Stuff.

To soften it, Ben made sure I was happy when he made his wake up call this morning. You know, the one in which he finally told me that the dates are extended through the first week of April.

Something he knew for a couple of weeks now (FINE, a week. He knew for a week, because somehow that MAKES IT ALL OKAY). The end date of March 17 had been retracted the day after it came out, and he didn't have the guts to tell me. Even after encouraging me to tell the kids when I said I wasn't going to tell them at all, in case it got moved back. It had already been moved back and he still pushed for me to give them something to be excited about.

I'm going ahead with my plans. Cole's mom arrives this weekend. She's with you-know-who in Toronto right now and then she'll come here, spend a night visit for a few hours because of the weather, take the kids back to the farm, and then after five days they'll be handed off to Jacob's parents, who will bring them back at the end of spring break as they accompany Erin back out-she is moving back out west permanently.

I'm excited that she's coming back for good. I'm thrilled that the grandparents are doing this for Ruth and Henry who are so excited they no longer sleep or wait turns to talk, chattering nonstop about the fun they're going to have. The kids being away will buy me a little time with telling them Ben is delayed.

Since Mark is with Ben, PJ and I are slightly cooling and Joel is gone, that leaves me alone to torture John, Andrew, Rob and August. Who are all busy and doing their thing and Ben had asked with a cringe of fear if I would just not be upset and I told him I wasn't and he was so relieved I think he promised to somehow make all my dreams come true whenever it is that he gets off his merry go round, when he's done and comes home and is bored and back to mundane real life.

I let him say whatever would ease his guilt because right between us, there on the phone was a huge flashing sign that said YOU LIED AGAIN and I wonder what else he's lied about and I wonder why I lied to him when I really was upset about it but instead I just pressed my off button and let it ride to preserve the day. It didn't work. It's sinking in that they're all selfish jerks who just take what they want and they leave the fallout all over the place and never clean up their mess.

I'm here, cleaning it up alone. But it isn't working and it just keeps happening and I'm not sure if they take advantage because I'm so fragile or if I just pick men that can't handle things and self-destruct but I know that somewhere, deep down, something has to give and I can't give anymore. I feel like calling up every last one of the guys and screaming them fully awake, telling them they knew. How could they encourage me so soon, how could they implore me to throw myself deeper into something knowing that when it didn't work that I'd be that much worse off because I haven't had time to figure out how to catch myself? I can watch myself fall, I can watch myself get smashed onto the pavement and it's curiously gratifying. Maybe now I can change my name and move somewhere benign and just start again.

Maybe I could find someone who isn't going to hurt me or lie to me or just use me.

Maybe pigs will fly.

Told.

Predictably Ben called and told me to stop protecting him. That his perfect woman was six feet tall and had dark hair and was really together but for some reason I got stuck in his heart and never got unstuck and that he's really fucking thrilled to be with me, and if I thought that making him out to be the bad guy here and trying to make him mad enough to walk away was going to work, that I don't know him at all. That he is hundreds of miles away and worried sick about me and all he wants to do is come home but that the worry is preferable to being without me altogether.

And then he said to knock it off and just go get through the last five days and then things will be better but he was going to go crazy if he had read any more of my attempts to derail myself when it comes to him.

I promised him I would try and then asked if he was kidding when he said his perfect woman was my exact opposite.

He said no.

I think I deserved that. I developed a lump in my throat the size of my fist. He said that told him more than anything I could write in this stupid journal and that he loves me, that he has since we met and he will when we're dead. Then he asked if I was okay with the whole idea of necrophilia.

I did say he was a weirdo. A really, really sweet one though.

Nose to nose.

    I don't have faith in faith
    I don't believe in belief
    You can call me faithless
    I still cling to hope
    And I believe in love
    And that's faith enough for me

Things were a little harder on Ben's last night home.

One of my biggest fears about falling in love again revolves around the risk that Ben might do something Jacob used to. Or Cole, more likely but still, while Jacob used second-nature actions and went on gut-feeling, I can't expect everything Ben does when he touches me or talks to me to be one hundred percent new or different.

So it's not and it's difficult and I have torn myself away from more embraces or moments than you could shake a stick at and one moment of overwhelming closeness that dissolved into horror on both our parts the night he instinctively traced my bottom lip and I completely shut down and he got angry and these are a different kind of eggshells to walk on, honestly.

They're all so much alike and it's why I loved them and Ben isn't perfect, not even close the way Jacob was and he'll never be as smooth as Cole could be but his heart is huge and his incredible grasp of simply living life as it goes along is monumental. He isn't like them, he's different in so many ways. You can't believe how wonderful he can be. Or how cruel. Wait, that puts him back in the Cole-likeness territory. Which figures.

