It's very early here but everyone is up and at 'em on a rainy Monday morning. I just thought I would sneak on to let you know that I'm heading out in around an hour to fly to Ben and spend family week with him. Just me. Danny and Schuy will be here with the kids and PJ and Lochlan too, and I should be back on Saturday.
These were not the plans, the plan was that Daniel and I were going to fly down on Saturday and spend a whole day with Ben and then fly back Monday morning but Ben decided that he wants me there for the whole thing. I think he's done posturing now and I'm off before he changes his mind again. I could tell you how much I've missed him but you wouldn't get it.
Wish me luck. This is something new.
Monday, 13 April 2009
It's very early here but everyone is up and at 'em on a rainy Monday morning. I just thought I would sneak on to let you know that I'm heading out in around an hour to fly to Ben and spend family week with him. Just me. Danny and Schuy will be here with the kids and PJ and Lochlan too, and I should be back on Saturday.
These were not the plans, the plan was that Daniel and I were going to fly down on Saturday and spend a whole day with Ben and then fly back Monday morning but Ben decided that he wants me there for the whole thing. I think he's done posturing now and I'm off before he changes his mind again. I could tell you how much I've missed him but you wouldn't get it.
Wish me luck. This is something new.
These were not the plans, the plan was that Daniel and I were going to fly down on Saturday and spend a whole day with Ben and then fly back Monday morning but Ben decided that he wants me there for the whole thing. I think he's done posturing now and I'm off before he changes his mind again. I could tell you how much I've missed him but you wouldn't get it.
Wish me luck. This is something new.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Never listen when they tell you she's broken because she's not.
(Dear reader, this post isn't for you, it's for me. So please don't send me hatemail today. That is all.)
It's a day for fresh-squeezed beginnings and toasted dreams.
It's making me smile. I have four days to go before I get on a plane and get to see the brown eyes that have taken over my thoughts permanently and four days to begin to make my peace with the blue eyes I'm going to leave behind. And it all feels rather abrupt and final and like a relief with an undercurrent of excited recklessness.
Everyone has always said that time heals, leaving us to hope and assume and guess that it's going to be gradual and painless and as slow as molasses, that we can watch and gauge progress, a high water mark that will recede visibly and we can draw lines and marvel at the change.
It doesn't work like that. It's fast but it's painful and obvious. One minute you're walking down a familiar path, breath choked in your throat, eyes misted over, fumbling along hoping you don't trip and get sucked into the emotional quicksand you've been out-walking like the living dead for months and years and days and nights, oh those endless nights and then there's that switch that gets flicked and in a flash of terrible, blinding pain, everything is gone.
Gone.
The road beneath my feet is firm and dry and stable. My green eyes are clear and I can see. I can take a deep breath and suck it far down into my lungs. I can let go of a hand for just a moment and it doesn't scare me to do so.
Some warning would have been nice but I didn't get it and that's okay too because I'm pretty sure I won't fall because I risked a look back over my shoulder and the quicksand pool was gone and the emotional bounty on my soul has been rescinded and oh, I need another deep breath.
So unexpected and yet so welcome too.
I've said before I have no user manual, and that grief has no roadmap. I've challenged everyone I have ever met to prove to me that my head was going to fit their mold, that my behavior would follow their predictions, that my heart would make sense.
I've proven them all wrong, not wrong in their studies or in their theories, just wrong in that not everyone can find comfort in some set of stages or group of behaviors or chain of feelings. That if you feel alone and you don't seem to fit and experts run out of answers and friends run out of patience and you run out of strength that it doesn't make you a bad person or a crazy person or a person who can't be helped.
It just makes you you.
Exactly who you're supposed to be.
Visibly and invisibly different.
Beautiful, beautiful me.
New like a babyIt's a sort of cinnamon-sugar-dipped finger day, a discard the striped tights for bare legs day, a day where you squint when you first open the curtains and a day to listen to very old and much beloved music.
Lost like a prayer
The sky was your playground
But the cold ground was your bed
Poor stargazer
She's got no tears in her eyes
Smooth like whisper
She knows that love heals all wounds with time
Now it seems like too much love
Is never enough,
you better seek out another road
'cause this one has ended abrupt,
say hello to heaven
It's a day for fresh-squeezed beginnings and toasted dreams.
It's making me smile. I have four days to go before I get on a plane and get to see the brown eyes that have taken over my thoughts permanently and four days to begin to make my peace with the blue eyes I'm going to leave behind. And it all feels rather abrupt and final and like a relief with an undercurrent of excited recklessness.
