Rollercoasters and timeskips.

Yesterday was waylaid completely by an eleventh-hour invitation from Ruth to go wedding dress shopping. It began as a casual effort to go look around and then before I knew it she had found the dress and the women at the bridal store were losing their minds over it and her in it, zipping it up into a garment bag and making appointments for alterations to come as we don't have a lot of time but we have some. She wasn't sure what she wanted, even with ideas, though after trying on the dream idea it wasn't right in the end and she did a full turnaround. 

She even tried on my last actual wedding dress (the princess one) and deemed it not right which was fine as I didn't think it was either, and she talked alot about colour before we left, before finally going with a blush pink satin under cream lace. It's incredible. It's Ruth. And we are two months away from her wedding suddenly, all at once and yet every time I look at her I still see this little girl rocking out to Avril Lavigne and asking for Dunakroos. I'm almost in shock here and can't get over how fast life moves just when you think you're getting comfortable. 

My children continue to impress me with their poise and confidence. I'm envious but also so so proud.

Is it Wednesday?

 I'll be watching kpop videos today and maybe making cod and caesar salads for dinner since it's my night and probably going to bed even earlier than usual because I'm godsmackingly tired. 

Last night I had my first really weird dream on this medication, which I'm bearing with in terms of having decided I need to take it to fix a specific illness, versus it being an optional trial kind of thing. That's helping me accept the side effects and even those are slightly better than they were last week. 

But the dream. I can remember every detail. I walked up to the playground way up the hill and the mail for the whole neighborhood was laid out on the grass, everything opened but only valuable things taken, like gift cards out of birthday greetings and parcels. I stacked it all up and called for people to come out of their houses and get their mail and I gathered mine up and stuffed it into my satchel and then I was suddenly downtown and I met up with someone from work (I don't know the person or the job, actually) and she said the bus was leaving but I opened my wallet and my bus pass was cut into pieces and I told her it expired and she was like just pay cash but I didn't have any. 

I got on the bus anyway and ignored the driver as he called for me to pay and I went to the back and sat down. When I got home I lived in this tiny attic with Lochlan's mother and she had boxes stacked up everywhere and they were all addressed to me and I was trying to gather everything up and I told her I had to buy a new bus pass but my phone was dead so I would do it before work in the morning. I climbed way up into this wooden bed that was so high in the air and when I went to plug my phone in the charger was gone. I asked her if she had it and she said it was probably lost under all these boxes and so I went to sleep. 

My alarm woke me out of that, thankfully before I had to deal with figuring out who was stealing the mail and how I was going to get my new bus pass. 

Goddamn. I hate dreams like that but they're also weirdly fascinating.

Grooves in the pavement.

We're not coordinated. An early walk with Sam. An after-breakfast walk with Lochlan. A mid-morning walk with Dalton. An after-lunch walk with Benjamin and Duncan. A late afternoon walk with PJ and then after dinner Caleb asked me if I wanted to go for a walk and I had to beg off as I've already logged fifty kilometres today and I just want to stop moving. He understood and didn't feel singled out as I also had refused one from Batman earlier but damn. Why can't we just go for a group walk?

Lady luck.

It's cold, dark and raining on this atypical Monday and I have a house full of men in flannel shirts and jeans, all of which seem to be perpetually with coffee cup and phone in hand. It's so loud outside I turned off the music as it was just noise competing for my attention and it's kind of nice to listen to. I think I will miss it whenever or if ever I leave here. 

We had some really exciting news in amongst the screen door wars and I am so looking forward to the spring suddenly.

Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.

Jacob is on the wall in the rain with his guitar. I can see him from here but it's pouring in sheets, turning the grass to mud and the skies to graphite and if I open that glass door the chimes will sound and they'll come running so I am content to sit in the big easy chair and watch him from the great room. From this chair I have a wider view of the backyard, and can just see the lower portion of the rock wall. He's just up from the platform where we set up the telescope on clear evenings in the summer, and I'm guessing his guitar is probably so far out of tune it's not in the genre he's playing any more which would be something by Stone Temple Pilots, Billy Joel or maybe Joe Jackson. Maybe a love song I no longer listen to, maybe a Beatles arrangement. Maybe some unconnected notes, like the song between us now that has been forgotten, no longer played on the record player or radio, no longer in the back of my mind, a soundtrack for a film that's over and been remade already. 

Or, 'reimagined', as it were. 