He rubbed my lip again because he said he liked it, that it was intimate and incredible and close and that was what he wanted me to be to him and that I would get used to it maybe or maybe not but he wasn't going to second-guess himself with me to avoid the ghosts we keep.

I agreed and within half a minute we were nose to nose and that was so familiar too and I closed my eyes and then when I opened them again I was swimming in warm tiger-eye browns and his expression-rich face that is so incredibly solid and sure in spite of his reputation.

Beautiful. He said sleeping with me was underrated, that loving me was beyond what he had expected. I just stared into his eyes. He said he thought he loved me before, he had no idea.

I have ruined him, too.

He said he thinks of little else these days and I cut him off, reminding me that he built me into this, he's elevated me beyond my place, that he could not make me responsible for his own mistakes or his feelings. His whole face changed and he grabbed me and this time it wasn't sweet and soft and gingerly, it was harsh, painful and frightening. He said it wasn't a mistake and that he had tasted life, in every wonderful moment that could be, and now he knew what life was all about. What Bridget was all about. He understood what happens, at last.

We would have fought with it all night but finally in tears and exhaustion we fell asleep, arms around each other, Bridget squished underneath Ben's big frame as he was so worn out and I was so tired of the circles I think in.

In the morning he looked at me and said sadly that I was not forever, was I? I shook my head and said I didn't know. He broke down, mashing the pillow over his face to hide from me and I rubbed his back and told him I wasn't worth whatever he would go through and he tore the pillow away and shook me hard, saying something that will forever be burned into my mind.

But that's just it. It IS worth it. You ARE worth it. But am I worth it?

What do you mean?

I mean if you hold your breath every time I touch you in case it feels the same to you, am I worth that pain to you? Will you deal with that pain to be with me?

I will.

Then I'm not planning to mince words or actions. I hung out with the guys for the last billion years, it doesn't matter if we share moves or words. The point is, this is about you and I and has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with Jake or Cole. Can you live with that?

I can.

No, really, because I don't plan to complicate this. I'm not going to fight with you.

Oh please. We're born so complicated.

Bridget, look at me.

What?

Who am I?

You are Ben.

Who am I not?

Oh, he was going to torture me now. I was reduced to hoarse whispers and trembling elbows.

You're not Jacob. You aren't Cole.

Good, then everything is new by default.

By default.

Yes, your favorite expression. You think I miss stuff. I don't. I hear every word you've ever said and done everything you've ever asked of me and now it's time you did something for me.

What?

Don't make everything so hard or so profound. You're the person I went to when I wanted to feel happy. The one who always made me feel better and came up with fun things to do or make me laugh at the drop of a hat. You traded insults better than any of the guys. Where is that Bridget?

She's dead.

She isn't dead.

Oh, she's fucking dead.

Then I'm dead too.

Nice.
He laughed and repeated that I wasn't dead. He is coming back with expectations. I know he is and I don't want to be in the position. The position of having to watch over his heart so that it doesn't get broken. Again.

Hesitating on the edge of I don't even know what.

    It's been a while since you last saw me
    One breaks down and the other ones fade
    These eyes can see the days break
    Too late for the other's mistakes

    Sit down laugh thinking what have we done
    Let me inside
    Is it all over before it's begun
    Please give me some time

The demand for emotion-filled posts on how I feel, how I'm doing seems to be blood for your veins and no one, even me, seems content to pass off a review or a few lines about how I spent a morning.

Interesting. Who is the masochist now?

Okay, I am, that wasn't fair, was it?

Here's the thing. Overwhelmingly, the most frequent question I get asked, aside from the please, write more porn one is why do I keep writing?

I promise, when I get to have more sex, I'll write about it. Until then we can all be frustrated together.

Here is why: I'm a writer, and I'm also loathe to leave anything unfinished. Walking away from this journal that will be four years old soon would be like turning off a movie you're really enjoying before the conclusion. I'm waiting to write my own happy ending.

I'm waiting to write better entries. I'm waiting to have better days. I'm trying to take deep breaths again and I'm learning to not worry about Ben dying or everyone leaving or winding up in hell where the fight over me will rage on. I'm content to have this incredibly stinging existence where I know I am loved and I can love in return but with a heaping serving of deja vu so large it throws a shadow on everything and keeps the sunlight from reaching the ground where I stand.

I'm going to get there. I'm looking forward to it.

I woke up alone this morning, alone with my smile. The sun came up and I threw open the window and beamed back at it. My friends called and I greeted each one of them with a happy good morning wish instead of my customary Hey. I walked the dog listening to happy music. I did some long-ignored clearing out of closets I haven't opened in months.

