Base jumper.

Jacob has done it and so this can be for him.

    Put me somewhere I don't wanna be.
    Seeing someplace I don't wanna see.
    Never wanna see that place again.

    Saw that gap again today
    As you were begging me to stay.
    Managed to push myself away,
    And you, as well.

    If, when I say I may fade like a sigh if I stay,
    You minimize my movement anyway,
    I must persuade you another way.
    There's no love in fear.

    Staring down the hole again.
    Hands upon my back again.
    Survival is my only friend.
    Terrified of what may come.

    Remember I will always love you,
    Even as I claw your fucking throat away.
    But it will end no other way.
Petulance achieved today in self-destructive historically significant songs in my personal soundtrack.

Pay me no mind, it's proven to be a tough morning from the get-go. And I'm mad at myself for talking about shoes and books and inside jokes and home renovations here when I want to talk about things that are going on in my head and in my heart and sometimes on my flesh itself and instead I distract you with my cuteness, as Jacob calls it. It's the ugliest cuteness ever, if that's true, because it's a dangerous space for me to occupy, a hazardous cliff on which I stand, directly at the edge, to the point where your audible sharp intake of breath exposes your own fear at how close I really am.

But your eyes wear the colors of rationality and calm, and you rightly begin to speak in soothing, relaxed tones, words of warmth and remembrance, memories and promises of good, light and gentle, oh so gentle admonitions, almost canonical and comical at once in their desperation to reclaim my soul.

It's not failing, you just don't understand. There is a point to which I will come away from the edge, a line drawn that I don't seem to have permission to cross, and then when you aren't looking, when you aren't paying attention, I cross my fingers behind my back and take three very big steps back, sometimes landing on an unsure footing that puts my own heart in my throat and gives me a tiny thrill of anticipation at what it will feel like to fly, but the fear is greater and I grab the strong hands that reach out almost too late but not quite.

This is as beautiful and as fucked up as I am ever going to be. This is as good as things ever will be for me, and I'm okay with that.

Just don't take away the memories I have made away from the edge. And don't look too closely, for if you do you'll see I don't have a parachute.

Rarities and B-sides: A girl who doesn't like to buy shoes.

One of the more cringeworthy running jokes in my circle is how incredibly difficult it is for me to buy shoes. Some say now that it's as hard for me to decide on a pair of shoes as it is for me to decide on husbands. And then once I find something I like, I wear them into the ground.

Oh, let's face it. I'll make the off-color joke and spare you from feeling guilty.

So, yes, those pretty new Earth shoes are awesome.

The previously loved ones by Demonia are toast, the four-inch platform I can no longer depend on, and I fit right under Jacob's armpit again (yes, that man who doesn't like shoes much either).

Now if this isn't a metaphor for something, I really don't know what is.

This is the house that Jake built.

    Throw the rocks and break the glass
    I'll get down on my knees and kiss your ass
    'Cause you're the one to be in my dreams
    It never was
    It isn't what it seems

Good morning. My apologies to Caldecott for stealing his title and changing it to suit my whims.

I have new Earth Shoes and a fresh outlook. I feel like a million dollars.

Shhh. It might be the Vicodin.

I haven't run, the last day being with Loch who is the most impatient, quietest, most dedicated non-runner ever. He doesn't run, he prefers to do strength training in a sweaty gym somewhere, standing still (pffft) but by the time he left here he was talking about maybe starting a daily run. Ha! And, must be nice.

Consensus is definitely that something is going to be taken away here, therapy-wise. The pills seem to have little effect, what's having effect is the brutal honesty with which I can finally confess to Jacob exactly how many times a day, a night, an hour I think of Cole, or remember something about him, and exactly how many times a day it's a positive or a negative thought. I didn't think I could tell him, and I told him that and he floored me by being able to take that. God forbid if our roles were reversed, I wouldn't want to know.

My God, I love this man.

And the wall came down yesterday, the wall in the kitchen that was my target as the human flying machine, a wall full of shelves and dishes that shattered brilliantly in the evening light as every bone in my body flexed magically and only 3 out of 206 broke. I should have kept count of exactly how many dishes Cole broke over the course of our lives together.

