A single moment on a Thursday in early December, 2018.

Watching: Kodaline's almost-short film, in the form of two music videos, All I Want (Part 1) and All I Want (Part 2). Came for the nice guy, stayed for the dog (who looks a lot like my dog). It's ten minutes of wonderful, simple storytelling with a lovely song. I'm not crying, you're crying.

Listening to: Cary Brothers CHRISTMAS MUSIC (Takes me forever to find these things, sorry. Yes I know). Still love him. It's been fifteen years. 

Eating: Had Pad Kee Mao for lunch. I'm spoiled rotten. Now I'm drinking hot chocolate. Dinner will be late, I think. Or nonexistent, maybe, as PJ already sent out a FFY warning (fend for yourself).

Wearing: Leggings and a huge sweater, gold hoop earrings, wedding rings + boyfriend ring. Lip gloss. Mascara. (Why do people constantly ask for this? Who cares?)

Plotting: To put up the tree this weekend. It's time! I held out forever and it's time. Also the dog needs a bath. Badly. I don't know what he got into, maybe just the garden beds near the garage but he's grungy. 

Working on: self-care. I don't think I'm doing it right, still, though I remembered to put on hand cream last night before bed and I'm drinking the hot chocolate as a treat. Right? Right????

Ordering: Henry's graduation photos. Many, many copies for everyone. The proofs look amazing, he's a stupidly photogenic human. Like his father. Now I have to wait a month or more for them to arrive and we're in the home stretch of high school forever. I can't even believe it. 

(Actual content tomorrow. Currently busy referring a standoff between Duncan and August over something dumb. August thinks he's going to toss Duncan off the cliff. In this weather. They're teasing but I'm making sure no one goes in the water when it's this cold. It's not safe.)

The pie thief.

I went over to check on how things were going at the boathouse only because I like to be a good hostess and because it's Wednesday and on Wednesdays my restaurant sends home any full leftover pies for the Reverend and today was a positive bounty in that I knocked on the door with three. Strawberry, pumpkin and a key lime. Sam kept the pumpkin but asked me to share the wealth with the others and so Schuyler and Duncan took the key lime and Batman and New Jake took the strawberry. Everyone is happy. Our house doesn't need pie, trust me. We're cake people anyway.

Matt wasn't even home. He was at a meeting with Ben. I would have known that but I went to the boathouse first because of the pies, you see. Sam said things are going well, that he didn't realize all of Matt's confidence came from a bottle and I gently reminded him he should have, for that's how it generally works.

How about you come back late tonight with Ben for dessert? We can have some tea and some pie and Matt can work to get back on your good side. 

I don't have a bad side, Sam. I'm just protective of you. 

And my gratitude for that is bottomless, Bridget, but it's something Matt wants to do. 

Let's give him space to settle in. I'm going to give him a little time first. He doesn't need me breathing down his neck. He can ride to church with us on Sunday. I'll check with him on Saturday. Until then I just want him to feel at home. 

Bottomless, Bridge-

I already dug a hole in the orchard for him, Sam. 

People can change, Bridget.

Yes, and it's only for that reason that I haven't put him in it yet. 

I did tell him if he hurts Sam a third time his body will be buried in the orchard.

Matt arrived this morning with his pride under his tongue and flowers in his hand. One bouquet for Sam, and the other for...

Ben.

Ben is Matt's sponsor, but only after hours (weeks, months, actually) of conversation in which Matt has agreed to get some help for his issues (drinking too much, levelling ultimatums and dealbreakers and names called at Sam, at me, at all of us and so we cast him out and yet Sam was still in love.

Sam's in love with everything. God, me, Matt, Ben, Lochlan, the evening sky and the cold empty beaches too so when someone is that open with their heart they tend to get stomped on. And since Matt and Sam have had two magnificent go-arounds already, you can see we're a little hesitant to open our home and our hearts once again. The last time Matt burned every bridge to this island and then he came back and threw sharks in the water just to finish the job. Sam on the other hand, hesitated for less than the space of a heartbeat and jumped right back in with both feet.

