Offroad girl.

    I'll beg for you
    You know I'll beg for you
    Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
    Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave
    If you should die before me
    Ask if you can bring a friend
    Pick a flower, hold your breath
    And drift away

No, I'm not about to unleash a torrent of admissions upon you. No, I am not falling into a low. No, I'm not having too difficult of a time coming down off the medications. No, I haven't done anything wrong.

In fact, everything is wonderful. Life has become the fairytale I wanted. The one that I was meant for. The one about me.

Minus the lingering doubts.

Last night I had one of those blisteringly cathartic sobfests. Usually my method of crying is a quivering lower lip and some giant tears that well up and spill over my cheeks and I'll wipe them away in an impatient haste on the back of my fist and keeping on fighting through it. But then sometimes I am reduced to the point where my whole face becomes pink and stained with so many tears as if water has been splashed on my skin and it becomes hard to breathe as I choke through endless sobs and shake all over. I simply laid my head against Jacob's chest and he wrapped his arms around me and tucked his head down beside mine and just squeezed and I let it all out until there was nothing left. One of those good cries.

I wake up in the mornings not believing my luck, relishing the shiver of anticipation when he touches me and sleepily smiles at me, so full of love and he wants nothing else ever. He has relaxed, he has unwound just enough and he is now fully immersed in his self-induced caretaker vacation in order to see me better once and for all and the only thing that will take him away for any length of time will be his chaplain shifts and anytime he goes out with the guys, to pick up wood or help someone with their truck repairs or go out for lunch, or to his own therapy sessions, separate from mine and from our joint ones, to deal with his temper, to find balance between his obsessiveness and his distance, to help him be a better person as if that were somehow possible. That would be like trying to perfect the smoothness of an egg to me.

I said that and was treated to that loud goofy guffaw laugh that he punctuates with his dimples.

And I want nothing else ever, just him. This is sort of like the moment in your life (if you've ever had this moment you'll understand what I mean) when you pick up your Life Goals list and cross off the big one at the top, you know, the one that you wrote down for fits and giggles, knowing full well that you'd never achieve it, but wouldn't it be nice.

And then you do.

Suddenly I'm faced with needing a few new goals, I've worked my way through a lofty assortment of them and my list is now a clean slate, almost, I'm just waiting for my man in the white coat to come along with his dustpan and sweep away the remaining particles of the waning stress, the grit of dealing with a life that had so many hairpin curves for a while there, I wound up carsick and then crushed, wrapped around tree somewhere down the embankment, far out of sight of rescue.

And then I dug my fingers into the crumbling dirt on the side of that hill and pulled myself back up and noticed the rest of the road was straight. I wiped the trickle of blood off my temple and felt around for all my pieces. I looked behind me and saw that I was pushed up, helped, pulled and dragged by my hands. He has traction in life, guys.

And do you know something? Bridget is still intact. Whole.

Complete, even.

Fully intact and only slightly dented and misshapen and bruised, on the inside, fading now, and it does absolutely nothing to counteract the brimming love that just spills over and over and is a fountain inside my soul.

This is very good. Cheer for me, would you? Just the tiniest of hurrahs would suffice and I will be ever so grateful.

Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't believe it was Jacob's goal in life to ever wind up with a wife so fragile and weak, that his strength would dissolve like ice in hot water when confronted with a princess made of glass, his resolve crumbling, unable to resist. I take my place in history as the one weakness of his magnificent design. The one goal he ever had. The one person he ever wanted so badly that he would shove everything else to one side to get it, taking risks he wouldn't normally take, acting out in ways so uncharacteristic of the sweet and goofy handsome preacher boy, making promises that he has woven into the finest silk, goals rubbed and polished to a shine so bright we went blind somewhere along that long, dangerous road.

Sometimes I want to tell you that I don't think I deserve this, him, anything good. Sometimes I want to scream with frustration at not doing things better, not acting faster, not trying harder.

Not being tougher.

Sometimes I want to point out that I may never live up to the image of me that he keeps in his mind. I'm still sure he sees her, not me. The potential of who I could be, instead of the mess that I am.

And when I tell him that, he simply smiles and kisses my face and tells me to hush, and reminds me that we're two now, we're together, we're it, and I am everything to him, whole or fractured. And that we will fix it and if we don't that's okay too, because he can hold me in his arms without guilt, and I can be in his arms without fear. And that the whole mess is wrapped in love and love can fix anything.

Just wait and see, princess.

I will.

That's good. Because I love you.

I love you too.

Cryptic comes in small packages too.

    Just hear me out
    If it's not perfect I'll perfect it till my heart explodes
    I highly doubt
    I can make it through another of your episodes
    Lashing out
    One of the petty moves you pull before you lose control
    You wear me out
    But it's all right now

Henry is fine, for the record. He ate a light lunch and then a normal dinner and was running around on his mini-skateboard like an animal by 3 pm yesterday, and so yesterday was redeemed.

I never pointed out how much the easter bunny resembles our tooth fairy.

I never told you a lot of things.

Maybe I should.

