're a team, we do everything together. No one has to make concessions.

Jacob, that's unrealistic. Marriage is about give and take. It's not selfish.

Bridget, I'm being selfish and I'm sorry. And I think it's glorious that you would take this risk for me but you're right and I need to be patient.

Well then what do we do now?

Oh, there's all kinds of things we can do, princess.
Of course, this is Jacob and Bridget you're reading about, and so when one thing leads to another and we have about as much self-control as a nine year old in a cotton candy factory. He grabbed my head and met me eye to eye at one point and I nodded and his eyes filled right up and then mine did too and we reached one of those irrecoverable moments for the second time in our long history, those ones that we know as wrong but we indulge in them anyway.

Jacob got up to add more wood to the fire afterward. He shook his head and smiled at me.

Bridget, how in the hell am I ever supposed to resist you?

He's asking me this question? Hell, I've been asking the same question about him for years.

It can't be done. Last night he confirmed what I've always suspected. Our infatuation with each other is so strong that it supersedes everything else. Even our collective common sense.

Good.

And in other news, I lost one of my hearing aids in a freak sled accident involving a snowman and Henry. I'm back to my muted world for the time being and I forgot how much I like it here. It somehow makes it easier to deflect the pall of sanctioned recklessness we slept under last night.

Cabin fever.

Q: What do you get when you put a bee in front of an owl?

A: A Bowl.

You all know what the owl jokes mean. A trip to the cabin! Yes! In the snow, with hot chocolate and the wood stove and the crackly AM-only radio which means Jacob gets a captive audience for his acoustic loves ongs. But a Sunday night trip means we get up really early and will be back in the city by about 8 am, in time for school.

It's worth it, it will be the last night away for the year. We're not going away for Christmas because of so many reasons. I must go pack, the kids are so excited and the temperatures are almost bearable outside so this is a good night to head out.

See you tomorrow.

300 and a permanent eclipse.

125 days married was marked quite sleepily with Bridget closing her eyes and letting her head slip to one side and then jolting awake when it hit Jacob's shoulder. I did this so many times in the dark overly-warm movie theatre while watching The Fountain that we're going to have to try to see it again because my only recollection involves a bittersweet scene that involved kissing in a clawfoot tub. That's it. That's all I've got. And Jacob laughed sheepishly and admitted he didn't pay much attention to the film because he was having much more fun watching me nod off repeatedly.

Instead I'll point out that this is my 300th entry. And that it's really not so much a relationship blog as it is a blog about Jake. Poor guy, he never had a chance to escape my attention. He's been a very good sport nonetheless, while I alternately build him up and tear him down here because although he isn't perfect, he is as close to it as any man will ever get, in my eyes. And he puts up with his Bridget without ever demoralizing me, disrespecting me or hurting me all the while with the clear expression in his eyes of love and longing for me that knocks people flat.

One of these days I'm going to build a pinhole camera so I can look directly at him without imploding when he does that. If I did it without some sort of shield I would be a perpetual puddle of mush. He's an amazing man and I can't believe he's all mine.

It's even harder to believe when he's running around the house this morning with his hair standing on end and an axe, spouting lines from The Shining and making me laugh while we get ready to go to the Christmas tree farm. Because yes, as freaking adorable as he is, the thought of him out in the woods chopping down a nine-foot tree by himself scares me even without all the Jack Torrance references.

Battle braids.

Bridget's rocking to Eulogy this morning.

    No way to recall
    What it was that you had said to me,
    Like I care at all.
    But it was so loud.
    You sure could yell.
    You took a stand on every little thing
    And so loud.

I can't take credit for coining today's title phrase, Jacob came up with it many years ago to describe my method of operation for getting things done. I put my hair in two long braids and over the course of the day little wisps and waves escape but I don't have to take time to tie it back and put it up when I'm trying to get a lot accomplished. And jeans. I hardly ever wear jeans anymore but they're on today with one of Jacob's big long-sleeved t-shirts that has a jolly roger on the front.