Jacob had taken what was left of the shelves down and repaired the wall itself from the outline my head and shoulders embossed into it but we never put the shelves back up and now the whole wall is gone, a beautiful archway in it's place, a new door opens, literally and figuratively, and we made the old opening into a wall. The house flows better and I don't stand and look at that wall anymore, swearing I can still see my outline because there is no wall to look at. It's one less proverbial wall to climb over in search of memories that don't hurt.

Sparing Jacob's feelings, sparing Bridget's, it's sweet but it doesn't fix Bridget, what's fixing her is the time. He keeps pointing out how much time has passed and how quickly it's slipping through our fingers. And I don't know anyone as strong as Jacob. I never will again. He is it. Strongest man I ever met. Strongest man you'll ever meet, should you be so lucky. A man convinced that no matter how much I think it might be hard for him to hear things or for me to say things, or for him to have to rebuild an entire room to change the past, then the step forward is worth the harmful part, if only as a means to an end.

He wanted it down before a year was up and so he did it.

It's our house now.

I cheered. And he grinned and I noticed his dimples filled that new doorway.

Two fools, early on a snowy Sunday morning.

When I woke up Jacob whispered to me that it was raining. It was soft, muffled by the snowflakes falling too, I couldn't hear it, but I closed my eyes again and tried to drift back into my dream. He wouldn't allow for that, instead he put his arms around me in his customary protective cage that he makes for me and he put his hand gently around my neck and felt, with his nose, for the soft place directly under my left earlobe that he likes to kiss when he wakes up.

Then he told me we had to get up and get ready because he had to do the service this morning. Oh wonderful. I love to watch him so I started to get up (still gingerly) and he frowned and stopped me, pulling me back into his arms and pulling the quilts up over our heads.

April Fools, princess.

Aw, I was actually hoping to hear you today.

You're my fanclub, I can do a home version for you today.

Okay, maybe later.

Can we go back to sleep now?

Just for a bit. I need extra time to get ready today for eleven.

I'll help you. Goodnight, princess.
We did go back to sleep for a bit. And in my dreams, I traveled back a year in time to the Sunday before Easter, in which I put on my rose-print dress and went to church by myself, Cole hardly ever went, and I sat mid-sanctuary and watched Jacob and wondered what a week from then was going to bring for us all

If it's chipped do you keep it?

Jacob regularly points to a flaw that I'm not sure is a flaw so much as a bad habit. To me a flaw is a defect that cannot be altered or fixed easily. This could be fixed with a little effort, a drive to not do it, like most bad habits.

I suppose I could let him hypnotize me too but I've demurred thus far.

My bad habit in private? Self-disparagement.

I talk very poorly of myself but only when it's just the two of us and it's late at night or we're alone. As if I'm looking for confirmation that I'm wrong, somehow. That maybe I am perfect after all even though I don't see it. That I maybe could be exactly what he wants even though I'm not sure if I am. I'm too thin, too pale. My hair is straw, my skin is bruised, my eyes are tired and emotionally, I'm a natural disaster. I shine a light on it, only the bad. Brightly lit for all to see the ugliness that is me.

He hates that. Despises it. He can't understand why I do it.

It makes two of us.

It makes no sense at all. My ego is relentlessly stroked, backed up and duplicated in threes. I get a daily if not hourly confirmation that assures me I'm amazing, that I'm wanted, needed, valued and admired.

I'm special. Unique even. They've all wanted me. If not for my terribly unstable emotions, they wanted a piece of me.

Bridget's wild streak hears it, her heart hears it and her soul wants it but her brain completely ignores it.

One more fault for the earthquake, one more anomaly to keep me grounded, one more strange and wonderful flaw for my husband to marvel over.

Like warmth, it would be nice to save up and use when you need it most. But we don't have the power to do that, we only have the power to fake it. Artificial heat and artificial self confidence.

An illusion.

One that would be fixed. I can be told I am special, I'm perfect, I'm exactly what they, no...exactly what he wants. I can see it in his eyes but I can't internalize it and so it waits like a tide to come in, just offshore while Bridget plays on the sand and pretends that she is nothing.

