Night skating.

Sunday night I opted to surprise Jacob instead of the other way around. Payback for some of his romantic efforts of late. Retribution for some of the heartache I have caused him lately. It's been 170 days since our tiny little surprise wedding and we like to mark the milestones, however quirky and nonsensical they may be.

I took him night skating on the river. After the kids were in bed and the sitter was settled in, we grabbed our skates and headed down to the river, where there are plowed trails, lit with lampposts, with hot chocolate stations and warming cabins every half a kilometre or so, and very few people out on a Sunday night after 8 pm.

We were off, out and free in the exhilarating night air.

The evening sky was a beautiful shade of teal, with a sliver of a silver moon and Jupiter visible just below it, the brightest star. The wind was calm and the air was brisk but not as cold as I expected it to be, allowing for rosy cheeks but no frostbite.

We trundled down the steps and onto the ice, making our way to a cabin with a fireplace, where we laced on our skates and put on mittens, and then Jacob took my hand and we glided off down the path. It was so still and so silent, one of those nights when your eyes take in the entire sky and you feel more alive than you've ever felt before. We didn't skate fast, just briskly enough to cover several quiet miles before stopping to buy steaming cups of hot chocolate at a stand a little off the beaten path. We sat by the fire and sipped the chocolate and talked a little bit. Mostly about the week to come, purposely avoiding any heavy subjects that might cast a pall over such a luminous night. When we finished we resumed our skate, turning to go back the way we came. Jacob showed off just a little, skating circles around me and then coming in fast and lifting me off my feet and I was howling that if he let me fall he would be in trouble. We danced on the ice for a moment and then tripped and almost went down but were saved at the last moment by a well-placed light post.

And then we just stopped and stood with our arms around each other. My cheek pressed against the cool boiled wool of his old pea coat, his arms tight around me, a weird thrilling feeling in the cold, dark quiet of the river trail. We were finished skating for the night.

Hand in hand we found our way back to the steps and our boots and we took off our skates, cheeks flushed and fingers icy and stinging, and we returned to the truck.

Once inside and warm, Jacob drove home slowly, the roads were slippery and it was hard to see.

I wish we could do this every night.

Be together?

Yeah, and glide across the ice with Jupiter over our heads.

That was a nice touch, princess.

Thanks, took years to coordinate that special ambiance.

I can imagine.

So you really had fun with me, Jake?

So much that I think we should make it a weekly thing.

But?

But?

I hear a 'but' in there.

I feel like it's the calm before the storm. Like we're very good at all the remarkable moments and unable to keep the momentum through the unremarkable ones.

Stop. Don't ruin this.

We drop it every time.

Because it's too hard.

Then how do we get through the in-between times?

We try harder.

I thought we were, Bridge. I thought we were all about getting it right this time around. Why is this so tough?

Because we had lives and we pushed them aside. We were selfish.

We weren't selfish! Christ, we waited forever.

Maybe we were selfish in that we built lives knowing we weren't in the right places and we did it anyways, trying to have it all.

Or maybe we just need to try harder.

Then that's what we'll do.

Can we?

We can. I can. I will, anyway.

Did I ever tell you I love you?

Not within the past ten minutes.

I love you.

Thank heavens, I was starting to wonder. I love you too.

You'd better. I think trying to find a third wife to make up for the first two would be a real pain in the ass right now.

Did I mention you suck?

Jupiter took your words, didn't he?

He did, be jealous.

Eh, he can have you.

Suck, Jacob. You suck.

Can't carry on a conversation with you anyway. What good are you?

Oh, I have my moments.

With us, goofy talk usually leads to flirting, which leads to kissing, which leads to getting the babysitter safely home and then it leads to a lapdance, which leads to making love in a chair in which Bridget can do nothing except hold on, Jacob has to do all the work and so he leads. And it works and we don't fight and we don't struggle and it doesn't turn into something bad. And it was a most wonderful way to mark 170 days with my husband.

Jumping Jeremiah.

So Jeremiah Johnson turned out to be a beautifully rendered, seventies edition of Legends of the Fall. It was really good. I was a whole ten minutes into it when the time frame shifted and Bob appeared with a full beard and longer, messier hair and I just about fell off the couch. He looked exactly like Jacob. It was a little bit unreal.