Everyone has always said that time heals, leaving us to hope and assume and guess that it's going to be gradual and painless and as slow as molasses, that we can watch and gauge progress, a high water mark that will recede visibly and we can draw lines and marvel at the change.
It doesn't work like that. It's fast but it's painful and obvious. One minute you're walking down a familiar path, breath choked in your throat, eyes misted over, fumbling along hoping you don't trip and get sucked into the emotional quicksand you've been out-walking like the living dead for months and years and days and nights, oh those endless nights and then there's that switch that gets flicked and in a flash of terrible, blinding pain, everything is gone.
Gone.
The road beneath my feet is firm and dry and stable. My green eyes are clear and I can see. I can take a deep breath and suck it far down into my lungs. I can let go of a hand for just a moment and it doesn't scare me to do so.
Some warning would have been nice but I didn't get it and that's okay too because I'm pretty sure I won't fall because I risked a look back over my shoulder and the quicksand pool was gone and the emotional bounty on my soul has been rescinded and oh, I need another deep breath.
So unexpected and yet so welcome too.
I've said before I have no user manual, and that grief has no roadmap. I've challenged everyone I have ever met to prove to me that my head was going to fit their mold, that my behavior would follow their predictions, that my heart would make sense.
I've proven them all wrong, not wrong in their studies or in their theories, just wrong in that not everyone can find comfort in some set of stages or group of behaviors or chain of feelings. That if you feel alone and you don't seem to fit and experts run out of answers and friends run out of patience and you run out of strength that it doesn't make you a bad person or a crazy person or a person who can't be helped.
It just makes you you.
Exactly who you're supposed to be.
Visibly and invisibly different.
Beautiful, beautiful me.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Communion on the run.
Sam and I ran last night. We ran until I gave out and sobered up and admitted that I didn't have control of my day or my brain, but I did have control of my life and this wasn't going to change that. He reminded me that I knew anyway, she didn't have anything new to add, it didn't serve to change anything Jacob had written in his letters or journals.
It isn't news, he said and I know he is right. Sam is always right. Sam was a quiet observer into my life with Jacob and he is louder now and he has never failed me yet when it comes to administering huge doses of reality and peace in his still rather quiet verbal measures, timed carefully to land like wonderful little bombs of knowledge in between the squealing as my brain takes corners too fast. He picks the quiet spots and I hear him. He prays and I hear him.
Every time.
So I came home, dry and tired and no longer overwhelmed and I packed up the envelope stuffed with Jacob's writing and I put it in the box with his journals and his letters and I watched a movie with Christian and the kids and then the kids went to bed and Christian went home and I took a long hot shower and went to bed, reading for a while. I heard the alarm ring when Lochlan came in late from work and I thought about going down to talk to him but then it was morning and the sun was out and yesterday is over.
Over.
Kind of like Jake.
Just...over.
Maybe some other time when I'm not feeling so fragile I'll read what Sophie gave me. God knows, maybe she feels the same way. I gave her the envelope full of pictures she had asked for months and months ago, and even though they weren't right for each other and she endured being with someone who openly wanted someone else, she cared about Jake. She cared and she doesn't blame me because she saw things that I was too self-centered to see, and maybe like minds are brought together because only someone even more fragile than Jacob was had the ability to make him feel strong. He was strong, I don't care what anyone says or what they read or what they assume, he was strong. He fought through all of his demons for so long and he was strong when I needed him so badly and when I no longer needed him to be like that he could stop pretending.
This would be the part where I say I could have continued to be brittle and breakable forever if it meant he would still be here but I can't control that. I'm not responsible for him and if anything, his life should serve as a warning, that if you know there are glaring issues in someone's life, help them.
Just help them.
My friends are doing it for me. We're all doing it for Ben. Today marks one full month that Ben has been away at a place that is going to help him kick his habits for good, and he wouldn't still be there if it wasn't for the support of his friends, his family. That's why I'm flying down next week. It's family week and we've been invited to go and cheer him on and give him whatever he needs to continue to get better.
There's been enough casualties in this war of a life and there aren't going to be any more.
And Sam says no more martinis. Which is fine, I said that at 3 pm yesterday. It was uncharacteristic. I don't drink so much anymore. it doesn't help. It doesn't help anyone.
