I hate the nights. If I stay up and just sit and type or read, would you be here? Would you stay with me?

Of course not. No one can. No one knows what this is like, no one could possibly fix this hole, it's on the inside and you can't see how huge it really is.

The love lives of the rich and famous.

Christian and I cleaned the whole house this morning. He played DJ and floor washer and I scrubbed woodwork and glass until my hand hurt too much and now the house shines. I'm just about ready for Christmas. I sent boxes of presents home to Nova Scotia and I have to figure out Christmas day (argh) and all that was left was to give the guys their presents otherwise.

Which were supposed to be surprises. (No worries, they were.)

Actually they were double-surprises. I gave them all adopted polar bears and the bike loan payouts were going to be random surprises discovered later on when their final payout confirmation statements came in the mail a week or two from now. I was trying to be sneaky.

Because they have gone so far above and beyond their friendship duties. They've let me spend hours crying on their shoulders and in their arms. I simply wanted to make their lives easier, the same way they've made mine easier. It goes both ways. I never wanted for much and financially I could do it and so I did.

My guys are touched to the point of adulation. I'd like to beat them all senseless.

Nothing. ever. changes. I love them all, so much.

Chris also asked me to help him go though matches he received from an online dating site he's trying out. I had three major feelings. One, God bless his heart, he's a huge catch and shouldn't have to venture into the unknowns of online hookups. Two, he needs this so bad. He's tired of being alone, tired of not having someone to call his own and not having much luck.

And three, that I can't be involved in any aspect of who he chooses to connect with. Only because between crushes and weird friendships and me being far too important to my friends to the point of their isolation from possible romantic encounters I need to step away from any sort of advice or input when it comes to him breaking away a little and finding his own happiness.

I can see what being tied to someone's approval and expectations gets. How it feels and it isn't fair to anyone and I have my fingers crossed so hard for Christian it's painful. He laughed and told me to not get my hopes up, and I was just happy he confided at all. I'd like us to find a nice line to draw somewhere that would be comfortable and keep him from having his life further messed up on account of me.

It kind of stings a little too. I didn't cause this but I became the cause of all of this and they won't let go any more than I will because too much time means we're too close and too selfish and too old to begin again and maybe we can take what we've got as friends and reshape it enough to let it flourish without suffocating anyone involved. I would love to have a group of friends that included a few girls that took the pressure off me being the center of the universe.

I know. I complain about things others might kill for. This isn't for me, this is for them. I love them so much, and so I'm trying to let them go (okay, but just a little). I want them all to be happy. I want to sign PJ up for this site so much now. Christian is still laughing about that.

It's a nice hope to find in the midst of polishing silver candlesticks and washing down baseboards. The thought that maybe Chris, PJ, Joel and Mark, even August could find loves to call their own, love for love's sake, on their terms, in their lives. Loch is doing it (look- I can be happy for him! Who knew?), they can too, right?

I have so much to look forward to today.

Metal for breakfast.

Well, shit.

Proving how really immature we are, Ben and I just wrapped up yet another blisteringly painful and uncharacteristically loud phone call in which he said cruelly that I was impossible to love but under his skin so far he wished at this point that he had never met me.

I saw his wager and raised him one, pointing out that he was going to sound very fucking ungrateful when he discovered that as his Christmas present I had paid off the loan for his brand new Victory motorcycle. The very same loan that he otherwise would have paid off somewhere around his forty-fifth birthday.

I think I won that round. Or maybe I didn't.

(*The title is an inside joke for the boys, who always say they have metal for breakfast when they ride their bikes to work and then get coffee there.)

Ownership issues.

In a nutshell, I'm too tired and too busy to still be dealing with this.

Ruth is doing better, she's mostly napping and munching on toast. Henry decided he was sick too until Joel came over with a remote control snowmobile to play with in the snow in the backyard. The boys are now out there making Butterfield go crazy.

I'm tired. Did I mention I was tired?

Too tired for Ben to be jealous that Joel is here, seeing as how today is a day off for Joel, just like Ben had Friday through Sunday off and I am lucky that everyone wants to spend their days off with us instead of somewhere fun. Not good enough for Ben, who tried to pull rank talking about the trip to Canmore and made too many assumptions and said some shitty things about Joel and I asked him to stop, I asked so quietly just for him to not go there for once and yeah well, it wouldn't be a new week if Ben and I could ever be on speaking terms for more than a few days at a time.

