Libel (OH hi Caleb.)

Under threat of legal action, I've been forced to edit a couple of entries here. Long story which will probably end violently if I'm lucky.

I've also been asked to write a public apology and I'm only thinking about it, since under the circumstances I highly doubt I'm the one who's causing the most trouble right now.

Proving them right.

(In one post I'm going to expose Ben for the whole internet to see. The cross-dressing, bagpipe-playing, serial destroyer of his own perfectly good relationships Ben. Who still retains his cool, since he's going on tour now and all that. Oh, at the same time I'll expose myself as the dysfunctional needy damsel in distress I freely admit to being.)

Ben's off to fulfill his dreams for a few months. Some of you are aware that his day job is not his real job, it just pays for his wishes. I won't say any more than that to protect his privacy. He'll be back before Christmas.

You moving in?

Nope, Bridge, just returning some stuff I've hung on to for a bit.

Oh, I see.

Inside the box were random golf clubs that I didn't know belonged to us, some books, a few CDs and Cole's bagpipes. There were also a bunch of pictures of me and one of Jacob's bulletins that had our marriage announcement printed in it. A sweater I thought I lost at the fair.

Ben, none of this stuff has to come back. You can keep it.

No, Bridge, it has to go. These are your things.

You can have them.

I don't want them. Oh, geez, Bridge. Maybe I need to get your stuff out so I can get you out.

Of your head?

Of my life.

Wow. Way to make a girl feel good.

That's just it, Bridget. We've sponged off your generosity far too long and we have too big a say in your choices. The only way to let go of our ownership over you is to let go of you.

Oh. PJ got to you?

Nope.

Oh, please don't say Jacob is doing this.

No, it isn't Jake and it isn't PJ. We've all talked and we're not good for you anymore. I was never good for you anyway. You're doing so well and we just want to see that continue without any of the bullshit.

You're my friend, Benjamin.

Hey, I'll always be your friend. I'll just be around less. Going to be gone most of the fall anyway.

What about the kids?

They're going to be in school all day, Bridget. I'll still see them when I'm back. You still have to invite me for the occasional dinner. I just can't be here all the time and be around. You guys need some space so you can have a real chance.

So Jacob starts his job in a bit and you leave and everyone else disappears and I'm left alone?

(sweet panic follows)

(big hug follows)

Don't guilt me.

Don't abandon me, Benny.

I'm not abandoning you, Bridget. Jake isn't Cole. He doesn't like having everyone around all the time. And you, you need downtime, and quiet time and time to get used to being with him. Watching you two together is excruciating. I mean you waited so long to be together and now that you are, you should be happier together but instead you're both wound up and miserable and stuck in some sort of frozen state in which you can't accept that it's okay for you to be together. You guys need time, Bridget. Time to get to know each other. Without all of us sabotaging you.

I know.

Good.

So can't we do it without the dramatic farewells and creepily mature conversations?

Yeah. I could put this box down and throw you in the kiddie pool.

Hearing aids, Ben.

Oh yeah. Dammit. Okay, how about another hug? A friend hug, nothing weird.

Please, Ben, everything is weird with you.

Bring it, princess.

You got it, Tucker.

My God, this is hard. I was all cool about it until you turned those Bambi eyes on me.

Who are you doing this for again?

For all of us, Bridge. Maybe leaving is the only way I can really leave you and the giant alone. The guy deserves a real chance and he isn't getting it this way. That's something we call can agree on. If I had my way I'd throw you over my shoulder and run off, caveman style. But seriously, you and Jake, man, it's sweet and it needs a chance to play out. Take it and be happy. He's good for you. He'll be good to you. Or we'll kill him. There will be no more Coles in your life.

You'll kill him? Good luck with that.

Okay, maybe we could all attempt to knock him down.

Then what?

Run away while he's getting back up?

Right.

Love you, Bridget. Go be happy. I'm sorry I ever tried to mess with you.

Trying my best, here. Love you too. Fucking idiot. Go find a girl to fuck.

