The world revolves around me.

In spite of sayings to the contrary, it actually does.

I poked around the internet this morning. Every old blog that I used to follow long abandoned now, tumbleweeds rolling through, save for one or two that are updated sporadically in fits and spurts with many apologies. I guess Youtube is the way to go now, or Instagram stories, which I don't get at all. Ruth and Henry use Snapchat, I tried once and now have a picture of myself and Christian on my phone with dog ears (which has become comedy gold, mind you) but I like to write.

It keeps me from going crazy.

I managed to have a major, terrifying health scare over the holidays and it was resolved on Monday. I have an all-clear. I was scared but I was also prepared. I didn't look it up. I told very few. I didn't tell my mom, and now she's mad. I followed instructions diligently and I spent from Dec 19 to January 8th waiting.

Waiting is hard. Your brain conjures up results without any information and you make decisions for every outcome and the one you want, which requires no decisions at all to be made after the fact is the one you get which makes you think you've just ducked as a bullet whizzed over your head and you're grateful beyond measure.

And then you are relieved but it floods in slowly. It takes days to stop clenching teeth and fists. Days to breathe again. Days to feel like you used to. Life begins today. Today is the first day, they say, of the rest of your life and finally that stupid saying makes sense.

I think grief has aged me. It's made me fearful of stupid things and very big things alike. This was some sort of resignation. I was ready to be told my time has been shortened. The boys were ready to fight. But it hasn't been shortened now and they don't have to fight.

Now we meet in the middle.

But yeah, my world revolves around me, so there's another saying that makes sense. Just like when Lochlan had so much trouble healing a broken arm we revolved around him. The world revolves around whoever is in the center. Yours revolves around you, too. Congratulations.

I'm not sorry to discover this. I had a feeling it was true, it's nice to have it confirmed. It's nice to know that my boys are relieved and thrilled that I'm okay. It's good to be loved. It's incredible to be loved this much.

And words will never be enough to describe this life, so I need the full allotted time to try and do it anyway.

Also, I've asked if we can do Christmas over again but they all said no.

(Thanks for respecting the odd moments when I ask for privacy. I only posted this to quiet the predictable (but seriously misguided) pregnancy rumors. Stop it already.)

Travel diaries and best sleeps.

I couldn't get up this morning, lying in bed tracing the numbers on the back of Lochlan's neck while he slept instead. The numbers represent the sum of the miles he traveled with the show. He kept a log. He kept a diary. Then Caleb stole it and when Lochlan got it back he realized that it wasn't what was on the pages that was important after all. He had it all in his head. The things he wanted desperately to remember, his favorite quotes and these numbers, he had tattooed all over the place and the rest he let burn.

He burns everything, including the bridges behind him as he runs. We build them again and he comes back long enough to set them alight before taking off once more. If he had wings I-

He doesn't.

He never will. He'll live forever and so I'm not even going to finish that thought. Instead I'll just marvel at the distance he'll go to be who he wants to be.

He's made it and circled back again.

He's tired.

Last night he followed me wordlessly across the driveway, up the steps and down the narrow glass patio to Caleb's front door. I opened it and Lochlan reached up over my head and closed it again, pulling me out of the way with a cry of surprise, taking my hand, leading me back down the steps, back across the driveway, pulling me inside through the door, locking it, throwing the bolts without looking, for he was glaring mildly at me instead. I nod at his expression and he softens so visibly guilt shoots through me like a thunderbolt. I wasn't doing anything, I was just going for that second drink, the first dry in my throat from the morning, long forgotten in taste. That's all.

He presses me against the door with a kiss, twisting my hands up against the window, pushing himself against me. He disengages so we can breathe.

Stay put. Our foreheads are pressed together. I can't nod but I try and he finishes the motion for me. He takes my hand and pulls me up the steps and through the house. Upstairs. Lights off, doors locked as we go. Inside our room he repeats himself in case I missed it.