Which is hard because I am everything.

Sometimes.

I will follow you home

I should do a weekly entry telling you about my amazing nightstand, now stacked to four feet off the ground with things to read. Things we pass around, things from people I know who tell me I have to have a look or should take time out to check this or that. And though most weeks I get about a half hour at the end of every day to read for pleasure, I take it like medicine.

However, reviews are rare from me. I love what I love for my own reasons and I find people's individual tastes and subjective love of music, movies, television and books far too esoteric to be able to share most of the time. What makes you love Modest Mouse leaves me vaguely confused and I will never be able to explain my intense, overwhelming love of Tool.

So forgive me but I want to talk about something.

I mentioned a while back on a painful day that I was obsessed with being an ungracious widow and I said I was reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King.

Those of you literary-type folks who will nod approval of my mentions of Hemingway or Stevenson will now turn up your nose as if Mr. King, purveyor of fine horror novels that marked most of my adolescent reading jaunts, is a lesser writer somehow. Christine, anyone?

You would be wrong.

Read his offbeat novels-Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, Stand by Me, or one of my favorites of all time (of his), The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon.

And yet, Stephen King outdid himself here, with Lisey. And while I knew when I picked this up in Chapters that this widow, like all the others I have encountered, was happily married when her husband died, Lisey struck a chord in me that resonated and I can still feel the vibrations.

Her husband was mentally ill, destroyed by a terrible childhood that left him mostly crazy. I identified with the character of Scott Landon because he wrote his dreams, he harnessed his baggage and turned it into his lifelong work through his writing, all the while well aware that he was merely outrunning his pain.

Which is kinda sorta how Bridget lives.

Granted Scott was a multi-million dollar bestselling author and I might never be and that's okay, it was refreshing to read of their love through the eyes of his strong and adoring wife, who simply loved him, as Jacob does me, maybe in spite of and because of our demons.

There was even a bad guy, named Gerd Allen Cole. I'd be lying if I didn't choke when I saw that. But damned if I didn't sob like a baby through the final pages of that book, wishing it would never end and positively struck by the beauty with which Lisey found her closure for her life with Scott. And it was a little scary too. But like Tom Gordon, the scariness of the threats never manages to overshadow the emotional map drawn of the central character.

There's something to be said for just letting the words out, and not worrying about whether they will sound cheesy or if anyone will really understand them. Is it too deep, too feeling, too honest or too revealing? Mr. King managed to let it out, he let the words flow over the page and he spun an incredibly moving river of a tale of love and loss and he did it with such aplomb. Or maybe I was in the right place at the right time to be able to find a personal theme in this book and so perhaps it touched me more. I'll never know any different, so here you go.

Well done. It's now one of only three works of fiction that have literally brought me to tears in my life and it's by far the most compelling.

Now I'm back to reading college review mags because Thorn is so much more bitter and harder to swallow.

The part where PJ tries his hand at a lecture.

Boy, you really are Jacob's 'main squeeze'.

I always knew he had a 'crush' on you.

And those were the ones I can repeat, as the boys weigh in on the latest news. The unrepeatable ones were references to the friendly giant's commanding size and how girls should watch out, lest he rearrange their innards, or some such depravity.

I said I love my friends, right? Does that mean I can tell them to fuck off?

Secretly I love it but not today. Today Jacob is still rather sensitive. Today he sees how easily I wind up with dents and knocks and also how accidents happen and oh my God I wish he would smile. Just once. Ben poked him in the shoulder and made some crack yesterday and Jake didn't even move his head but shifted his eyes sideways and Ben actually made some excuse and left shortly after, never wanting to be on the bad side of Jacob. No one does and thankfully they're mostly sparing him the digs while I try not to laugh because it hurts but oh fuck me, it's so hard not to.

If all injuries came as a result of such fun. And I kept going! Which is scary because the more time passes the more babyish I'm getting about my ribcage.

But it's time to move on, to greener pastures, better topics and more excitement because life demands it. Life is to be grabbed and squeezed and emptied out and refilled and dammit, do it with gusto.