He's getting help. Remember when Ben went through this? 

Oh. Don't compare apples to oranges, Samuel.

But we have agreed to give Matt a chance. As long as he sticks to the program.

He has his three-month milestone so far, ninety days sober and he's already like a different man from what I've seen. Gone is the quiet confidence, the understated ego and in it's place remains a frailty, an honesty I always wished for from him. Sam emerges as the newly confident, the sure-stepping, direct and positive force and Matt is buckling down to work at last. I wondered if it was alcohol but he hid it well.

Matt also seems more comfortable with Sam being in the boathouse. There's more privacy and he seems to feel as if maybe we haven't brainwashed Sam after all, that clearly he's free to detach slightly, to move out of the main house and be ever so slightly apart from the Collective as a whole. That's not to say that them living downstairs doomed their marriage, but that a little breathing room is never a bad thing and Sam's move has done wonders to reassure Matt.

Or maybe he's lonely for the holidays and feeding us a tale.

I don't know. I'm a little suspicious and I'm not alone. But he asked Sam if I spend time there (at the boathouse) and Sam told Matt, if you can believe this, that it's none of his business.

And Matt said he deserved that.

And Sam said it doesn't change his answer.

And Matt said he can accept it.

Because you have to, Sam told him.

And Matt nodded.

And there was a lot more to the conversation and all of it turned me back around from a blackened, wizened cynic into a champion of true love once again and that's how it came to be that Matt has moved into the boathouse with Sam and has given notice on his rental.

(None of this happened today except for the actual move.)

Ugg boots were made for people who walk all damn day and thank God for that.

Tonight the dryer runs in tandem with the furnace, as the temperatures dip down below zero and the sun pulls a blanket of darkness up over its head, the hemlocks crowding in close to lift up the moon and point to the stars overhead.

It's a good night for spicy french fries stolen from over broad shoulders and for egg nog, nutmeg and whiskey. It's a good night to pour over Henry's graduation picture proofs. It's a good night to finalize the Christmas shopping list (I'm down to a spare handful of things left to pick up) and it's a good night to go to bed early, as I really fought myself to go out the door this morning, where it was so cold I've added a cardigan to my uniform dress and the car never did fully defrost by the time I made it to work. PJ didn't start the car for me. Neither did Ben. Mondays are for being a big girl, I guess.

I'm always glad when Mondays are over, even though I armed my brain to the teeth with things to think about when I was in danger of being overwhelmed. That helps too.

Drunk Sundays.

I was woken up in the best possible way this morning, a sleepy tug of war to remove my pajamas while I tried to keep them on, and then an attempt to put me on my face when I sleep best flat on my back, believe it or not but eventually I woke up enough to understand what was going on and then I helped out, pulling things off, not fighting anymore, and I might have pulled on a few curls in my rush to be so close to Lochlan I might have been behind him by the time we were finished with each other.

Then church, because it was frosty and there are songs to be sung, by Ben no less, who has been recruited to lead hymns for the entire month and oddly he accepted, so everyone gets a treat and the ones who don't think the words match the picture, well they will be won over soon enough, as always. 

I've only coughed half as much as usual this morning, too, but someone made me a second cup of coffee (from a slippery slope, no less) and then Lochlan poured a couple good shots of Baileys into it and put it in a travel mug for me to drink during the service and we piled into Ben's truck and I may have dozed off a couple of times because Sam sometimes gets boring when I get really cold but then we got to the good stuff and candles are lit and Ben's voice soars overhead into the heavens, so high I'm sure that even Jacob could hear him. It brought tears to my eyes. It brought tears to a lot of people's eyes, looking around. 