Oh trust me. I'm working on it.

It's about time, Ben. Find one that sticks. Not in a gross way though.

Shut up already, Bridget.

K.
Didn't I tell you? They're all going to make their excuses now and cast me off. It'll probably be the best thing they ever do.

Jacob's response?

Ah! The old agony bags, I thought they were long gone. Maybe I should learn to play.

Sweet mother of God.

Kids are back this afternoon. I'm bouncing off the walls.

He's savvy enough no to figure out the RSS feeds.

Esoteric, insane. Ignore, please.

An easy answer and she didn't even have to spell out a question for it to come flooding in via a giant blonde man walking purposefully from one end of one floor of the house to the other end of a different floor of the house where he found his tiny wife, still typing like a madwoman and having a hard time figuring out why she can't latch on to the simplest of facts anymore. Because she forced him to watch as she was broken by someone else, someone she couldn't even let go of until she was forced to choose. And maybe as much as she is grateful for that she knows that she also blames him for that.

The weaker she became, the more power she held in her helplessness. Everyone loves her fragility. It brings out who they are and it protects who she used to be.

The similarity is love, passion for you, Bridget, and the difference is that you traded the sadism for affection. Because now you finally know that there's a difference.

Resemblances past and battles won with silence.

(A comparison I never made and never wanted to, and a memory I'd like to keep, even if I shouldn't. It's a piece of my soul and everyone wants it, so here. Jacob wants me to deal with this because I steadfastly refuse to and it's holding him up. I'll apologize for the three-way conversation in advance.)

    If I had to
    I would put myself right beside you
    So let me ask
    Would you like that?
    Would you like that?
Looking around at my friends, they're all intimate in some way, they're all alike, I can predict what they will say, what they'll pick to eat or do, how they'll feel. They found each other through similar interests-music, death defying sports, Cole, me. Sought out because these guys love to be in close vicinity to Bridget's sweet smile and long blonde hair, especially if she'll feed you. Food to your belly and thoughts for your soul.

I love men who are athletic, artistic, emotional, affectionate, muscular, musically inclined and medievally minded. Which I'm not explaining today.

So it stands as slight surprise that Cole and Jacob were alot alike, despite the fact that they were polar opposites.

Possibly.

Cole had dark brown hair, dark brown beard, usually a goatee, dark blue eyes, he always wore black t-shirts and black or blue jeans. The dark ringer for Trey Anastasio.

Jacob has white blonde hair, a blonde beard, eyes so light blue they're just about white, he lives in white shirts and paler jeans or cords, dimples and a drop-dead beautifully amused smile that makes him look just like a young Redford.

Attitude-wise they were both tensely laid-back, mellow but quick to anger, kind but cutting.

And that's where it stops. They liked different foods, different drinks, Jacob likes alcohol once in a blue moon but it ruins him, Cole could drink anything regularly and it never phased him. They spoke the same language. They both played guitar, only Cole very rarely sang, while Jacob never stops singing. Loud. He has no shame. Cole was too shy for that.

They both loved people around but Jacob likes to stick to the phone once he's home for the day or night.

I said they spoke the same language. I wasn't kidding. The night I left him, Cole came home to find Jacob blocking his path into the kitchen, where I was sitting in terror of his arrival. Shaking so hard in fear that Jacob was disgusted. He expected a war, at that point.

What's up, Preacher Boy?

She's mine, Brother.

Take her and go, then. Have fun, baby girl.

No, Cole, she's not coming back to you.
Cole stared at Jake without saying anything, the cockiness leaving his eyes, flowing out visibly as it dawned on him that Jake was right. From that point on he ignored Jacob's presence.

Bridge, baby, what have you done?

He wrenched Jacob's arm out of the way and kneeled in front of where I sat at the table.

We're done. We're finished, Cole.

What have you done?

Do you have a place you can stay?

He put his hands up to his face, I flinched and Jacob tensed up but Cole simply rocked back on his heels and then laughed, sadly.