It isn't news, he said and I know he is right. Sam is always right. Sam was a quiet observer into my life with Jacob and he is louder now and he has never failed me yet when it comes to administering huge doses of reality and peace in his still rather quiet verbal measures, timed carefully to land like wonderful little bombs of knowledge in between the squealing as my brain takes corners too fast. He picks the quiet spots and I hear him. He prays and I hear him.
Every time.
So I came home, dry and tired and no longer overwhelmed and I packed up the envelope stuffed with Jacob's writing and I put it in the box with his journals and his letters and I watched a movie with Christian and the kids and then the kids went to bed and Christian went home and I took a long hot shower and went to bed, reading for a while. I heard the alarm ring when Lochlan came in late from work and I thought about going down to talk to him but then it was morning and the sun was out and yesterday is over.
Over.
Kind of like Jake.
Just...over.
Maybe some other time when I'm not feeling so fragile I'll read what Sophie gave me. God knows, maybe she feels the same way. I gave her the envelope full of pictures she had asked for months and months ago, and even though they weren't right for each other and she endured being with someone who openly wanted someone else, she cared about Jake. She cared and she doesn't blame me because she saw things that I was too self-centered to see, and maybe like minds are brought together because only someone even more fragile than Jacob was had the ability to make him feel strong. He was strong, I don't care what anyone says or what they read or what they assume, he was strong. He fought through all of his demons for so long and he was strong when I needed him so badly and when I no longer needed him to be like that he could stop pretending.
This would be the part where I say I could have continued to be brittle and breakable forever if it meant he would still be here but I can't control that. I'm not responsible for him and if anything, his life should serve as a warning, that if you know there are glaring issues in someone's life, help them.
Just help them.
My friends are doing it for me. We're all doing it for Ben. Today marks one full month that Ben has been away at a place that is going to help him kick his habits for good, and he wouldn't still be there if it wasn't for the support of his friends, his family. That's why I'm flying down next week. It's family week and we've been invited to go and cheer him on and give him whatever he needs to continue to get better.
There's been enough casualties in this war of a life and there aren't going to be any more.
And Sam says no more martinis. Which is fine, I said that at 3 pm yesterday. It was uncharacteristic. I don't drink so much anymore. it doesn't help. It doesn't help anyone.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
She got all the grace and I, well, I got five martinis and proof that I didn't drive him to do what he did. PROOF. Proof someone should have fucking given to me three years ago and maybe he'd still be here. Not like it matters now.
Bring on your rebirth, Sam. Show me that resurrection. Oh, but you can't.
Too bad.
Happy Easter. I'll be in the pantry with the chocolate if you need me.
Bring on your rebirth, Sam. Show me that resurrection. Oh, but you can't.
Too bad.
Happy Easter. I'll be in the pantry with the chocolate if you need me.
Request for a hat trick, if you please.
Like a thunder in the mountainsMy phone exploded shortly after seven this morning in a flurry of noises, ringing and alerts in a never-ending stream. It was possessed. It was haunted! No, it was just the boys, all letting me know that AC/DC is coming to town this summer. This is one of those big band names we toss around, who we want to see before we die. Mine is Tool. But on the off-chance they don't make it back here I'll be at the AC/DC show with (Hell's) bells on.
Like the lightning in the sky
Like the eye of a tornado
She'll watch it all go by
Then she kills for recreation
And she plays her games at night
She wants to work on her vocation
She sets the world alight
In other news, I'm heading out in a little over a week for a two-night trip to see Ben.
Remember him?
My brain has declared him dead and yet my stupid, naive heart is all excited to see him. I'm hoping the two can reach an agreement sometime before we fly out. I'm taking Daniel with me. All the arrangements have been made and if you blink it will be over but frankly I don't care that it's a quick and dirty visit. Yesterday I almost lost whatever pool of ubiquitous calm I've been floating in lately. A few ups and downs and sometimes my head goes under. John pulled me out yesterday and administered CPR and here I go, back in this morning to tread water for a little longer, the lifeline of late-night phone calls from Benjamin keeping my spirit afloat.
Always, he'll say Just a little bit longer, baby, and then I'll be home.
Oh and today? Lunch with Sophie. Because I'm insane. Remember her? She was once Jacob's wife too. I hate having things like that in common with people. I hate that I'm even going to this farce of a lunch. I don't want to be polite or kind or adult. I'd much rather get up and knock all the dishes off the table and flip it over and then run out the door. In my dreams last night I did that and it was impressive. In reality I'm guessing the table will be too heavy and that freaking out will just serve to show exactly how pulled-together she is and how pulled-apart I am.