Now I see what the fuss was about, why everyone wanted me to see the movie when it came out on TV. And when Jacob came home and I mentioned it he just laughed and said if he cut his hair and shaved every day people think of him as Redford's character in Barefoot in the Park and so it's better for them to liken him to the half-crazy fur trapper living in the woods who does what needs to be done. The guy everyone reveres and no one will mess with.

He's probably right.

In any event, at least no one calls him Sundance. The mustache with the beard is cool, but the mustache alone just looks strange on Redford, kind of like it does on Jake.

I'm on a mission now to watch the future! So I have to hunt down the rest of Bob's newer movies. I've seen Indecent Proposal seventy million and one times and we don't joke about it. We lived it instead. Only I did it for less than a million dollars and there was an alternate ending.

Shhh.

Checking off a list.

I'm fine, really. I'm sort of okay if you don't dig very deep.

And I have a date tonight with Bob.

Four messages on my answering machine telling us we have got to watch Jeremiah Johnson on AMC tonight. No one said why. But they said not to Google it so I can't even link you.

Which is funny, I'm a huge fan of Robert Redford (not just because of the resemblance to Jacob, or is it vice versa?) but I've avoided a few of his movies because they were older and maybe the subject matter seemed unappealing. Fur trapping? Wilderness? Naw, I'll pass.

I'll watch it and see. Kind of bizarre, the enthusiasm for this one though. Sam said it was the 35th anniversary of the movie and it has been restored. He's all excited for me to see it but he wouldn't tell me why.

Saturday night fur trapping movies. Yeehaw. Not like we had any plans because Jacob has to work tonight and is on call but still.

So I can bury myself in blankets and absorb into a movie and pretend that life is like it is in the movies because I like it that way.

Threats and promises.

Dollface, you'll never be in control of your life.

Cole used to say that to me. Too often. He was an in-charge type of absent in which he had final say and I did all the legwork and if I fumbled somewhere along the way he would simply reiterate that this was why he was in control, so that he could control me. Convince me I was useless.

Scathing, burning memories on a day when the sky is that milky grey it turns to just before the snow starts and I miss him.

His presence in my life was so prolific and predictable and constant it's still hard not to look around for him or to wait for him sometimes. When I have to make a decision I wonder what he would do. I miss the way I was able to get my way with him with a few big crocodile tears. Cole would drop everything and positively crumble when I cried, save for a few very violent occasions. His world ended when I was that upset, he much preferred me to be vaguely unsettled and permanently frail, in his debt. He wanted me to need him and so I did and I learned to rely on some phenomenally destructive personality quirks that grew into a wholly immature adult woman incapable of not needing a man around to be In Charge.

On days like these I wonder if he's cold and that's dumb.

Dammit, the rambles are loose. Ignore it all. Or don't. I don't care. It's not going to be a happy blog. I don't do happy blog, okay? I need help.

So why do I miss Cole when it snows? I really don't have an answer. Considering all of our anniversaries and good memories are during warmer seasons. All of the bad memories are from those same seasons, too. He even died in the summer, during one of the hottest weeks on record. Maybe it's because I can't get away from him. He chases me through my dreams every night, he's woven firmly into my memories and good or bad, I can't erase him from my past because I have his living reminders here. Reminders that he did love me even though he couldn't show me in any sort of acceptable, peaceable way. Reminders that his legacy will do better than he did and that we survived his madness. Or did we?

Reminders that he made threats and they're all going to come true even though he's dead. A promise that I will never be allowed to deal with any of this because Jacob won't allow it. He would prefer to continue to pretend that Cole never existed, except to the kids. He has all the time in the world to talk with the kids about Cole, and not even one single second to talk with me about Cole. And that is why they're doing well with it and I am not.

It's been six months and I haven't been permitted to grieve. Ever. I've been led firmly, one hand on my back, pushed through decisions and plans and memorials and I can stand here and say I hated him for what he did to me but..

I don't.

So it would be a lie.

And Jacob doesn't like lies.

Play dead, Bridget.

Bridget loves George.

Did I mention how cool was George Stroumboulopoulus' shirt on a few weeks back on The Hour? Well it was awesome, and with PLAY DEAD written across the back in huge gothic letters and an adorable tiny skull on the front it was bound to catch the eye of Bridget's hushed inner gothic princess, who promptly dragged Jacob in by the TV to see it. He liked it. I'm buying him one.