Especially since I already told him I didn't think we were going to join him for anti-Christmas. Not because I have issues with it but because everyone else seems to.

I need sleep. Sleep and peace of mind, a couple of healthy kids and a magic potion for curing imaginary jealousy. In a gallon spray bottle, if you will.

More elephants you won't appreciate.

Flutters brought on largely by the little pink pills in particular, counted in their measure of the concentrations in my blood at any given moment, spilled and numbered like golden coins and a pat on the head and three more days of expected compliance to the pharmacy gods until the next test.

Emotions drawn out and dissected and balled up and stuffed back inside at the end of ninety minutes, as if they've somehow been improved, when really it's the equivalent of going to the Gap and shaking out every sweater in a neatly folded pile and not quite folding them again as you return them to the shelf. It's effective, but it looks like shit.

Watchful, kind eyes that wouldn't know a sign or a trick if it lit their ass on fire hoping just to make it through a shift without incident, nights punctuated in a huge sigh of relief that makes me fill with shame at what edge they must live on.

Fragility instilled through love, crafted into a tangible flaw that is now woven into my very core. The one thing I can't shake. The one thing I'm told they will never see me without. My shadow. Handle with care, but if you shake me you hear the broken glass inside. Maybe it's too late.

One single plea to let it go. To forget time, to forget history, to forget who we're supposed to be and just be. Without pink pills or therapy or supervised free time or baggage or any other goddamn thing. Just let it go. Just for one moment. Just breathe in the cold air. Just close your eyes.

Just get picked up and dunked into the deep snow on the front lawn. Headfirst.

Maybe it was necessary and it had the desired effect. It broke the ice I keep frozen around my soul and it led to a heart to heart talk that contained the one biggest conversation we haven't really ever had.

The Apology Conversation. The one that's required for Ben to eradicate his inner demons, become a better person and deepen our friendship back to the way it used to be. He is obviously in the lead here. He's surprisingly had this conversation with everyone except for me, because I scare the living daylights out of him. Anyone who tells you I am intimidating has to be lying but I somehow understand.

But last night gave him courage and he just started blurting things out. Excuses and then retractions and then more excuses and finally it came pouring out in a muddle of I'm sorries and I love yous that had me sitting quietly for a moment playing it all back hoping I had heard it properly.

And then I looked up at him, I looked at him sitting there shaking like a leaf, pale and somber, uncharacteristic, looking less like the frat boy I've had such fun with and more like a man who is trying to straighten up his life and I smiled at him. I told him I forgave him and I know how hard he has worked to attend his meetings and be clean and fight his way back into my good graces and win back my trust.

He has my emotional trust but it all hinges on physical trust. Something he had in spades once, a long time ago when he helped me change my clothes around a sling and so many broken bones but something that vanished the night he got drunk and came looking for me. Something we have worked to build back and something he won't ever mess with again. I have to trust him in order to spend any time with him. He stands just a little bit shy of Jacob's height, one of the reasons he wasn't afraid of Jacob and would go down fighting any time. Except Ben doesn't have the same grace. Ben is all elbows and shoulderblades and cheekbones and flashing eyes and inexcusable energies. Ben is dark. Ben is passionate about all the wrong things and always overstepping his boundaries, and so his size makes him a threat by default. Or it did anyway. It doesn't anymore. Whatever desperation, whatever place in his head he existed through last year is gone now, never to return.

He's a lot like me. Flawed. Making mistakes but refusing to be crushed by them. Maybe he's my best friend now at last, maybe he always was, maybe it wasn't Cole that he had so much in common with. Maybe he's smart enough to backpedal and ease off and disappear at the perfect moment when we're too close and too familiar and too grateful for the company close at hand. He's not the bad guy. He's my friend. It's too easy for me to dump on him. If you don't know him in person you might hate him and that's not fair.

After that conversation, an offer for him to stay the night in the guest room (still! with the LOCKED DOOR at the end of the hall for those of you who think I'm awful and am doing things I shouldn't be) was on the tip of my tongue but he got up, grabbed his coat and scarf and then grabbed me in a hug and said he had a very good day and he felt better than he had in a very long time and he was happy to have a fresh start with me.

And he went the hell home.