I found some strength. I found a little hope. I found that I might be able to get through this after all. Things get better. John gave me a rabbit's foot this morning as I stood on the field watching him take down the boards around the ice rink that Jacob helped construct at the beginning of the winter. He told me it would bring me luck. I told him he was right, it probably would.

Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.

Hey. Short and sweet. A Bridget staple.

In between learning how to give Henry his asthma medications and listening to Ben tell me in great detail what he'd like to do to PJ when he gets home next week and the temperatures being on the right side of zero, I have a request.

Go watch Across the Universe. Right now. Turn it up.

Now go buy the DVD.

It's that good. I cried the first time I saw the trailer a year ago (don't tease me, please), and not only because I'm a huge Beatles fan but because it looked passionate. it was. For anyone who cringes thinking of covering Beatles songs and how good could they possibly be, rest assured. They are.

Soundtrack also available. Right now it's shaking the paintings right off my walls.

All the guys loved it. The kids loved it, we all pledged to watch it again this weekend. Ben watched it the same night and loved it. It's awesome, I'm falling back on that word again. I can't even describe why I liked it so much. Let's just say it had a little bit of everything in it, but between the music and the emotions and the total visual overload, I'm happy that movies like this are still being made.

For the record, I will try to keep PJ safe (STOP LAUGHING) from Ben and Henry is absolutely okay, it's very mild, and mostly manifesting in chronic coughing. He's my little man, such a trooper.

    See how they fly like Lucy in the Sky, see how they run.
    I'm crying.

Ghostwriter.

It's been healthy returning to some old favorite activities recently, like taking a morning out of the weekend to stroll the farmer's market, moved indoors until the warmer weather, rife with knitted goods and the remains of winter vegetables, mostly a few assorted, tired-looking squash, the every populous parsnips no one likes and apples, so many apples. I buy them by the basket. Potatoes too.

Saturday morning I took the kids by myself. We sang along with the new Jack Johnson CD (they like it, so hush) on the way out past the edge of the city and instead of the usual suspects in root vegetables we were greeted with new boxes of glorious early spring fruits, better than what I can find at the grocery store. Mountains of gorgeous California strawberries.

Before I knew what I was doing, I asked the man selling them for ten pounds, wrapped to travel. After all, it's been three seasons since I bottled jam for the dry pantry, we're all but out of it now. I was practically drooling. It was all I could think about as I fixed lunch on Sunday and then cleaned up, fielded a half-dozen phone calls and then sent the kids to play so I could start.

I picked up my paring knife and then I changed my mind, heading upstairs to the bedroom. I opened the closet and got out the big wooden box and dug through journals and treasures until I found what I was looking for, and then I returned to the kitchen, took the big bowl full of berries and a newspaper and brought it out into the sunny front porch, thankful I had my sweater on. It's still cool but the sun makes a huge difference. I sat down on the floor and opened Jacob's jackknife, retrieved from the box of memories because he always said it did the best job.

I sat humming and hulling berries for around thirty minutes when the porch door slammed shut behind me. I asked Henry to go easy on the doors and continued to work and suddenly I felt a soft breeze on my neck, like someone walking past me, only gentler. I turned my head and no one was there and all the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Then once again, the most gentle movement again, on the back of my neck. A kiss. A kiss made by someone who isn't there any more. A kiss bestowed to let me know that he is most definitely watching over me, and that he is happy I am keeping with our strawberry traditions, that the work that goes into preparing the berries and cooking and storing the jam properly so that it makes it through the year is so much more satisfying and wonderful than heading to the grocery store for a three-dollar jar of brand-name jam. Commercial facist jam, corporate artificial sweetness, Jacob called it. Capitalist Smuck.

He approves of me making jam, then. I almost screamed in agony. I knew that kiss. Oh, how I wanted that kiss, but from his flesh and blood, not from his memory, a mere ghost to haunt the rooms I am in. On the other hand, I wanted to feel him, I complained that I couldn't feel him, that I didn't have him here with me, and he is here to tell me I do.

I feel him.

He is here.

Watching me make his strawberry jam.

Rarified.

PJ and I got into it this morning.

He didn't come by last night, didn't call, and this morning I called him to see how his night went. He was just getting in. He started to give me a play by play of his evening, relaying his side of the conversation, telling his date about hanging out with the kids and with Butterfield and some of our trips to the farm. I stopped him twice, somewhat incredulous that he would spend the better part of a first date monopolizing the conversation with tales of another girl. Halfway through the date he lost interest when she predictably failed to be cool with all of what he managed to lay out for her.