Stay put. Stay here. And I can deal with things just fine. I asked you if you wanted me to come. Don't let him blame it on me if you said no. They want me to treat you like an adult and I'm trying, Peanut but you make it hard. Don't let him undermine me like that. 

I'm sorry. I whisper it to him but he's already kissing me more, stripping us down, wapping me in blankets and then holding his finger out meaning stay here and he goes and starts a fire. The room still feels so cold but we'll warm up. We'll get there.

I always have woken up first in the morning. I've always remained right where I am (as instructed, always), studying him. The semi-crooked smile he sleeps with. The eyebrows, pale yet disapproving, as if the top half of his face doesn't match the bottom. The way his curls refuse to sync up together and spill over each other. I can wrap them around my wrist without stretching them. Rarely do I see such huge curls in the wild. The color of his hair as it changes from one season to the next, now dark winter red at the ends, summer strawberry blonde at the ends, meeting in the middle in a hope for spring. His nose that he hates that I love. A little bit bigger than normal giving him a friendly appearance that a perfect nose would have interrupted. Too perfect isn't good and good isn't in being too perfect.

Now I trace the lines on his face and he grunts in protest and turns away. But he leaves his arm wrapped around me so I don't stray too far, my hand on his heart, just covering the lower case letter b tattooed there, right where it should be.

Story of my life, right here.

Written on his skin.

Good news.

You look like you could use a drink.

Is this a test? 

No? Why do you ask?

Because if I say yes I don't want eight different people coming out of the woodwork to tell me what a terrible idea it is. 

How about this? One drink. One visit to the King Tide and then I'll bring you back. 

Sounds perfect. 

I could feel my body visibly relaxing as I stood on the landing just above the final string of steps to the beach. They're underwater, this is as far as we can go. We can head the other way and walk out on the docks but I like to walk the beach so this is as good as it's going to get.

I don't have glasses. Caleb takes the bottle and drinks straight from it. Then he hands it to me and I do the same. It burns so beautifully on the way down.

To good news, he says.

Amen, I follow.

How are you? 

I'll sleep tonight. Maybe I'll be back over for a dram first. 

I'll wait up. 

You don't have to. If you're tired-

I would have gone with you. 

Had to go by myself. 

What if it hadn't been good news? 

Then next visit I would have brought you and Loch. 

Lochlan doesn't do so well with-

He'll learn, just like the rest of us. 

Jesus Benjamin (welcome to completely different levels of alertness and morning-ness).

Ben is on point this morning, waking me up early to get ready (he's already dressed for church), then while I'm in the shower he make us coffee and bagels, which were ready just as I came out in my robe to get dressed. We pile back into bed to try to wake up Lochlan so we can eat together. Lochlan is reluctant and sleepy and beautiful. I struggle to hold my cup and plate level between that distracting view and Ben moving, which threatens to upend my breakfast but only a little.

Lochlan manages half a cup of coffee and three bites of my bagel before asking if he can sleep. Ben grants him his request like a dad, but he's eyeing the untouched third bagel. I eye him and he catches me.

Fight you for it? 

You're on. 

I reach up and tickle him under his arms and he retaliates by pinning me down. I shriek, Lochlan curses very loudly and Ben clamps his hand over my mouth, tickling me all over with his other hand until I'm shaking and muffled-screaming and thrashing like a maniac.

Lochlan gets up and goes into the bathroom and doesn't come back out while we lie there, church clothes askew, breathing heavily and laughing softly.

Ben looks at the clock. Fuck, we gotta go. 

Okay. 

He gets up, tucking himself back together and pulls me to my feet. I straighten my dress, find my shoes and take off the one remaining earring. I don't where the other one went. Fuck. I fix my hair and grab a lipstick and my bag off the dresser.

Love you, Locket! I call through the door.

Wait! 

He flings the door open, towel in hand. Come back for lunch. I'll be awake then. 

I nod. I'll pray for your heathen soul. 

Good luck with that. Love you Peanut.

He plants a morning-breath kiss on me and Ben pulls me out the door.