Maybe I will.

A change in schedule.

A note that next year I won't be so generous and let Henry eat a 'few' chocolate eggs before church, since he threw up all over the sidewalk (and me) halfway down the road. I carried him home and we're going to miss the morning. I think I strained myself. Jacob simply has too much to do today and so Ruth will be brought home by the neighbors, and we'll just play it by the hour.

My poor baby.

Lay your weary head to rest, Bridget.

I'm going to paint you a picture of my living room last night, circa oh....midnight.

Jacob and I had a four-hour Guitar Hero II marathon.

Yes, alone, just the two of us, because we're goofy like that. We went through far too much of root beer and the songs kept getting better and better. Because Kiss! Then Van Halen!

And oh my God, Kansas.

(Caffeine. Far too much caffeine.)

Carry On Wayward Son is a very old favorite song of ours. I consider us extra talented for being able to sing along with the words and use our 'star power' at the same time. I think I topped out at 83% and Jacob 90%. He's more coordinated. Playing this game to me was like when I learned to drive a standard. I remember telling Cole I didn't think I would ever be coordinated enough to work both feet and both hands at the same time but I did it, eventually and I will master this too.

But maybe not with any more marathons because I am so sleepy this morning and we have a busy day ahead. The Easter bunny has been here and so I'll have two chocolate monsters to keep busy this morning too. Who eats chocolate before 9 a.m.? I'm not sure if Jacob's foreboding facial expression will be enough to quiet the kids should he need to deploy it during services (he is assisting today and doing a reading) but it will have to do.

Happy Easter. Because I rock!

Well, according to Guitar Hero II I do, so there.

How much for your wings?

It must be Saturday. He's singing.

    Twenty-five pounds of pure cane sugar
    She's got in each and every kiss
    You wouldn't know what I'm talking 'bout
    If you never had a love like this
    Well, I don't mean to be frank with you all
    It's a natural fact
    Good things come wrapped up in small, small packages now
    Well you can't argue with that
    Ninety-nine pounds of natural born goodness
    Ninety-nine pounds of soul
    Ninety-nine pounds of natural born goodness
    Ninety-nine pounds of soul

Aw. I like days that begin this way. I also like days that start off with noticing new muscles on my husband while we're in the shower. His calf muscles have muscles on their muscles now. He claims it's from all the running we were doing.

Well then shouldn't I have those too?

I don't.

Ninety-nine pounds of fluff.

But my cold is waning, so that is a good thing. Sneezing with cracked ribs makes me want to bind myself up with duct tape and hope for the best. Owies. Today I'm going to wear my new jeans as I run around doing errands that I put off all week long. Winter is still raging here in the north and it's become incredibly difficult to find the want to leave the house unless it's absolutely necessary.

It's a good excuse to treat myself to some new reads and so I shall add the bookstore to my list. I think I have exhausted the library, truth be told. I didn't think that was possible in a city this big. Of course, the day the library snugs a Starbucks in betwixt their rows of words is the day I grab my stuff and go move right in. I'm hooked. I'll admit. But my habit runs once a week or less so I can still justify a designer coffee without being branded a fanatic.

I swear.

One of these days.

I was told to stay in bed this morning.

I didn't listen.

One of my new commitments is that I keep going. Even if I have to phone it in effort-wise, I have to fight through every day and not cop out, opt-out or give up.

Today I couldn't give up if I tried. When the alarm went off this morning, Jacob reached past me and turned it off and then pushed himself against me. The part of him that sometimes wakes him up first was wide awake, and I was treated to a long, slow, gentle, very good Friday morning. And an even longer kiss that I finally had to tap out of, because my nose was so stuffed up I couldn't catch my breath. Jacob laughed softly and pressed the tip of his nose to mine and I sneezed on him for good measure.

A hot shower does wonders for post-sex and sneeze episodes. Plus I think it cleared my head. Then I took some Dayquil and drank a pot of coffee and burned my fingers on the toaster and now I'm halfway into my favorite winter dress, which is a cute little vintage plaid wool jumper that Jacob feels might be too short to wear to church and so I've worn it often and demurely press my knees together in the pew.

I'm serving tea and coffee after today's services and comfort is paramount.

But as soon as we get home, I'm switching to my jammies. And locking the door and turning off the phone and maybe making a pot of tea with honey and not sharing any of it.

If only I had cake, the day would be perfect.

Thursday feels like Friday.

In my haste to rush out to lunch, I didn't expound on anything at all. Sometimes it's better that way, count yourself lucky.

This morning's progress concerned my feelings about Cole and how it's so fucking easy to fake the accolades for him around the children (because I have to, for their sake, and because he was a good father) and around his family and better friends but then I have a hard time accepting that he wasn't what I would like to see him as. A monster. My shadows. My fears. The personification of every fragility I hold now. And likely he is a huge part of that, but Cole had demons of his own and it's a long way back to the place where I can comprehend in my little pea brain that his monsters ate him alive, but he was not a monster.

You know what? I would spend all night here trying to summarize two hours of intensive reconstruction of my thought processes here, so maybe I'll stop with that. I can't make you see.