PJ took me out for coffee last night and we took the truck since I wasn't going to walk and I played Eulogy loud. Then I remembered I won't be lapdancing for a long while which made me sad and so I turned off the stereo because that's one of my favorite songs to get into.

PJ eyed me curiously.

What's up, Bridge. You okay?

Yes, just tired.

That's because you're a freak.

Nice.

Well it's true. Maybe you should slow down.

We were.

You aren't twenty-five anymore.

Well fuck you too, Padraig.

Listen, Bridget, Jake can't handle you getting hurt. He hasn't been able to yet.

We didn't mean for this to happen.

No, but maybe if you two had a normal sex life you wouldn't have gotten hurt.

I'm not having this conversation with you, Peej.

Then just take it easy. Very few things upset Jake to that extent and one of them is you and injuries, he doesn't care how they originate. The guy needs a break.

We all need a break.

Right, so just cool it.

I cannot believe you're lecturing me on Jacob.

Oh don't worry, I talked to him too.

About?

Ruining you with his giant schlong.

You DID NOT.

I did. I reminded him that princesses are delicate.

Fuck right off with that. Did you really?

No, I just said I hoped it was going to be funny in the future, because it's a good kind of disaster. Especially moving that desk.

What are you talking about?

He said the desk moved a good foot.

No way.

You hit the corner of the desk, Bridge.

I did?

Bruised livers don't come from being squished by 200 pounds of love machine.

Ah. I didn't notice but it explains a lot.

Yes, since it took both of us to push it back.

Cheese and crackers, peej!

So no more monkey business.

Right. I'll get right on that.

Bridge, you're a riot. I'm just glad it's a happy thing for you. I worry about you.

You do?

All the time. But I worry about Jacob more.

Gee, thanks.

We laughed and he turned Tool back on and put the volume on eleven, so that the next time Jacob starts the truck he'll get blown out of his seat. PJ's fun like that.

Tender mercies.

I'm not giving up. You might.

A trip to the ER yesterday afternoon netted me a handful of painkillers and advice to take it easy. We managed to crack two of my ribs and they never really decided if my liver was bruised or not so they went with a yes, just in case. Fuck.

I'm fine, it just hurts when I try to breathe super deeply or flex my torso at all.

Or move at all but really let's just gloss for Jacob's sake. Mkay?

So hi! Radioactive Vicodin girl makes her unwelcome return to the house.

Which is really great, she's a perfect match for Guilt-Laden Husband Shouldering All The Blame, who isn't welcome. I'll take the blame, hell, I walked into the study knowing exactly how the night was going to go down, and he can't resist me. He thinks he is my guardian angel superman, somehow able to pluck me out of thin air and save me from harm. We have this fight weekly because I still wipe out on the ice and fall down the basement steps just about every second trip.

He sees zero humor in this so I brought him with me to see Claus today because for once I attack a situation as well-adjusted which is always just in time for him to fall apart. Christ, we're a perfect match. Jacob pointed out that support from me is like building a house on broken stilts and hoping for the best. He'd like to keep moping while I bounce off the walls.

I reminded him that if I am glass then he needn't insult me when I try to help and he lost it.

He has this magnificent ability to cut me down and yet he wouldn't let go of my hand. He has barely let go of it since he got home yesterday afternoon, which is fine because my solace comes from him. But I had to ask him to release me so I could go to the bathroom at one point. Sweet and frightening.

Hey, wait, that's my description.

God, we're so fucking well-adjusted. Just when we had begun to finally put fragile miss to rest once and for all. Just as we were beginning to make some progress on our joint obsessive issues with each other. Just as we approached normal. Sexually and otherwise.

It figures.

But this is not going to be a setback. Maybe a very brief delay but that's all I'm going to allow for.

When we were looking at antiques on Monday Jacob held up a horseshoe and we were cracking jokes about wedging it firmly up my ass to see if our luck might change. We got sidetracked and never actually bought it.

I asked him if we could go back and get it and oh, the bitter laugh that came out of him practically curled my hair.

I am glass. Handle with care, angel boy.