After church we came home to now make a few dozen grilled cheese sandwiches and a big pot of soup and get ahead on some chores. I realize it's hardly even December but with work and being sick and everything else one of my fondest desires right now is to do as much as I can while I feel well enough and then over Christmas week (since every. single. person on the point now has it off because Christmas. because WEDDING!!)I can do what I want to do, instead of what I need to do, I can relax and I can enjoy a dwindling childhood in which even the children asked for such practical things, and I know these years are now numbered. 

The waiting game.

Twenty-four hours and I might feel maybe five percent better, at least with a cough I can hear things in, instead of that dry, breathless cough I've had since labour day, or thereabouts.

Since I felt so great, I figured I should join Caleb for his first annual (fourth? Seventh?) Christmas shopping trip and so off we went. I finished my shopping and he finished his. We had a quick breakfast on the go, in which for the second time in a single season I walked and drank my coffee without spilling any or burning my tongue or pouring the whole thing into my purse/onto my phone/clothes/boyfriend and I even managed to finish it and find a recycling bin for the cup.

So yeah. Success. Then when we got home we pitched in to hang up the rest of the lights and did a few other chores and I feel caught up. I feel productive. I feel tired because we walked a whole lot and I saw things and remarked on things I'm sure I'll find under the tree in a few short weeks because Caleb is incorrigible, stubborn and predictable.

A little like me, I guess.

I hope I can tack on another five percent of health every day for the next three weeks and be at one hundred percent for Christmas.

Lochlan finally caught up with me when Caleb graciously offered me back to him and he kissed me which I returned heartily before coughing right in his face and told him about my coffee success. And the donut I ate. And the weird things I saw. And the feeling that I got a lot accomplished but I missed him something fierce.

Well, we'll get coffee on the way to church tomorrow then, he smiles. I think he missed me too. Advent starts tomorrow.

I always like it when the big wreath is lit, one candle a week until Christmas. It feels important and sombre, it feels like a big part of the holiday somehow. We don't have Elementary school pageants to go to anymore, so this is as close as we get to finding the spirit nice and early and keeping it through to the new year.

A red inhaler, to match my favorite lipstick, and a lot of reassurance that even though I wondered if I would die from this, I won't. I'll die from something else.

Ben absconded with me yesterday, setting us up in the library under cover of the rainy hemlocks, with his laptop on the table and hot chocolates and a big fuzzy blanket and we watched cooking documentaries all morning, afternoon and evening and I didn't talk, I just dozed a lot and then this morning we were still there but the laptop was dead because we didn't plug it in and so we jumped up and went up to get ready for the day, saw Henry off to school and then Ben took me to the specialist. 

Whew!

Actually it was nice. Ben will sometimes insert himself as a physical, flannel wall between me and everyone else who is trying to be helpful, including Lochlan, who is too pragmatic to be comforting sometimes and too fretful to be calming besides. If Ben is worried he does it in a weirdly mature and quiet way. And Caleb is even worse, pacing and throwing cuffs and checking the time and proclaiming he or his money could fix it and blahblahblah that sends me into a tailspin without even preamble. 

I almost forgot I even had an appointment today, snuggled in behind Ben's arm. 

But we're back, armed with prescriptions for steroid inhalers and more rest and lozenges (! Since they clearly understand I. DON'T. REST. Or can't, I guess, as the only reason I did yesterday honestly is because Ben sat on me and then swore at me when I struggled to try and leave.) and a new timeline of two or so weeks to get truly better. 

And I feel better already. My lungs are almost cleared up, my ears are barely inflamed and my throat looks good (which is weird since I cough all the damn time lately) but there's hope and maybe I can move on to talking about something besides my wonderful, terrible immune system. Things like pizza! Because it's Friday and I don't have to cook tonight. Yay!

The HASSELVIKA challenge.

I went next door this afternoon to check with Christian to make sure he's looking at the Pinterest things I've been saving for him and he and Andrew were busy putting together furniture! Because the wedding is on New Year's Eve one of their gifts to each other is a fresh start, such as new bedroom and den furniture and sheets and robes and bookcases and much much more.