I told him he was an idiot and that if he wanted a steady girlfriend, he should learn to let the girl he is with lead the conversation and for the sake of all that is holy, not bring up close friends who are girls. He dared me not to be the pot calling the kettle black, because who the fuck was I to be giving relationship advice? It was Bridget for the win because it's probably the only time I can be proud to rattle off consecutive relationships without a breath in between and not be ashamed of it, because he has had trouble finding girlfriends over the years. PJ asked me not to confuse being a whore to my friends with finding a soulmate.

Ouch.

He then said he slept with her anyway and when she was face down he pretended she was me.

Oh, he's uncharacteristically good at the hurt when he wants to be. He melts down all over me about once a year or less, he usually has his shit together better than anyone.

I didn't say anything and after about five minutes of angry silence, since we won't hang up on each other, he said he was sorry. That he felt stupid enough for the way he had behaved and I asked him if he was apologizing to the right person. He paused significantly and agreed to attempt to make it up to her.

Then he asked if he could make it up to me. I cut him off with a gentle observation that I think we're even. He said softly that he hates the rare arguments and that he didn't mean it. I said I knew and if he wanted to come by later this evening I would have some strawberry jam for him to take home. He loves the jam I make. I could hear him grin through the phone and he gently chided me for being too easy to forgive, too easy on him.

He would be wrong. It doesn't come easily but I try anyway because he is right, who am I to give directions when I'm more lost than everyone else?

Point taken.

    You make this all go away.
    You make this all go away.
    I'm down to just one thing.
    And I'm starting to scare myself.
    You make this all go away.
    You make this all go away.
    I just want something.
    I just want something I can never have

You live life knowing you're watched and then finally you stop spinning with your arms raised over your head and your skirt floats back from your knees to your ankles and your hair lies tangled down your back and you meet his eyes and in that moment you see so very clearly the transition from friend to more than friend. Or maybe that's the moment love drops into your life once again. It's a treasure I only wish I could put into a box for safekeeping, that moment. That is the most special of times in your life.

Would it not be for his liquid fallacies I swear Ben would have been content to keep his secrets forever. To pretend I was just a distraction. To be the watcher who wasn't paying attention but saw everything and took his opportunities when they presented themselves to him, rather than embarking upon frustrating campaigns for change. He jumped only with a clear or perceived or irresistible invitation.

You know something? So content is everyone with Ben's place in life that no one watches him anymore.

No one's watching the watcher.

They watched Cole, from a close distance. They put Jacob under a harsh scrutiny that he welcomed, that cracked him eventually, with Ben they have all now chosen to rest easy. At peace. The world resumes a steady tick around the sun and no one needs to check anyone else.

I find that interesting.

Give me an hour and I'll give you more time.

The clocks will be set ahead this evening and Bridget made it all the way through.

We've reached the point where I leave the curtains open in the evenings until dinner is finished and cleared away, instead of having them drawn before we begin.

I am looking forward to the warm torrential spring rains, the early morning thunderstorms and the unbearable heat. Sleeping on the covers instead of buried beneath them, wearing as little as possible. Living in bare toes and flip-flops from Old Navy, purchased in every color of the rainbow because then I can wear two different ones and people give me a third look.

The oblivion behind a roaring air conditioner.

I look forward to barbecuing entire dinners and not having to wash so many pots, and I look forward to doing my customary awful job cutting the grass and longer walks with the dog where my eyes don't water and Butters isn't limping with frozen pads by the time I reach the driveway.

I'm anxious to wake up to the sheer curtains billowing up in the light overnight wind. I'm excited for ladybugs and butterflies and spending all our cash on hand at the ice cream parlour. I'm excited to see the guys excited for their motorcycle rides and being able to play guitar outdoors.

My patio lights are ready to go up. When that two feet of frozen snow melts.

Camping. I want to go camping. I want to go on some long car trips, trading MP3 players and stopping in unfamiliar places to eat and later be grateful that there were no serial killers at that rest stop, because it looked like a hang-out for them.

I am awaiting the midnight sun.

I am awaiting my own life. On hold but not on hold.

He's gone again. He came home to hold me and now he has to go back. I'm taking the kids to the market this morning and then we'll run some other errands and come home and play Henry's math game and cook spaghetti, have warm baths and hit the hay early.

On a funny note, PJ called to let me know he might be by late if at all tonight. He has a date.

That was possibly the best news I think I have ever heard.

Good things come in big packages.

There was a surprise waiting for me in the porch when I came back from walking the dog.

It was over six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes.

It's name is Benjamin, my surprise. And in eighteen hours he'll be gone again.

The long, breathless kiss was followed by a big goofy grin because he knew I never expected him home tonight. I only get him until early tomorrow morning so I must go and make the best of the time we have.