Burden in his hand.

 Words you say never seem
    To live up to the ones inside your head
    The lives we make never seem
    To ever get us anywhere but dead

I'll defer to the biggest Soundgarden fan in this house for today's musical inspiration, his delight at a lapdance with The Day I tried to Live as accompaniment faring nicely for me last night because it...er, okay, I was doable. When am I not doable?

Shortest lap dance in the history of the universe. I climbed onto his legs in his chair to face him while he was on the phone, and he wrapped up his call at once and pulled me down right into his lap and that was that. No wind up, no grind out, just straight-up sex in his lap.

He's a very strong man.

Who knows what he wants. And waiting was not something he wanted to do last night. And so he didn't.

And the next office chair I buy will not be on wheels.

The visual on being that out of control and the chair tipping over but tipping forward meant I bore the full brunt of Jacob's weight as he fought to cradle me with one hand and break our fall with the other, failing at both when he landed on top of me and he knocked the wind right out of me, along with a few assorted internal organs, and I think he might have displaced my whole uterus but I was laughing and crying and Chris Cornell was howling and it really wasn't a very pretty sight at all.

Kind of a mood-killer when you have to take stock of what hurts before you get up. The look on his face was half-hilarity and half-concern because he's still fourteen inches taller than I am as much as we try to ignore that fact. I managed to stand up and breathe at the same time.

First thing out of his mouth?

We should stick to the bed for that kind of thing.

While I was saying,

We need a chair without wheels.

We looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

And then finished the night in the middle of our bed, where no one can get hurt.

I want to write very much anyway. But I didn't. Oh, I did. Nevermind, another story for some other day.

I still think an x-ray or two might be a good idea. I have aches in strange places this morning.

The thought of attempting to explain to my doctor exactly how much torque Jacob is capable of putting into sex just does nothing for me today. I'm just going to breathe through it and take some more ibuprophen.

Keeping promises I haven't made.

Sometimes I'm not as dumb or as blindly led as I seem to be.

    I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
    Watch you smile while you are sleeping
    While you're far away dreaming
    I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
    I could stay lost in this moment forever
    Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

Yesterday turned out to be a much needed family day for us. With a languid start to the morning we took our time, drinking extra coffee and juice and replacing snowboots with wellies for the puddles and warmer air, and lighter insulated jackets and knit gloves for the kids. I wore a fisherman knit sweater and jeans and a vintage scarf and Jacob smiled when he saw me.

He said I looked like I was ready for a Sunday drive. An inside joke, I think Mondays will forever be our Sundays. He pulled on his midweight suit jacket over a green button-down shirt and there was the CD. I thought he had left it in the old truck when it went to truck heaven but he didn't after all.

We headed for the highway and I was singing about pilots and he was smiling, one of those happy smiles people have when everything is going well.

Of course. It was a set up.

We spent the morning poking through an old barn that had four floors packed to the rafters, but they turned out not to have anything we couldn't go home without. Then we got some lunch and took it outside to the park next to the diner, so the kids could eat and and then run around to blow off steam. It's hard to keep their hands to themselves when we're in a environment that seems fully breakable.

And Jacob turned to me and let his smile die away and asked me if I was ready to try something new.

I stared at him and didn't say anything.

Hmm?

New, Jake? What did you have in mind?

Going back to no pills, Bridge.

Oh, no, can we just have this because this is better.

You're not you, Bridge, you're someone else and it concerns me.

Gee, thanks, honey.

You've said it yourself.

If I recall correctly you also said better I stay on them and be here than be off them and lose what's left.

That was before everything else got so much better so quickly.

Right, we're rushing again, Jake.

No, I don't think we are.

Wait until-

I already talked to Claus and a few others about it. You had such a good balance before, and you did pretty well without pills. They're on board with a test run, with tapering off.

Jake, have you forgotten what life was like? I was so high strung. I wasn't doing well, I was trying to survive and hating every second of everything.

You didn't appear to have as hard a time.

Jacob, you can't be serious.