I found the company quickly, Play Dead Cult clothing. I have to get Loch to seek out the actual shirt as it wasn't on their website - he has all kinds of time to run wild goose chases down in hot potato town, right?

Of course he will for me.

For Valentine's Day, which is just about a week after the noted day on which Jake and I will have been married for six whole months. Where in the heck did the time go?

Glowbug.

I just noticed how early it is. We've been up since 5. No running today, for the man of the house had other plans.

Jacob dusted off his hammer this morning and tore the back porch to shreds. Shreds. Right down to the insulation. He and PJ are installing new drywall later today and then he's going to build a bigger coat closet, cubby-holes for the kids with hooks to hang their coats and backpacks and then on the other side he's putting in another bathroom and some cabinets that will house the pet food and all the recycling bins, out of site.

He loves doing this stuff. He even had some extra tin-punched insert cabinet doors shipped up from the cottage work so he could tie it all in.

It's going to look amazing once we dig out from under all this sawdust and drywall dust. Which is now tracked from the back door all the way up the stairs.

But a nicer, functional and warmer back porch will be wonderful so I'm not complaining.

Jake wants me to paint the floor, as long as it isn't plain. Which was almost the coolest idea ever. A floor mural. A scene painted directly on the floor and then sealed with many coats of varnish to protect it. I've planned to do a forest scene with a lake with owls and the moon and stars which will be done with glow in the dark and sparkly highlights. All dark blues and greens and rich browns. It'll be amazing. Bats, hidden bunnies, moonflowers and pond lilies.

Maybe you'll even get a picture of it. Cole wasn't the only painter in the group.

I sketched a quick representation of it and Jacob went and bought all the paint for me last night. I can't start for a couple of weeks, until the rest of the room is finished, but it gives me something fun to look forward to and our house remains unique but is brought up to date because that porch was probably the worst room in the house. When we moved in Cole and I ripped up the old carpet and tore out the old cabinetry and then dropped it. It was a shell that was used simply to keep the heat in the house while we came in and out.

Now it's going to be a neat place to enter into our home. Full of love. Full of kids-little and big.

Edit: There seems to be a proliferation of flannel and toolbelts going on around here. It's hot. Or maybe I have inhaled way too much sawdust.

Keys.

I think I'm done with my tantrum. You said what Jacob said. Ignore the bad, or take what you need and leave the rest.

I deleted all of the bad from my email and I felt somewhat better. It's kind of like therapy, being forced to admit your mistakes over and over again, being judged for doing all of it ass-backwards and having everything go wrong all at once. I quit therapy, remember?

And I'm on edge anyway. So much stuff, and it never stops.

But I'll be alright. Eventually. And I know it's hard to read here, it's certainly not the most uplifting journal in the world unless you can somehow pick your way past the difficult parts and predict the future for me. That's what I hold out for.

Sometimes everything is wrong. Sometimes it's so perfect I can't see straight. Days like that I fall to my knees and thank God. I am safe and I am loved and the kids are wonderfully resilient and loved and provided for and I can't ask for more.

I'll try to make it a little better, I've still got so much to work on and this is where I sort it all out, so it will take a little time, we all know how slow I am to do things.

So we need a little light.

I've got a little here and I'm using it.

Rootless forest.

You got it wrong. All wrong.

Weren't you paying attention? Or did you skim through a few entries and decide you knew me better than I know myself, than my own husband knows me, or Cole or eight different doctors and therapists and counselors. Or my goddamned friends?

So many nasty, unbelievably off-base emails I am considering just taking this down forever, or making it private or just deleting the whole fucking thing. Or maybe I could take off the email but sometimes I get amazing letters of encouragement from people who have been where I am, who know what the fuck they're talking about instead of projecting their useless bitterness on to me out of spite. The wonderful, beautiful souls have left their names, they're written many times, they give a shit.

If you don't give a shit about me then leave me alone. Why waste your time?

It seems pretty simple.