***

Church was quiet and boring and empty and raining. It's not hard to hear Sam when the rain beats down on the roof but it's hard to stay awake. Every time my head went down Ben would squeeze his arm tightly around me. I think he thought I was going to fall on my shoes, collapsing face-first into a puddle on the floor in front of the bench.

Honestly I probably would have.

PJ smirked the whole time. He finds my narcolepsy hilarious. Where's Loch? He asked.

Home. He's up but wasn't in time to come today.

Lucky bastard, PJ says under his breath.

Hey, you don't have to come, I tell him. No one forced you. 

I feel guilty if I don't, PJ says and Ben chuckles. Sam's eyes find us, twinkling. He thinks he's said something clever. I nod at him for the confidence boost and he carries on. I can't even remember his sermon though, maybe it's the traditional understated January malaise. The days are still short and dark, the weather is typical, deplorable and our minds are elsewhere.

Sam lets us out early and we were all home in record time. His second-in-command looks after second service today. It will be more crowded with the later crowd and less personal, somehow.

When we get home Lochlan has tomato soup and grilled cheese ready to roll. Ben eats four sandwiches before I finish half of one. Lochlan is dressed, his hair's under control and he's alert and nice. He's so cranky sometimes. He and Ben share a smile as they both get up at the same time to clear plates.

And I speak too soon.

Jesus. I feel like a princess again. You're all spoiling me. 

They take all of the plates they're holding and pile them in front of and all around me. I just won the chore with that comment.

Nice.

One for all.

August swings lazily in his bed, calling out instructions across the room for the Breville that I am attempting to navigate while my brain wanders off to dangerous places, knowing he's possibly not wearing anything under that quilt, that the fire roars high in the woodstove and that I don't have to do a single thing today other than make a couple of decent cups of espresso here and then dump out the contents of my brain for him to examine.

Come in. 

I heard him call out sleepily when I knocked on the door, the rain beating down on my head, frozen to the bone just from the short trip across the driveway. I need to keep a coat by the side door, I think. When I turned the knob and peeked in I saw a large form still in bed.

Oh! If I woke you I'm sorry. 

I said come in. If I had said nothing then I was asleep. I was already awake. Just not up yet. He pulls himself up to a sitting position and the quilt comes to rest at his waist. No shirt. The room is warm from the fire. It's new so I know he's not just being polite.

I can come back if you'd like to get ready before we visit. 

What haven't you already seen, Bridge? Just come in and I'll teach you to use the coffeemaker. 

I close the door behind me as water drips all over the floor around me.

We need a driveway canopy. 

Ha. That will just encourage me.

I don't mind. It's working. 

Yeah. 

I get to work making the coffees. It's fumbly at first but I can see the ritual emerging. Just a series of steps, like everything else.

I bring a tray with two small cups and two muffins toward the bed but he howls in protest, sending me back toward the living area. August's biggest pet peeve in life is eating in bed, though once he came for a pizza party with Ben and I and I didn't hear any complaints. He'll drink in bed. He just insists he feels a bit like the Princess and the Pea if he feels a crumb underneath him as he sleeps.

Can't say I blame him.

He gets up and I am almost profoundly disappointed to see he's wearing pajama pants.

God.

No really, I am. But it's better that he's dressed for breakfast. He pulls on a clean t-shirt (that might be too small) and my brain forgets why I'm here. It's too busy negotiating a different kind of breakfast and wondering if it would be rude to ask him to just never ever comb his hair again and squinting just a little bit while he talks to turn him into Jacob.

But he catches me handily. Stop. 

What?

Zoning out. 

Sorry, it's early. 

It's ten. 

Right.  

The deal is every morning at ten we spend an hour, find a focus and then you see how the rest of the day goes. He smiles and I nod. It is working. It's working well, though I have moments when I just can't seem to get a grip and then it passes. 2018 is going to be the year of living gracefully as well as gratefully, together. No fists, no raised voices, no ultimatums, no tears.

Ha. That last one though. Good luck. Unless he meant for them. Men cry, they just do it in private.