The kids...

Jacob cut him off.

We'll sort out the details later, tonight she wants you out. Fair?

It isn't fair, Bridget.

No, it isn't.

You reap what you sow, Cole.
Don't you say that to me, Preacher. You've been trying to steal my wife since you met her.

I love her.

SO DO I!

You hurt her.

What did you say to him, Bridget?

Nothing. I said nothing.

SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING. My God, do you think we're blind?

I never-

Exactly. Just go, we'll talk tomorrow.

I'm not talking to you. You're a fucking thief.

Cole.

What, baby? Anything.

Go. Please.

He stared at me for what felt like hours and then he stood up slowly and turned, heading upstairs. I heard him go into each child's room, knowing he would kiss them as they slept, oblivious to the change about to happen in their lives and then he threw some clothes into a bag and came back down. He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at me. I would have run to him right then but Jacob was holding my hand. He looked at our hands and turned and left. Slamming the door behind him and then the car door and then I waited for the sound of screeching tires but it never came.

I turned around and asked Jacob to leave. He was incredulous but accommodating.

You can't be here right now.

I know. But if he comes back-

We both know he won't come back tonight.

Bridget, I don't want to leave you alo-

Please just go, Jacob.
The difference between them is Jacob never listens to me either. (Thinkfastdearreader) He didn't go. He decided he should stay and tried to overrule me, instantly overstepping boundaries and claiming ownership and I moved those boundaries closer still and threw him out anyway and he went home after a kiss. After a long kiss I already wrote about here.

I still maintain he probably slept on the front lawn or in the tree house so that he would be close by but he says he walked down to the church for a bit and then went home and slept fitfully.

Someone asked me the other day if I would do it all again knowing what I know now. I would but there would have been a lot of things I would have done differently too. I just don't really know what they are yet.

Delusions of grandeur.

If you ever thought things were perfect, that the universe smooths itself out and everything is suddenly right again and I was under a lucky star, you'd be mistaken.

I'm just trying to keep up with things, with what I want to talk about or what I plan to deal with first, or how I've been steered. It's all right here, there's too many words, it won't make any sense if I rush.

Our anniversary was capped with a trip to the planetarium and then a lovely late romantic dinner at the devastatingly exclusive revolving restaurant that spins slowly above the city lights. It was the completion of my sky gift. It ended a week we began on the floor in the back porch painting the moon and stars on our mural with glow in the dark paint so that the kids will be surprised when they come home on Wednesday.

And then we went to bed to celebrate some more and I pushed him too far and he walked away and hit something and I slid a little farther away down into a hole. He came back full of apologies but he never bothered to stop whispering so I could hear him from that hole.

It's okay. I'll get out of it someday. I don't know when. I can't see where his limits end and mine begin. He says I have none. I have them, he just doesn't understand the difference between a good hurt and a bad one, but I think he is ashamed of me anyway.

He's burning pages before I can write on them now, tearing them out. Such a hurry, always.

Hush, Bridget. Not like that.

But I want it this way.

No...no, you don't.

Dog day afternoon.

I'm going to let hell freeze over today and talk about the dog.

His name is Butterfield.

Butter, for short.

I know. How predictable.

Butterfield is a golden retriever that we've had for some nine months now and I hardly ever mention him because this isn't a dog journal.

There was some talk that he had been purchased by an older gentleman to be trained for use as a hearing/service dog for his deaf grandson but apparently the dog wasn't very trainable. They released him to the shelter here and he came into our lives on a fluke a few days before Christmas. Or I should say, a few hundred dollars right before Christmas. Jacob was in the right time at the right place, because who needs a renegade hearing dog more than Bridget?

His name was Butter before Jacob could get the naming question off his tongue. We are in love. He's blonde, like everyone else, slightly shaggy, like everyone else, and completely goofy, like everyone else.

He ate all of my shoes, the entire corner of the bench in the back porch and a large assortment of drywall and hardwood in the first three months he was with us. He'll eat anything, but his favorite things are carrots, wasabi peas, Jacob's ankles and the top of Henry's head.