Does anything ever change?
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Beautiful disaster.
Miss guarded-heartI'm almost ashamed to admit we're having a Kelly Clarkson day here today. Nice and freaking loud too. It's possibly more than a little funny to me that August knows all the lyrics to Miss Independent. Makes me wonder what else he listens to when I'm not jamming Tool into his ears.
Miss play-it-smart
(It explains why you're single, beautiful.)
No worries, internet. I'm not really being mean. I love August. And for this gem of a secret I gave up my sick secret crush on Toryn Green's physique. At least what it looked like last time I saw him.
Hot.
Way hotter than Kelly. By far.
(Going to go crawl in the dumbwaiter now so they can't tease me for the REST OF MY LIFE).
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Surrealism for lunch.
Mouth so full of lies,Last night I was put to bed shortly after eight. A novel idea, considering lately every time I sit down I'm just about asleep in my place, and I tend to seek out hard shoulders and warm shirts and I instantly shut down, worn out, exhausted. So damned tired.
Tend to black your eyes.
Just keep them closed,
Keep praying,
Just keep waiting.
I slept until six this morning and I actually feel rested. I don't think I've felt this rested since long before the snow came.
I looked in the mirror this morning and I was seventeen years old again, frowning at the pretty face, tucking back a lock of errant white blonde hair that never behaves. Frowning at the darker circles standing out against alabaster flesh like pools of black water in white snow.
I am seventeen again and I'll never be more than this/I'll be everything more than this.
The world in front of me, my favorite music to score my life, boys on the side, the sun behind me, a light wind out in front, pulling me along the road. In my hand, clutched with disbelief, my invitation to my twentieth high school reunion.
My life is a mirage. My days, dirty glass beads on a frayed white string. My love, all the warmth you can gather in one place, and be ready now because things will change so quickly everything will scatter if you're not so careful.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Brave are those who stand in the shadow of the Big Bad Wolf.
The battle you picked was so one sided.The children returned yesterday with their doting and well-behaved Uncle, having logged miles of coast and rain and sun and wind, and I could let out the breath I've held for a week straight. I still recognized them, they still recognized me, and with abandon they saw fit to knock me down at the airport, jumping on me, forgetting how big they are in their rush for familiar life, familiar arms. I know how that feels.
Now dependent on me the one you invited.
Beg, plead, scream.
For redemption, for forgiveness.
Beg, plead, scream.
Sorry I'm not listening.
Welcome to your vice.
Good luck with life.
Eyes on me. I know how that feels too.
I had the wall of knights there to
Drives me fucking nuts.
But I was good because under all those handsome genetics beats the heart of my smooth, wealthy, prolific nightmare. The wolf in Hugo Boss. You think I'm going to forget that NOW?
Nope. Not this time around.
No one else did either. I thought Christian would have to knock Lochlan out and leave him home when we set out. Thankfully everyone was good.
It's a first.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Status Reports.
This morning I'm still riding on previous highs. Movies with faces I know almost as well as the ones I see every day in person. Celebrating new lines and graceful changes. Music that weaves in and out of my days, notes punctuated against the backdrop of muted noise that I travel through like fog around the shore.
Food so decadent yesterday I relented and wound up spending most of the afternoon and evening drunk on prime rib and lobster and wine and chocolate. I may never eat again, and jumped out at the gas pump hours later to get some fresh air and move around a little, if only to shake some of it down into my knees where there may have been some space remaining.
Plotting spring running shoes to buy this week and planning even more paint colors as we vow to finish the house this year and finally, a new, very quiet dream emerges, one of packing suitcases once again to clutch an international flight for a view that is unfamiliar yet comforting, a far away place we've decided to return to. Don't know when or how, but it's there, a new pot with a new dish, simmering quietly on the backburner of the dual-fuel stove that seems to be my life.
Hands so distracted they haven't had time to tremble or fumble. Busy hands. Chores and distractions choking off the flutters with flurries of activities all hellbent on filling voids that have become chasms. And instead of going through, or falling in, or just sitting there on the edge waiting for a change or a bridge or a tiny airplane to get me to the other side, I've been doing something different. Uncharacteristic and downright risky.
I don't know that I take risks. Everything is sewn up so tight. Double-stitched, securely knotted, evenly-spaced and then I burn a hole through the fabric and attempt to squeeze through it.
This time, well, just, no.