Battle indeed.

I wrote two short stories this morning for a publication, called in a few favors for a little extra work while I'm on a creative (read: medicated and loopy) bender and planned to finish wrapping and packaging the away gifts that I'd like to mail this weekend. I'm trying to get some things out of the way so we can go and get our Christmas tree this weekend and maybe bake cookies for the kids' classrooms.

I've been pulling out the rubbermaid totes full of ornaments and lights and stockings and trying not to cringe at all the hard moments. The First Married Christmas one from 1993, Cole's stocking that has his name on it, we had a set of four that my mom made, though she's hurriedly knitting one for Jacob now.

But it's Friday and I'm alive and I'm happy and I have rosy cheeks and 6 new pounds of flesh to carry on my frame since my last weight check and I've asked Christian not to tell me any more insults that find their way to him regarding me because I can't listen. Ben said I was just a typical whoredinary girl and it stung, even though I'm well aware it's sour grapes. I just can't do it right now.

I need to ride this high while it's here. In front of me.

I'm so excited about getting a real tree. With a real truck. We went for a very long drive last night. The kids fell asleep on the way home, which meant that Jacob had to carry them into the house and straight up to bed, where I managed to get them into their jammies and tucked in tightly and cozily for the night. They like the big red truck.

I pointed out to Jake that it seemed a little flashy for him and he explained that he was trying to find some sort of happy medium between my old car and his older truck and it seemed like a real pretty truck was a good choice. You should hear what Ben said about Jacob having a shiny new truck and a shiny new wife and a new job and a whole litany of bullshit about selling out his ideals and Jacob laughed and said that Ben could go fuck himself, which wasn't generous or empathetic at all but somehow entirely appropriate.

But yes, a few hiccups a long the way but I can manage them because I'm wearing my battle braids.

    Don't you step out of line.
    Don't you fucking lie.
    You've claimed all this time that you would die for me.
    Why then are you so surprised when you hear your own eulogy?
    You had a lot to say.
    You had a lot of nothing to say.

Birth of an urban cowboy.

Hey, Bridge? Come outside for a sec.

Huh? No, fuck that. It's freezing.

Just for a moment. Get your coat on.

What in the heck is that?

Your new ride, princess.

Well, that...that's really big, Jake.

Sitting out front blocking the sunlight was a candy-apple dark red Dodge Ram 3500 quad cab behemoth of a pickup truck. I have to admit, she is awfully pretty and I'm slightly jealous of Jacob's attentions being shifted off me to this new toy. The one with running lights and dual wheels in the back.

I didn't think we needed a truck that big. It's a far cry from the old beloved vintage Suburban, which finally went to the junkyard in the sky, the same one he's been driving since he was 16 years old. But at least this one comes without worries, it's brand new. He's earned it. He really has.

It has heated seats. For my perpetually cold bony little ass. Oh, terrific, honey!

What's funny is I can just see over the hood. On tip-toes. It fits him, though and he's like a kid in a candy store looking at it. Like consumerism just skidded into our house and bit him in the ass. He had to have her. And he looks like a cowboy now with his new truck, having completed the last vestiges of the western male myth to a tee. I asked him if he was going to wear his cowboy hat now to complete the package.

What, you think I should?

Why, yes. Yes I do. Hot damn.

Drive-by folk music lessons.

While I ride the disco biscuit wave of anti-depressant goodness, you're going to be treated to an awful lot of head-clearing drive-by snippets. Just so you know.

I don't think I have ever heard a folk song build and sway and then positively explode quite the way this one does. I love it. Hang on, it's quietly goofy until the last quarter, and then this from Elephant, by Damien Rice.


    What's the point of this song? Or even singing?
    You've already gone, why am I clinging?
    Well I could throw it out, and I could live without
    And I could do it all for you
    I could be strong
    Tell me if you want me to lie
    'Cause this has got to die
Epic.