Oh geez, now I'm panicking and trying to keep my voice down and he put his hand on my face and it was so warm and he looked at me and I believed somehow he could snap his fingers and gold would just fall out of the sky. My beanstock giant.

You found a way.

No, Jacob, I was held together with a cool breeze and the weight of a thousand threats. Fear kept me going. My God, I can't believe you've forgotten.

No, I didn't forget, princess. But what if you did what you did then but without the fear? Picture it, everything as before but no Cole. All support, everything you need, plus the routine and therapy and fresh air and all of it but no pills. So you wouldn't have to be half-asleep. So you could stop taking the drugs.

I think we should leave it, Jake.

But you don't like it.

No, what I don't like is any more changes right now. I just got used to them again. I can stay awake, I can write a little, and things are going well. Stopping now would be asking for trouble.

So you don't want to stop.

No, I don't. Everyone is happy.

Are you happy?

I'm not suicidal, and that's all that matters.

But are you happy, princess?

Yes.

He looked so doubtful.

I don't want to mess it up, Jake. I don't want you to have any regrets.

The only regret I have is that my wife is perpetually drugged and all the enthusiasm has left her eyes and she has to work so hard to smile it makes me want to scream.

I'm sorry.

It isn't your fault, Bridge, so don't say that.

Of course it is. My accountability, remember?

Fuck the accountability. I don't think the drugs are doing anything for you.

No, but they make everyone else happy. You're happy.

I'm happy because you're with me.

I'm happy for that too.

With effort, Bridge.

Life is an effort, Jacob.

So what would you chose to do?

Stop taking them.

What?

I would want to stop taking them if I could chose, Jacob.

Let's.

Jacob, if I-

You won't. Your life will never be that hopeless again I promise.

Even with-

No matter what, princess.

I nodded, still not convinced but not willing to risk spoiling the rest of the day with a big blowup. I didn't sing on the way home, Jacob played Anima and kept looking at me, but I chose to ignore the music, ignore the looks and instead I just looked out my window with my own defeated expression. I don't want to go back there, or anywhere else where the lights aren't on. Not now. God, I got shivers reading that entry again.

We did have a nice rest of the day, heading to the library on the way home where I got a mystery novel and he got some guitar-making books and the kids filled up on Franklin and Critter books. We came home and barbecued steak and baked potatoes. I had a destructive glass of wine to finish off a bottle from Loch's visit. One glass puts me on the floor now, for the record.

    Lying close to you feeling your heart beating
    And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
    Wondering if it's me you're seeing
    Then I kiss your eyes
    And thank God we're together
    I just want to stay with you in this moment forever
    Forever and ever

Jacob didn't broach the subject again until the kids were asleep and we were settled in front of the fire. And by that time I had respawned my strength.

I don't want to push you, princess. I'm just so proud of your hard work.

That's good, because I'm staying on the pills, Jake.

Really?

For now.

You're sure?

No, but I'm not taking any chances yet. It's too soon.

If that's what you want most, princess.

I do.

Good for you.

I'm still me, you know.

You're everything, you always were and you always will be.

Then we need to keep going slow, we've got forever, you know.

He looked positively shocked.

You're absolutely right. We do. We've got forever.

He shook his head in disbelief and smiled, like it was something he had never considered before and then he repeated himself, because in his head I had just made him a promise that I could never make out loud. I let him have it, because it's the only thing he ever wanted from me.

We've got forever, princess.

Life is a gift to us all, you know. One of the reasons that I'm doing better and doing well at all is because we've dropped our pretenses and turned to each other instead of turning away. He hasn't abandoned me and I don't shut him out of my feelings out of some misguided attempt to spare him from feeling like a interloper. It's done wonders for finally putting Cole's ghost to rest once and for all. Despite the continued lack of ability on my part to voice promises I'm obviously not in charge of making.

And for some reason Jacob holds me so much harder now. Longer, too. This morning he handed me my pill and my coffee and smiled and told me I was beautiful. Probably because he just realized that maybe I'm not as dumb as I look. Or maybe it was because I think he finally realizes I'm giving him everything I have to give, whether I confirm that out loud, or not.

Maybe it's finally enough. For both of us.