And believe it or not, this has little to do with the earlier admissions that my depression is as good as it's ever going to get. We simply have to learn to ride and deal with the waves as they break. Chemical and nurturing causes mean I'll never have a free pass to a permanent happy place. It's okay. I dealt with it before unmedicated, and I'm about to do it again. Only this time there's no one waiting to sabotage my efforts. Quite the opposite in my loving Jacob.

Just enjoy the wild loopy ride with me while I take a few weeks to get the medicine out of my system. Because now I'm awake. Finally.

And weird.

In any case, Loch was here just for the morning, to take us out to lunch and have a quick visit on his way out west and now Christian and PJ are here hanging out and hogging the X-box while I help Jacob iron his clothes for the weekend. And these boys are trying to teach me to love Death in Vegas as much as they do.

Blissful, blissful mediocrity.

Not a monster anymore.

    He had alot to say.
    He had alot of nothing to say.
    We'll miss him.

    So long.
    We wish you well.
    You told us how you weren't afraid to die.
    Well then, so long.
    Don't cry.
    Or feel too down.
    Not all martyrs see divinity.
    But at least you tried.

    Standing above the crowd,
    He had a voice that was strong and loud.
    We'll miss him.
    Ranting and pointing his finger
    At everything but his heart.
    We'll miss him.
A good day is a day that I emerge squinting into the sun, breathing deeply from the stale freshly-scrubbed air of a familiar office building, smiling softly at a phenomenal amount of progress made and run straight into the arms of all four of my guys, who take turns kissing the top of my head and telling me that they are proud of me, the big one in particular.

Yay me, especially since I've been medication-free for one week today.

Magical mystery tour.

Every now and then I make a reference to running away to join the circus (Examples everywhere in case you missed the subtle year-long running metaphor).

Shhhh. What's that? It's the sound of Bridget getting comfortable in her own skin. That rarely happens. Usually I wish I was less full of regret. That always happens.

Circus people to me mean friendlies. Kind, accepting people who tolerate everyone and everything. They are the freaks, the fringe, zealots. People with beautiful souls unbound by modern constraints of time, expectations and the mindfuck of radiant cityesque urban suburbia. They only care if you are well and if you are happy, and they care very deeply for one another. It's not much different from Jacob's idea of perfect organized worship.

I'm going to be a circus performer when I grow up.

No, seriously. That was the plan and I made it, for a time. But I am not the only freak in this homemade urban circus. Jacob is a magician. He can pull quarters out of people's ears. We used to joke about him shaking down the congregation with his tricks and becoming a millionaire.

Today was a rare treat. We were outside cleaning up the parking lot and the yard at the church and based on my injuries I was holding the garbage bag and not doing a whole lot aside from following Jacob or Sam around in the searing cold wind and feeling as if I might possibly sell my soul for a hot cup of tea.

Treasures we compiled included three condoms (please don't ask me if they were used but hurrah for safe sex, right? Not so hurrah for the goth teens using the churchyard as their spooky boudoir) and a fork. Jacob stuck the fork in his back pocket and when we were finished he brought it in and proceeded to trot out his favorite mindblowing trick of all:

Telekinesis. The power to move objects with your mind.

He bent the fork into a wavy mess of stainless steel.

I jump out of my goosebumped skin every time he does it. Then I told him he had to show the kids today. He used to only do it late at night at dinner parties after a couple of drinks. So when the kids came home for lunch he showed them and they positively squealed.

Do it again! became the rally cry of the noon hour.

When I came back from walking them back to school, I counted seventeen bent spoons on the kitchen table. I gathered them up and took them in and dumped them in front of Jake on the desk in the study.

Okay, smartiepants, bend them back.

Oh shit.

What?

I can't. Once they're bent I can't bend the same spoon again, princess.

Then I guess you're going to the store because we don't have any spoons left.

Well then, let me get some money.

He stuck his hand down into my shirt and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Lochlan can do it too but you'd expect it from him, not from Jake.

And I am still laughing. Because this morning I realized when he bent that fork that he was capable of using his powers on people too, it just took him almost ten years to perfect it.

Witness protection.

Oops. My friends are holding me at arms length this afternoon. Not because I publically shared a profoundly intimate moment with Jacob (who holds his words more sacred than his flesh just like I do) but because I admitted that I'm still listening to a song that came out when I was thirteen years old.

I know.

Then you won't be surprised either if I told you I keep Kansas, Bad Company and Bon Jovi in heavy rotation too.

And I didn't grow up to be embarrassed of my pictures in off the shoulder shirts and parachute pants and giant plastic neon jewelry, oh no. My wardrobe was a heavy rotation of Metallica t-shirts and incredibly tight jeans. Black high heels, eyeliner and a whole lot of hair. My dream? To follow in Tawny Kitaen's footsteps and get paid to roll around on the hood of a car.

Go big or go home, Bridget.

(As you can see, I went home.)

And pretty range wildly between gypsy lovechild and metal queen now. Okay. Shut up.