We're working on balance. Control (a whole different kind than the one historically used by Caleb. Who knew there was more than one kind?). Seeking out the light. Happiness. Cohesiveness. Love.

(That's my favorite one.)

Every day at twelve sharp Lochlan crosses the driveway too and August makes him a cup of espresso and he gets a brief update and they do that short man-hug thing where they basically smash chests and thump each other twice on the back before we leave. By this time generally I've had four cups and I float across the driveway with Lochlan, who holds my string very tightly so I don't drift up into the clouds and he asks if I'm good, if it was a good talk and I usually say yes or if it was tough I say I'm glad I did it anyway and then we make our plans for the rest of the day.

In the evenings at nine it switches out to Sam, who is tasked with breaking down the events of the day and seeing how I fared. Damage control, attitude readjustment and a full commitment to August's methods. Consistency. Cohesiveness. Love. Sam and I talk quietly on the porch under the watchful eye of our Lady Grey teas while the rain pours down around the edges of our atoll and we see how hard it was for me to keep the focus, discuss what may have derailed me or how I navigated the hard parts of the day and we plot the course on a map of my heart to see how far I managed to get.

Every night at ten sharp Lochlan opens the front door and I hand him my tea to finish and he gets a brief update. Sam doesn't do the man-hug thing, instead giving a full on, arms around Lochlan squeeze that holds for five or ten seconds, depending on how the day went. This time I take the cups and go inside and Lochlan takes my place for a half hour or so,  talking with Sam about the day and how he found it. How he's coping with it. How to process it. How to let me grow up when emotionally we're stuck in the teenage years seemingly forever.

Sam and August talk after that, together or so I learned a couple of days ago, supporting each other, choosing to work together instead of giving out mixed messages or conflicting methods.

Took us awhile, this. We'll get where we need to be.

Together, Lochlan says.

Yeah. 

Twice a day, every day.

There's nothing better than five victories for a rainy Friday morning. The world looks normal again, dim and soaked through, rich in petrichor. My favorite. It looks downright strange here when it's sunny or when it snows, for that matter. Like the words don't fit the picture. It's almost a relief when it rains again which I'd never thought I'd hear myself say.

So I wrote it down instead.

The five victories are small but mighty. The new single is beautiful. I had the laundry done and all of the bathrooms cleaned before nine this morning. Decapitated had all the charges dropped, mainly because their accuser had a previous incident in which she lied to law enforcement about being hit by a boyfriend, or so I read online this morning (don't even get me started about groupies and tour busses), I managed to bang out a full sixty percent of my biggest project yesterday alone, somehow, I don't how but I'm very happy with it, and I figured out what was hurting my gums so much on one side, after switching to a soft toothbrush and flossing like a madwoman, feeling like there was coconut? maybe from a chocolate but this morning I was like okay, this is it. I flossed very enthusiastically and a tiny piece of hull from popcorn came out of hiding. A piece of hull that doesn't break down and the last time I had popcorn was for Star Wars on Dec. 16.

That's three weeks. What the fuck. It didn't really start to bother me until about four days ago and I'm never having popcorn again. Ever. Henry can finish the last bit in the pantry. I'm not buying it, eating it or suffering it ever again. Not like it's good for us anyway.

Speaking of healthy things, people are always asking me if we have a home gym.

We used to, in castle times. It was mostly an unused room with an elliptical and a giant Weber (Nordic?) gym thing that you could do eighty million exercises on with pulleys and weights and stuff. I used it. Jake used it. The kids used it as a jungle gym. Ben used it to show us how dumb it actually was.

Then we gave it all away in favor of fresh air. Who needs to be inside when the coldest it ever gets here is minus ten?

So we go outside. The boys have endless means to get exercise. They shove each other. They swim back to shore after being thrown off the cliff. They stairclimb. They follow me around. They wrestle. They...uh...box. We run sometimes. Sex is a good means of exercise, bring your friends and everyone gets healthy, right? We also have house chores like raking leaves, chopping wood and hell if you've run out of easy things there's a unicycle in the garage that is incredibly difficult to ride and possibly a better core workout than anything else.