Just like a good elephant should.

Of course it won't make sense. Ruth has been up throwing up now since midnight and is finally asleep again. I have four loads of laundry and a long day ahead of me. I'm allowed to not make sense.

Leave us alone.

I almost made it to church today. I knew it was a mistake but part of me wanted to go and I got as far as the side door of the building when a reporter appeared out of nowhere and kindly asked how I was doing. I thought maybe he was just a friend of Sam, to be so familiar, until I realized his hand was holding a recorder. Ben gave him a shove and asked him what his problem was and tried to block him but I had already turned, taking the kids and going back down the steps back to the truck. I could hear Sam calling out to me and I didn't turn around and I could feel a hundred eyes on me so I didn't look. I just got back in the truck and belted the kids because they can't manage with mittens on and then I got into the front and locked the doors and drove home, pulling the truck into the garage and sitting there, with the kids asking if we were going to find a new church or maybe can we go inside the house now and I didn't move until Ben pulled on the door handle and pounded on the window, asking me to open the door.

Too tired for this. I can't deal with this.

Not tired.

Coffee at 8 pm, after the movie probably wasn't the smartest plan but it helped bring me back down from the zombiefest that was I am Legend. It was pretty good, I always like Will Smith's serious turns, and God knows Bridget loves her zombies.

They're like, my peoples or something.

I will be up all night now. Alllllll night. Thanks Joel!

Lawyer tag.

    We're all in
    So begin
    Just remember I win
    I win,
    I win,
    I win,
    I win,
    I win,
    I win,
    I win,
    I win.

Never underestimate someone with nothing left to lose.

A treasured book with missing pages.

    I am a lover hater
    I am an instigator
    You are an oversight
    Don't try to compromise
    I'll learn to love to hate it
    I am not integrated

Early therapy this morning (again), squeezed in because I pay well.

I'm not dumb. Money can buy just about anything I don't need.

This morning when I woke up both of my worst nervous habits had moved back in to stay. My friends thought I was dead when I abruptly stopped doing one and then the other but I was quite pleased and then this morning I was told one never even went away, they have simply learned to ignore it.

That would be the head-nodding. I nod, gently, almost imperceptibly when people talk to me and I choose not to listen. It makes me look intent, agreeable and it's unconscious. I didn't even know I did it until it was pointed out after one too many misunderstandings.

This morning my Queen CD went frisbeeing out the passenger-side window, across the field toward the tracks less than a block from my house. Who wants to live forever, indeed.

I sat on my hands the whole way in. On the way home I sat on them again and it was only when I sat down with a fourth cup of coffee that Ben pointed out that the fluttering was almost welcome after not seeing it for a long time. He said it's more endearing and less frightening than when I sit like a statue. He grabbed my wayward hand and kissed my fingers. They're already cracked and split from the cold, from handling wood and washing them a billion times a day, from holding tissues and pictures. From wiping tears and from locking doors seventeen times an hour on my way to bed. And from not caring.

I snatched my hand back, scowling at him. He laughed quietly and changed the subject.

I refused to talk about Jacob today, in therapy or otherwise. I started to sometime this week but I can't so back in the box he goes inside my head and I will touch a memory when I can do it without blinding pain flooding in. It makes me angry. I need those thoughts and I need them now and I can't be forced to confront them. I was doing so good and I have to protect myself and they no longer call it shock or denial. I forget what they said. I was too busy nodding and thinking through the names of all the Warren Miller movies I could name in my head. And not fluttering, goddammit. It's been too long for shock and too far for denial and they tell me I can't outrun it forever.

Oh hell yes I can.

It's better to be perceived as fucked-up and cold.

It's better to be a bitch than a shell of a person.

It's better not to be alone. I don't have to be alone today. Today will be okay. Today is okay

Oh my fuck, do you want to know something? Something from the deep dark locked file cabinet inside my head of shit I shouldn't say out loud lest I appear to be ungracious or graceless or just plain selfish?

Well, then here's a big one.

I hate being alone.

I hate living alone.

I hate sleeping alone. I hate waking up alone. I hate showering alone and I hate talking to myself from the time the children go to bed to when they wake up in the morning.

Alone and I, well, we don't get along. I've never tasted it for any length of time, I don't think it's something I would enjoy and yet...

Here I am. Forever cursed to be alone.

Nice.