Because I don't know about you but stuff has baggage, and after you've had a couple or maybe hardly any relationships you wind up realizing all of your stuff hasn't changed but you have.

You've changed a lot.

So I barge in only to see Andrew holding a drill and Christian holding the instructions upside down and they both seem to be biting their tongues because I'm there.

Did I interrupt something? We have an only-knock-outside-of-normal-waking-hours policy point-wide so I don't think I did.

Oh, Christian was just telling me no one needs instructions and that's why we're four hours into this and don't even have a completed drawer for a nighttable. 

That's not what I said, Andrew, I said most people-

I heard what you said. 

I backed out of the room slowly and shut the door. Apparently I interrupted the final compatibility test of every good relationship: IKEA. 

Ignore this. I've reached a level even I didn't think I could get to.

Tuesday is another day of endless rain, another day of uncontrollable coughing wracking my poor body limp and aching as I tense up so hard now because it hurts when I cough. It's not a nice, polite cough, it's an abrupt bark, a seal-call, a mostly-not-productive but occasionally thankfully productive and today Caleb set a firm timeline by which I must be better or he will call in a specialist.

Lochlan pulled me in close underneath his chin only to kiss the top of my head and find a rather disturbing cut and a fair amount of dried blood, most likely from when I whacked my head on the concrete under the stairs on Friday, which is really great, since I wash my hair every day and shower every day too and basically didn't notice I had bled and wasn't doing all that great a job of brushing my own damn hair, apparently. Which, of course I'm not. It's barely to my chin and looks a little insane these days anyway, all pointy and flippy, the sparest of bobs now at last.

To that end Lochlan took Caleb's firm date and moved it forward by three days, to Friday. So Friday I get to see someone who maybe can make a difference in my health, that's been deplorable to the point where even I'm wondering if I can have a break now.

I did go to work though. Thankfully the diner was empty.

Dueling iPads.

Euphoria’s gone, it’s time to move on
I have to believe we can change
When the notes come out wrong
Stop singing along
We can’t be the same old thing
It’s New Year’s Day

Well, here comes the Christmas music, though the princess isn't going anywhere today, as I am still sick, if you can even believe it and even after topping myself up with daytime cold medicine, my inhaler and a big old cup of coffee I still knocked fervently at Death's door, hoping to be let in if only to let go of this misery.

So here I am. Back in pajamas and listening to my favorite playlist of the year. Too sick to decorate or do anything exciting, like make cartwheels through the rain puddles in the yard or walk on the beach but Caleb is keeping me company, reading the stock reports online, making small noises of approval or sadness depending on the numbers and every now and then throwing out a suggestion for something for us to do, as if it's a Sunday or something and we just woke up and never go to church and don't have an entire Collective to match social calendars with.

You can do things but I'm going to stay in and drink tea and add things to Andrew's Pinterest account for the wedding.

And Caleb laughs, which startles Lochlan who is snoozing beside me. He is getting a cold and isn't sleeping well and oh my God, we're going to go round robin with this stupid thing this year but he also weirdly can sleep while people are having conversations all around him. He attributes the thin aluminum walls of the campers to that, being parked in less than ideal places on the midway.

I never slept if someone was talking right outside our camper but at least the accommodations on the midway were better than the circus, a rotation of shitty motels in shitty cities that I wouldn't set foot in as a tourist, but as a performer I had no choice, really.

He also can sleep right through Christmas music. I can't even keep from singing along out loud though I cough all the time and I feel like I've been doing hard-core crunches for a month at this point. Everything hurts. Everything's wrong and this isn't depression, I'm just physically worn out and I'd like to sleep for a week and I knew if I went to work today and a customer said something shitty I might have said something shitty in return and so even though I probably risked my job by being sick again (twice in two weeks) it's better to risk it then give it up completely because of my skin being far too thin.

In any case it's nice to be wedged in here between these two just hanging out on a stormy Monday morning.

Especially if it involves planning weddings for other people. I feel like I may have missed my true calling here.