I packed up as much as I could carry, and I'm inching my way around the edge. There are no obstacles in the way, I can do this the whole way around and then I'll be on the other side. it's so slow-going. Progress takes forever. The ledge is narrow and crumbling slightly. Some places I hold my breath. Others I can sit and rest. But every time I finally give in to the urge to look back and see if I have made it anywhere, I'm surprised to see that I have. The starting place is hard to see now. Dammit, it's working. It's narrow and I'm terrified and I'm shaking because I'm afraid of heights and it gets worse as I go instead of better but there's no other way. I see no planes, I can't build a bridge and if I fall I know damn well that eight lives have been used up and I'm on my last.
I miss Ben. I miss him more than you could possibly understand. It feels like he's dead but he isn't and my brain wants to take the easy way out and just mark an x over his face and Bridget's Survivor gameshow will continue with nightly tribal councils and challenges designed to make the cream rise to the top but surprise! The game has changed and we're bringing this contestant back. Voted off but a second chance looms and this time Ben has plans to win because the stakes are high. So high. I'm balanced on one of them right now. On my brain, on this ledge, with these analogies tightly clutched in my fists.
(I am the teacup on the ruler on the hairbrush on the ball on the bowling pin on the seal's nose held by the clown on the unicycle at centre ring. My circus never seems to end or stop or pack up and leave this town for the next. We're a permanent installation and admission is free.)
My children will be home in an hour and I would bounce off the walls, but if I do that, I'll fall off my ledge. Instead I'll stop here and breath deeply and wait to hold them in my arms again, and then when I've rested enough and they are ready, we'll hold hands and resume the slow progress around this hole.
Food so decadent yesterday I relented and wound up spending most of the afternoon and evening drunk on prime rib and lobster and wine and chocolate. I may never eat again, and jumped out at the gas pump hours later to get some fresh air and move around a little, if only to shake some of it down into my knees where there may have been some space remaining.
Plotting spring running shoes to buy this week and planning even more paint colors as we vow to finish the house this year and finally, a new, very quiet dream emerges, one of packing suitcases once again to clutch an international flight for a view that is unfamiliar yet comforting, a far away place we've decided to return to. Don't know when or how, but it's there, a new pot with a new dish, simmering quietly on the backburner of the dual-fuel stove that seems to be my life.
Hands so distracted they haven't had time to tremble or fumble. Busy hands. Chores and distractions choking off the flutters with flurries of activities all hellbent on filling voids that have become chasms. And instead of going through, or falling in, or just sitting there on the edge waiting for a change or a bridge or a tiny airplane to get me to the other side, I've been doing something different. Uncharacteristic and downright risky.
I don't know that I take risks. Everything is sewn up so tight. Double-stitched, securely knotted, evenly-spaced and then I burn a hole through the fabric and attempt to squeeze through it.
This time, well, just, no.
I packed up as much as I could carry, and I'm inching my way around the edge. There are no obstacles in the way, I can do this the whole way around and then I'll be on the other side. it's so slow-going. Progress takes forever. The ledge is narrow and crumbling slightly. Some places I hold my breath. Others I can sit and rest. But every time I finally give in to the urge to look back and see if I have made it anywhere, I'm surprised to see that I have. The starting place is hard to see now. Dammit, it's working. It's narrow and I'm terrified and I'm shaking because I'm afraid of heights and it gets worse as I go instead of better but there's no other way. I see no planes, I can't build a bridge and if I fall I know damn well that eight lives have been used up and I'm on my last.
I miss Ben. I miss him more than you could possibly understand. It feels like he's dead but he isn't and my brain wants to take the easy way out and just mark an x over his face and Bridget's Survivor gameshow will continue with nightly tribal councils and challenges designed to make the cream rise to the top but surprise! The game has changed and we're bringing this contestant back. Voted off but a second chance looms and this time Ben has plans to win because the stakes are high. So high. I'm balanced on one of them right now. On my brain, on this ledge, with these analogies tightly clutched in my fists.
(I am the teacup on the ruler on the hairbrush on the ball on the bowling pin on the seal's nose held by the clown on the unicycle at centre ring. My circus never seems to end or stop or pack up and leave this town for the next. We're a permanent installation and admission is free.)
My children will be home in an hour and I would bounce off the walls, but if I do that, I'll fall off my ledge. Instead I'll stop here and breath deeply and wait to hold them in my arms again, and then when I've rested enough and they are ready, we'll hold hands and resume the slow progress around this hole.
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