I look over at PJ on the big couch. He is nodding along to whatever's in his headphones and reading, swiping down the screen of his phone, content, coffee cup in his left hand, feet up on the tabletop, warm by the fire. He looks up, feeling my gaze and I look away. He is in charge this morning while everyone else sleeps away the rain after such a busy day yesterday. He didn't come out with the group and yet he's thrilled the rickety, warped screen doors are soon to be history. We also cleared out an extraordinary amount of things over the past several months from previous lives, a cobbled collective history of belongings that were redundant and copious. It's a spring-clean for our souls, and he is a big part of what keeps us organized and productive, though he is always perpetually worried that I might find things move too fast and regress, or worse. 

I'm doing okay. Things are good. He is cautiously optimistic for that, that the darker period now ebbs once more and we come out into the light. I take a deep breath through my nose, exhaling through my mouth. I take a sip of my ever-present water bottle and meet his gaze again with my reassuring smile, but only with my eyes. He winks and goes back to his reading. It's a content Sunday so I don't know why they let Jake sit there and play. They were supposed to banish him from my existence. That was the plan, I know now.

Shim it and skim it.

Replacing my beautiful wooden screen doors today with actual storm doors. Metal ones with slide-open windows and locking latches and far more quality than my country-farmhouse shabby chic painted doors that never matched the house style at all. It's too modern and austere and I was still in my Prairie Victorian stage, I guess. 

Next week will be twelve years here in the Pacific Northwest. Twelve years on the wrong coast, but here we are. 

But storm doors meant two trips to the hardware store, replacing all of the brick moulding around the doors too (all of them, not a one was exempt) and also a weird discussion, complete with procreate for visual charts, in the aisle of a Home Depot while we tried to figure out how to make it work. Oh, and latches for each door that are patent-pending that added almost a hundred bucks to each door, which was funny but also not. 

And we got all the stuff but now it's dark and it's raining and we've missed our chance to actually do the work. 

This is good, this is normal. This is how we roll.

Today is the first day of the- yeah, yeah.

Doing okay today. The early relief that comes with promises of change or help or sympathy or whatever this is. The hope of a reprieve from the monster that is my mind. My corrupted soul trying to change my body and heart in place while I fight without a rest. I don't know what this is, I only know it isn't normal and I know that he rewired my brain in the worst way possible and then before he had time to teach me how to use it, he was gone again. And now he's back and he gets a front row seat to his destruction every day of his life and somehow I hope the guilt eats him alive. 

But it won't. 

In the meantime, Caleb's been hovering. He hates new doctors, hates not having control or at least input, as it were, hates being told what will happen and when. 

It'll be weeks before I see improvement. You can go rest, Diabhal. 

Not on your life, Neamhchiontach. I'll take care of you. 

Stop, I whisper but he can't hear it. 

Yes I can, and no, I won't, he says in return.

Maybe the guilt will eat him alive. I want to be here to see it. Every moment of it.

I will wait for my Rice Krispies on the moon.

NICE. If someone had told me I wouldn't be able to buy Rice Krispies for six fucking months I would have stocked up, the way I did on Goldfish crackers, toilet paper, cold hard cash and now Doritos, because my province is literally in hell lately. 

On the upside? They have rapid tests at the pharmacy now but I didn't get any because I forgot as I listened and fidgeted through the pharmacist's list of cautions and side effects for my spanking brand new pills and then for good measure I was handed a seven-page printout of information. I think they have to, though this has nothing to do with signing legal contracts and just about everything to do with me falling asleep in a bowl of Honeycombs this afternoon. All of this above-board now, as it seems to keep the wolves in check.

All the boomers back home have covid. The rest of us only go outside when we have to. I woke up Ben and dragged him to the grocery store at seven this morning and he dragged me to the doctor at ten. It was a cold call, just to see what transpires and she passed all the tests and after a lengthy discussion it's clear Bridget's anxiety is absolutely off the charts at this point and something has to be done. 

Also more therapy (yeah, no) and no alcohol and mindfulness off of youtube. 

Or something. 

But let's start with drugs. Half dose to begin and then next week I'll be asleep before I can even pour a bowl of cereal and still make it to the big table. I hate side effects. She said to give it five weeks and then come back and we'll shoot for the moon but hell, I think I'm already there.

Yeah, yeah.

Flooding into my brain. Jacob's voice at a time when I don't have the alertness to protect myself nor the want. I loved the sound of his voice. A soft rumble. Easy enough to understand but strikingly deep. He went up an octave if he was very passionate or singing but otherwise it was like riding a wave of warm molasses. The closest deep voice in the house now is Henry, followed by Caleb.

Princess, you need to wake up. You need to get up and do things. You can't hide under the blankets all day. 