I must have had fifty emails asking me about resolutions this year, what I do to stay in shape (jesus, can't you READ?), if I plan to improve myself, etc. etc. and really this is where the popcorn comes in. I have a problem with sugar but also with popcorn because I'll eat popcorn to stay awake during movies because they're long and warm and it's dark and these are the perfect conditions for narcoleptic Bridget to pass out cold and miss everything.

But I don't eat healthy air-popped organic whatever, I'll take what PJ or Ben didn't want which is usually greasy, nuclear extra-buttered cardboard.

It's so delicious. I'll eat it until it's gone and then I get that bird-at-a-wedding feeling like I might explode.

So I'm going to do better in 2018, mostly because I didn't want to have to go to the dentist. I hate the dentist, and not because I'm afraid but because this dentist is a business based on profit instead of health and I resent that I have to research and question every little thing.
I should switch but what a pain. Actually I feel like I have to stay to guard the others against the same tactics they try on me. Long story. Anyway. It's a day of small victories and that's what's important.

(Really though, I'm trying hard not to laugh at the people who profess to be longtime readers who ask me how I stay in shape. You must have Black Mirror's Arkangel filters on your eyeballs, I guess.)

Wait! I forgot the weirdest victory of all. Which was finding out after wearing it for TWO whole years that my Cirque Du Soleil sweater has pockets.

Hallelujah.

Edit: Also I learned all these years when I've been chewing on pencils to get the weird shivery spark feeling in my head and to make the pencil ferrules flat as pancakes I was just acknowledging my future self who would get spoiled on Christmas 2017 with a fistful of Blackwing Palomino pencils, which have a distinct flattened ferrule already and are too expensive and beautiful to chew on anyway.  God I love these things and aren't you glad someone suggested I just dump the contents of my brain all over blogger today?

Yeah, I'm just killing time before dinner because someone said there might be chopsticks involved. HELL YEAH.

Sublimity all around me.

Day is reborn
Fight with folded hands
Pain left below
The life-

And I can't figure out the rest.

EDIT: GOT IT!

The lifeless live again

(Red cold river)

 I can't feel anything at all
This life has left me cold and damp
I can't feel anything at all
This love has led me to the end

Ears. They're somewhat broken but just enough to frustrate me. Whoops.

(Also shhhhhh. There's a chorus for you. You're welcome.)

But WHO CARES? New Breaking Benjamin single out tomorrow and the teasers sound incredible and I want to cry for all of the weird emotions that bubble up within. It's the same feeling I get when I listen to Pachebel or Shostakovich or...the new Bladerunner soundtrack. I don't even want to explain it but it's incredible. Like a whole-body orgasm.

Listen to this (Chaconne in F Minor) the whole way through UP VERY LOUDLY and tell me you don't feel something. 

Who the hell is going to deny themselves that?

Not me, said the little deaf girl in the corner.

(PS. That's my absolute favourite piece. Especially from about 6:20 to around 7:00 minutes in. Want another recommendation? Seriously. Listen to Winter or Blue by Oceans of Slumber. They have a new album coming in March and I'm salivating just waiting for it.)

Actually I'm not in the corner today. Today I may have turned a corner though I'm threatened back into at any moment and have to keep fighting not to give in. Things are okay with a twenty-percent chance of dread which seems high but actually isn't. I have an appointment next week that's weighing on me and I have to start booking the vehicles for their quarterly servicings, which is a chore I despise but one the boys will put off until before you know it they've missed three in a row and it threatens warranties and makes me somewhat irritated so I do it myself. That's minor though. I can do that. The first thing is just...a WEIGHT.

And I have to mop. I hate that. Pretty sure I could promise/trade sexual favours for someone else doing it but I should probably just do it myself.