Oh and I know my world is small and yes, right now it revolves around ME, while I struggle to not alienate my brand new husband or fuck up his life, while I comfort my kids who miss their dad and struggle through holidays and they can't understand where exactly he is or why he is dead and why Mommy sometimes can't explain it, or why she cries when she thinks about him. Or how to keep moving forward when I'm in this Quaalude fog that never ends but if I leave the fog I might just simply kill myself if I get low enough and I can't let these three people down. I made this bed.

So fuck you too.

I've had enough.

But I'm not taking it down because the accountability close to home is something I need right now.

And for the record, I don't have him wrapped around my finger. Jacob's had a thing for me for years and I fell for him right back, I have never tried to excuse that, I have said more than once I was a shitty wife to Cole. Jacob is also not a pushover. The only reason he never killed anyone is because he believes that shit is for God to look after. He has one hell of a temper, I just leave that out.

Because I don't need people to tell me I'm about to repeat history here. So once again, fuck you. Because I've got no words for this today.

All the same.

I love karaoke mornings, he sings with so much passion. It's awesome.

    I don't mind where you come from
    As long as you come to me
    I don't like illusions I can't see
    Them clearly

    I don't care no I wouldn't dare
    To fix the twist in you
    You've shown me eventually
    What you'll do

    I don't mind...
    I don't care...
    As long as you're here

    Go ahead tell me you'll leave again
    You'll just come back running
    Holding your scarred heart in hand
    It's all the same
    And I'll take you for who you are
    If you take me for everything
    Do it all over again
    It's all the same

    Hours slide and days go by
    Till you decide to come
    And in between it always seems too long
    All of a sudden

    And I have the skill, yeah I have the will
    To breathe you in while I can
    However long you stay
    Is all that I am

    I don't mind...
    I don't care...
    As long as you're here

    Go ahead tell me you'll leave again
    You'll just come back running
    Holding your scarred heart in hand
    It's all the same
    And I'll take you for who you are
    If you take me for everything
    Do it all over again
    It's always the same

    Wrong or right
    Black or white
    If I close my eyes
    It's all the same

    In my life
    The compromise
    I close my eyes
    It's all the same

    Go ahead say it you're leaving
    You'll just come back running
    Holding your scarred heart in hand
    It's all the same
    And I'll take you for who you are
    If you take me for everything
    Do it all over again
    It's all the same

For the uninitiated, the song is the same one that plays during the video for the Free Hugs Campaign. Which still makes me cry and I've seen it dozens of times now.

Bravely marching forward.

My sister sent me this and we got the biggest laugh out of it when I sent it back, I thought I'd post it here while I pointedly ignore all the negative emails today's post generated. The show must go on, after all.

Soundtrack to my Life Movie Forward:

    Here'ss how it works:

    1. Open your library on your Zen or other MP3 player.
    2. Put it on shuffle.
    3. Press play.
    4. For every question type the song that is playing.
    5. When you go to a new question press the next button.


Opening Credits: Me & my friends, The Red Hot Chili Peppers
(nice, so far so good)

Waking Up: It's All Understood, Jack Johnson
(perfect wake-up music)

Falling In Love: Dragged Down by the Weight of Existence, Fear Factory
(uhhh...interesting in a cosmic joke kind of way.)

Fight Song: Mary Jane, Alanis Morissette
(if you're going to fight an internal battle, maybe)

Breaking Up: Another time, another place, U2
(oh, ouch)

Making Up: Nothing Else Matters, Bif Naked (covering Metallica)
(PERFECT)

Life is Ok: Tea in the Sahara, The Police
(Yes, please.)

Mental Breakdown: Dirty Glass by Dropkick Murphys
(funny, this is one of my happy songs-Jake and I sang this at a karaoke thing in Newfie and brought down the house).

Driving: Heartache Tonight, The Eagles
(makes sense, my dad's favorite song, I was raised on it)

Flashbacks: Fatal Wound, Switchfoot
(this was one of Cole's favorites so why the hell not?)

Happy Dance: Sober, Tool
(tool time is happy time for Bridget)

Regret: Song of the Flesh, Black Crowes
(okay, it works.)

Final Battle: Eskimo, Damien Rice
(way off. I don't even favor this song.)

Death Scene: Mad World, Gary Jules (covering Tears for Fears)
(I could see this happening for real.)

Final Credits: Default Judgement, Fear Factory
(Perfect, I couldn't have chosen better.)

Feel free to try it, it's kind of neat.