I don't know if it's in the present or if I'm reliving a memory. All I remember is that I was stubborn and he knew how to goad me into doing things. He would state a fact (usually untrue) and I would leap to prove him wrong. Lochlan always said that was an unhealthy way of forcing someone to comply but if anyone was a professional insubordinate, it would be Loch. 

I roll over and off the bed. I don't know where Ben is but I hear the shower. When Ben doesn't have meetings or medical appointments he sleeps halfway into the morning now, since mid-January or so but I like to think he actually does it to keep me company because this is a place I rarely leave now. I cheek my pills, they're in an old pill bottle under the top of the headboard. I don't sleep, contrary to Jacob's (and Ben's) observations. I do sometimes put on a face and go and hang out, like with Daniel a couple of days ago, but otherwise I live in pajamas, I watch Netflix and I swallow back as much panic as I can overnight only to drown the moment I'm distracted. I know the big meds are coming. I can see them from here. I hear the train and see the smoke on the horizon. Lochlan only lets time go to a certain point before he calls in the seriousness because he doesn't enjoy peering into the darkest holes to look for me and he certainly can't be content to look the other way. That isn't in his DNA any more than listening to orders is. 

Is that healthy? I don't know.  I see no irony. He tries. I fail. He is ultimately responsible because I'm not even allowed to start an online candy subscription, as it is technically a legal contract and guess who is not a legal adult? 

The story of my life. 

*sad laughter*

But I'm up and I'm clean and in jeans and Cole's sweater and somehow if this is better than bed then I wait patiently for Jacob/Lochlan's argument on precisely why.

The faceless princess.

Booked a vet appointment, an appointment to get my Driving license renewed and then I went to see how far they were booking in advance for the full Class 5 license for Henry and discovered he has to wait another year to take it, as it's a full two years between the Novice license he got last spring (one step up from a learners, he can drive alone with a big green N on the back of the vehicle and there are restrictions on the numbers of passengers, and the Class 5 which is full and unrestricted and best yet, no magnets to lose/forget about/scratch the paint/be stolen. Also it's a damn prize for him at this point as none of his friends have more than a learners, save for one, and right now that friend does all the driving mostly because Henry doesn't love to drive but he loves to ride along. 

Then too soon I looked for T4s and T4As and T2022s and whatever the hell else I need but as I said everyone has til the end of this month to get their things to me and then I will do my best. Until then I guess I am off the hook for taxes, which is sort of nice as a reprieve, though I also like to have it all over with. 

The windchill has it at minus eight right now but the sun is shining so, so bright.  I head next door where Daniel is anxious to give me a winter weather pampering skincare treatment. Or something. I don't know but I love spending time with him so off I go.

***

Daniel is reading out instructions and outcomes and I sit in the makeup chair in their gorgeous big bathroom while he puts scary things on my face and laments the hilarity that I've never had girlfriends and Bailey (my older sister) is very out of touch and so I ignore basic beauty standards most of the time and revert to whatever the boys do because they are all very fastidious about hygiene and appearances, truth be told. 

Albeit in a super-contrived, totally casual way. 

(snort)

He's doing a glycolic acid peel and tells me that in a couple of days my skin will start peeling but just to do a little moisturizer over it and not pick at it. 

Um. WHAT? Why would you put acid on my face?

It's not that kind of acid. 

You just said after forty-eight hours my face will melt off. Jesus Christ, Dan. 

No I did not and this is a basic exfoliation that everyone uses once a month. 

What's wrong with my facecloth? 

It can't get deep down into your pores. 

What's wrong with my pores?

They get dirty. 

No, they don't. I wash my face. 

With what? 

Soap. Duh. 

He actually screams in falsetto gay. I love it so much. Never use soap on your face! 

What do I use then? 

Cleanser. 

Like....soap.

Didn't you used to buy skincare from Sephora? 

It was all greasy or creamy and I never felt clean so back to soap. I tried though.

What do you use? 

Rosewater spray and garnier eye bag cooling gel stuff. Lip stain. 

That's it? 

That's my whole routine. OH and I use hairdressing oil when I get flyaways or static.

Right. Can't forget that. Well. Should we go shopping or go to a spa? 

No. 

Whyyyyyyyy Bridget. 

I hate being touched. 

He bursts out laughing and winks at me. Such tiny lies. 

No. Like massage or pedicures or haircuts. Don't touch me. You guys are fine though. 

Then I have to be your esthetician. 

I'm never putting acid on my face again. The only thing I have going for me is my face and now it's going to slide off in the sun on Thursday. What will I do now? 

I told you the steps. 

Right. Moisturize! That will fix everything. 

It will though! You'll see!