And I need to finish two fairly large projects I have on the go but that corner. It just looks so warm and inviting and I could put myself back in there and listen to this song snippet on a loop and gosh, I hope it's not a fucking Spotify exclusive or anything. I don't believe in Spotify on principal. It's the Amazon of the music world, delivering little profits to the creators of the content Spotify gets rich off of. And don't get me started on 'renting' your music.

But I'm not here to talk politics, no sir. I'm here to entertain.

I'm not even here to entertain today. I only do that for money. I used to do it for fame but then I realized money was better. And it feels weird to have such a normal life with such normal things happening. An oil change or five. A trip to the bank. A trip to the hospital. A big chore, job well done. A new song to listen to. A very old song to listen to. Such a far cry from the lights and the danger and the excitement of the show. Now the show is a cold empty beach and the blocked-out noise of the world and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Metalhead.

Today I'm thinking over how Black Mirror went down. How the stories are structured, like all good stories are, in that some start you at the very beginning, holding your hand, walking you through the major points to an eventual conclusion that wraps everything up neatly with a bow while others drop you violently into the action without apology or explanation and then leave you wondering, feeling as if you really enjoyed the ride, you just have little idea what started it or how it's all going to turn out. 

I like both formats very much, though I also feel as if when I write I give too much information up front and I'm working on getting better at this. 

Slowly. 

It's a great watch if you love to be tense and uncomfortable, viceral in your hatred of a fictional character or several and don't mind a lack of closure, here and there. Really great. 

(If you really want to know Crocodile is my favorite episode. Metalhead actually clocks in at number three.)

I'm also thinking about how Coco went down, because we watched that over the weekend too, and it's probably the first and last time I'll sit through a movie starring Gael García Bernal without being keenly aware of him (sorry, but he's beautiful. Watch The Motorcycle Diaries) since I didn't know it was his voice until the credits. Pixar never fails to disappoint and I was strangely elated to confirm that people are right, it's nothing like Book Of Life. 

There, two things for you to do while I try and swim out of my Monday quicksand. Especially since it's actually Wednesday. 

Sneaking in to breathe a sigh of relief.

This Christmas they got along. We didn't get thrown out of any restaurants for infighting, they didn't throw any surprise haymakers at one another and I didn't end up being the rope in a lifelong tug of war, somehow. They got along.

We had more meals together as a complete Collective than any other time in our history. There were surprise days off taken and surprise work taken over to get it done faster and better if more hands were in on it.

We had a good time. We celebrated Christmas and New Years, Solstice and Hanukkah too. We got a little sleep but never enough and we go into the rest of this week on a new yet familiar ground without impossible resolutions but simply plans to be better, try harder and do more and less all at once.

We ran out of Champagne with no plans to have any more as it was a slow build to popping corks off the ceiling Sunday night and gently smashing the rims of our glasses together in cries of Sláinte! and Cheers! that took almost to 12:02 to get that first sip.

But here we are and I didn't even hesitate the first time I wrote 2018. It rolls off so easily and I hope that means a year of good things.

We got the trees down and the decorations down. Everything outside stays up and lit. I'm in no rush to change that. There's a mugful of candy canes on the counter with which to stir hot chocolate until they're gone and the days are getting longer already.

Hello 2018.

Happy New Year! I'm starting my day with bulletproof coffee, eggs Benedict and a beautiful sunny day here on the Salish Sea. I woke up clear-headed and energetic and we've already watered the plants, finished the laundry, given the dog a bath (he. smells. so. good.) and been out for brunch, at a place that was sort of eerily empty considering the holiday, but delicious nonetheless.

Lochlan is also bright-eyed and bushy-haired.  We're going to finish watching the new Season of Black Mirror now and then plot dinner plans because I'm thinking spaghetti would be a wonderful first meal of the year. Everyone is up and it feels more like Easter and less like New Years, probably because the rain took away the remainder of the snow from our neighborhood and everything dried out and I can actually handle winters if they're only going to be a week or two long, I think.

What's gotten into you, Peanut? 

SUNSHINE.

I like it.

Yeah, me too!