He whines if we're all upstairs at the same time. He won't come upstairs. The few times we've bathed him Jacob had to carry him up.

He takes us for three walks a day. Mostly to the ice cream parlour or the river. No, mostly for ice cream. He's eaten through four leashes. I have to use a chain leash now and he looks like a biker-dog.

When we go away PJ comes and looks after Butter, letting him ride shotgun in the front seat of the truck and buying him giant rawhide bones. Butter loves PJ in an unnatural way but mostly he loves nighttime when we let him out before we go up to bed and then he comes in and settles on his pretty plaid dog bed and looks at his nightlight to make sure it's on and then he goes to sleep before we are out of the porch.

He barks at everyone like a psychopath who comes unannounced to the door or to the gate. Everyone except for blondes. He goes ape-dog barking at Christian (very dark redhead) and doesn't even look up when Loch arrives (red but closer blonde this time of year).

He's always at our heels and under our feet. He's in our thoughts when we're away for the afternoon and you could melt in his big brown puppy eyes. I could do without the drooling, chewing and shedding, but I've been told we have another year or so of that.

What I do like most about Butter? He likes to run, but he can't talk. Which is more than I can say for my other blonde running mate. Especially on days like today when Jacob is in fine verbal form and has all kinds of words he needs to get out.

What I like even better than the lack of words is Butter's ability to drink from his bowl in the kitchen and drool water all over the floor so when Jacob goes to grab the ringing phone he wipes out on the tiles.

Oh, I never laughed so hard as I did to hear this huge crash this morning and come in to find Jacob sprawled out all over the floor. He's okay, no worries. He only hurt his pride. And he still loves the dog like you wouldn't believe. If I had drooled water all over the floor, causing Jacob to fall I would have been outside for the rest of the day. Possibly on a leash.

But no, Butter is in there now lying on the couch with his head on Jacob's shoulder. Must be nice.

What today is.

    When love beckons to you, follow him
    though his ways are hard and steep.
    And when his wings enfold you, yield to him
    though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
    And when he speaks to you, believe in him.

Last year on this day it poured down rain. Every time the thunder rumbled I had to ask Carolyn what the words were that I was supposed to repeat after her to say my vows. I was nervous and terrified and so so happy.

A year later, let's evaluate.

Yes.

I still maintain I did the right thing. I think the numerous detours, roadblocks, potholes and cataclysmic accidents were all tests and we survived to drive another sunset drive down the highway toward the big orange ball surrounded by a lavender hue that makes me restless and drives me blind.

He blows my mind.

I'm happy I married Jacob. I'm blessed to have him. I love him. I wish we had found a way to lead a quieter first married year. Some of it we caused, some we didn't. We lost the one and only baby we'll ever try to have together. We destroyed our trust in each other and tested each other's faith. We cast off our respect for each other like dirty clothing. We've thrown ourselves to the wolves to see if we would emerge in pieces or surprisingly unscathed. We've made improvements. We've made changes in the way we think, and the way we act. In the way we treat each other.

We've grown patience and now tend it like a beautiful garden.

He still loves his little fucked up deaf girl.

If you want, you can share in the toast Jacob made over the champagneless mimosas that he brought upstairs this morning. Possibly the most unromantic he has ever been. And that's okay too.

Damned if you aren't everything I ever wanted and whole bunch of stuff I didn't expect. Here's to the rest of our lives, princess. Fuck, I hope the future is calmer than the past, and even better than the present.

Happy very first anniversary to my beloved Jacob. We almost never made it to this day but I'm so grateful that we did. Happy that we did. Relieved that we did.

Now on to year two.

High deafinition.

Yesterday was a religious experience. Sorry, honey. There's no way to adequately describe this. True to form I'll give it a shot.

Jake is certifiable and possibly prouder right now this morning than he might have been a year ago last night after having gotten the acceptance of his marriage proposal. He accomplished something he has wanted to do ever since he taught me how to turn the sky into my ocean.

