Postfamous.

And I feel so much depends on the weather
So is it raining in your bedroom?
And I see that these are the eyes of disarray
Would you even care?

And I feel it
And she feels it

I have the remote in a deathgrip, heart locked down, brain switched off as Jacob's swagger of a third incarnation (after God. After Bridget.) fills the screen in the theatre. Matt is rapt, watching Jacob sing in his STP cover band, watching him work the crowd, watching him find the camera and then address it. Watching him rake his hand through his hair, lean way out over the crowd and act so not-preacher-like it's almost as if he was someone else completely.

It was a test, if you can believe it. Matt's heard the stories, Matt's been here through someone of my worst after-flight moments, but never have I offered to show him the recordings, the videos of Jacob's band belting out Stone Temple Pilots hits while the townsfolk positively screamed for more. Jacob has always been just a name to Matt until today. But right now I feel like I could and so I did and I didn't implode or anything.

Matt sits back, sinking in the couch, his eyes wide. Wow, he whispers, looking at me.

I don't look back, I can't take my eyes from the screen. I know, right?

Deep end, shallow end, meet me in-between.

Matt pulled me in close to a hug this morning when we arrived at cold, rainy church and the seats were all saved because we get there early anyway.

Can I request a plot near the telescope? The orchard seems so far from the beautiful view. 

No. It's already dug and everything. Don't make me use it, Matthew. 

I won't be. It's for keeps this time, Bridget. Sam is the greatest thing about my life and I've fucked it up enough. He's got tears in his eyes. Great, now I do too.

I hold up my pinkie and Matt wraps his own little finger around mine, whispering Swear before we take our seats. The litmus test will be when I show up to the boathouse, however. Then we'll know for sure.

***

I kind of fell off a cliff reading Yrsa Daley-Ward's poetry late this morning, after church was over, only to find out she has an upcoming collaboration with Valentino early this spring with her poetry on the Garavani bags. Looks like I'll be fighting for one of the four hundred available and I don't even like the bags. Just the words. As usual.

I'll get you one, the Devil assures. Because of course he will.

Or maybe the book he's reading is boring but I doubt it (It's called The Great Zoo of China).

It's raining and warmer today, everything is a lush, soaked green, a dim, muted rainforest weekend day meant for doubling down on snuggles and holding out for nothing short of extreme comfort. My hot chocolate was spiked with Irish cream, my boys have multiplied and the library is dark and quiet.

Lochlan dozes lightly beside me. He was reading, but his glasses keep slipping down his nose as his eyes close. Then he jerks awake, his arm tightening around me only to realize he is safe and then he goes to sleep again.

I like watching it happen. He was never one for blackout curtains or dark rooms and I would always watch him lose his grip on the day slowly and then all at once, his whole face going slack from where before his expression would be coiled and tense.

He falls asleep like no one else I know.

Every time someone pokes their head in the door I hold a hand up in warning. Then they fumble for their phone and text me their question/offer/request and then they go away again.

I said yes to the hot chocolate though, and I'll say yes to the leftover Friday-night pizza if it comes to that. I just don't want to move right now. He's so content. I'm so content.

AWD for Christmas is you..

The tree is up! It's lit and decorated and wrapped with miles and miles of vintage wired embroidered ribbon. It's a very forties-looking tree to that end, and every single ornament has a story. Everyone is very happy but no one is as happy as the cats, who parked underneath it and haven't budged since.

All the presents are bought. I just honestly need some time to wrap them and a moment to run out and lug home the turkeys for dinner but other than that the spirit is here and we're set. This weekend is for egg nog and making tourtière pies and maybe watching Krampus. Maybe sleeping in a tiny bit. Maybe coughing less, I hope (rolls eyes). Maybe not eating the entire dish of Hershey kisses that's on the table in the hallway.

I'm sort of car-shopping as well, while I'm at it. While I'm off, I guess. I've finally had it with the way giant pickup trucks treat me on the highway, as if I'm a nuisance, in their way. I'm tired of their headlights shining directly into my eyes. I'm tired of hoping Henry hasn't grown again when I give him driving lessons, as he actually doesn't fit in this car at all, as a passenger never mind as a driver, and I don't like the little knocks and fits it has when it torques around corners and such. It's been a fun couple of years but I think I'm going to buy a Jeep. I like PJ's and he says it's a good vehicle so why the heck not?

I have time to shop. I'm a car salesman's worst nightmare though. You would think the boys do all the talking but they don't say a word. 

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.