He gave it to me, in two hands, with ease.

Something we can't seem to pull off with the saltwater.

And I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane yesterday afternoon. Albeit strapped to the front of my now incredibly friendly instructor, who, after consulting with the other instructors and ground crew decided that I would tandem jump. I'm guessing this is normal for the first time? For that I was incredibly grateful. Up until that moment I felt...well, ugh, handicapped, unprepared.

No, I'll be honest. Up until that moment I felt like I was planning my own death. More on that in a minute.

Before we got on the plane Jacob came over to me and took my head in both his hands and pressed his nose to mine and told me when we jumped I was to open my eyes, and take in every cloud, every shade of blue, every quilt pattern of farm fields on the ground. I was to record every heartbeat and every ounce of good fear and exhilaration and bliss and to remember every nanosecond of how it felt. That he was going to give me the sky and I was about to really feel full of life in a way I never had before. That it would change me forever.

He kissed me as if it was one that had to last a lifetime. Which kind of freaked me out. Truth be told I was a bit sarcastic with him.

Quit with the dramatics, Jake, you're making me nervous.

Oh, but if I had any inkling of how right he was, I might have been easier on him. But he wasn't nervous, he's done this a dozen times before, he was nervous for me, for I have never had any ambition to fly past being on the roof of my house or jumping into his arms when he's been out for a while. Not since the circus, anyway.

We went up. I couldn't hear anyone to talk much in the plane. I held Jacob's hand in a death grip. We rose thousands of feet in the air and then I was strapped to someone I met yesterday morning. How...awkward but he seemed pretty capable.

And then I watched my husband blow me a kiss and step out of the plane.

Four more people went after Jacob and finally it was my turn. It took forever to come.

(This was the way it would be, then. Surrounded by strangers with qualifications, unable to communicate my wishes, in an alien setting, this would be how it happens. Without Jacob.)

And then I died.

When I dared to open my eyes in heaven the world had turned silent, overly bright and surprisingly cold. I was confronted with a birds' eye view that I never wanted but he gave it to me and I knew he would keep me safe so I embraced it. I missed nothing. I saw everything there was to see. I felt my heart racing the wind back to the ground. I felt my soul scream something that I couldn't hear and I was flooded with a joy I've never felt before. When we were close enough to the ground to pick out features I zeroed in on Jacob and watched as his face turned from concern to utter victory. When my toes touched the ground he left the earth again, jumping into the air and pumping his fist. I heard him yell something. He came running over and I was quickly unstrapped from the tandem master and Jacob took my helmet off and then swung me around like a rag doll.

I couldn't even speak but he knew I was happy by the huge stupid windblown grin on my face.

He touched my face. Ow. Windburn. Sunblasted. A kiss I couldn't feel because every molecule inside was burning up.

But there was no fear. None. Zero.

I didn't think you'd do it.

I love you, Jacob. (Icantthinkanymorethiswassoincrediblybeautiful)

I didn't know I had a choice but now I'm glad I didn't know or I may never have gone up.

I never would have felt so alive.

Watching the movie they took of me (complete with Jacob's victory leap in the foreground!) it took far less time from beginning to end for my jump than I actually had up there. I haven't quite figured that out yet. Very very freaking neat.

What did he yell when I landed?

That's my girl!

Hmmm. I sat down to write and Jacob just told me to go get dressed. He has plans for me, he says. Something about the third day of August and his love of planning elaborate romantic surprises makes me vaguely nervous.

I sat down to write to you that I heard via the boy-grapevine that Loch and Kiera have come to some agreements and arrangements and he won't go down in flames as the biggest asshole that ever lived. It's good news all the way around and no, I won't be having any contact with him any time soon.

So, I'm off, wish me luck and if you know what Jacob is up to, I'll deal with you later.

Best comment of the entire week (which isn't even over yet).

Mmmm, come here and let me hold you for a while, Princess. You smell like lilacs.