For a moment a lesson was learned.

PJ got me a foot long sub to conquer today and I don't think I can do it. Haha. It's crispy chicken with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles and sweet onion sauce and it's so good but so huge. Worth the money when you can get lunch for eight people for a hundred bucks I think. And he just gets the big ones so you can eat half and save the other half for dinner or eat the whole thing for lunch so it's decisions made. So I don't need to make pizzas tonight like I had planned and instead I can throw some pottery. Which I'm going to do now because it's a break for my mind and I can focus on building and technique and squish mud between my fingers and make a huge mess and I don't have to worry or fret or be anxious and that's a gift.

The fretting is creeping back and that makes me fret more. I hate it. 

It's Thursday and I'm back.

I was not planning to take another four days off from writing but sometimes things happen and in this case it was total mutiny in the form of Benjamin and Lochlan not letting me leave the bedroom for over forty-eight blissful hours of breakfast in bed, long naps, a whole host of movies on Netflix and at least three blistering-hot bubble baths, sorely needed after what seemed to become endless gardening and fixing up and changing and planning and I did not mind it and had a burst of energy which always seems to be followed by a long rest as I will continue to run until I can no longer breath or see. 

Until my legs will no longer carry me and my heart abruptly caves in, slowing to a dangerous crawl before a staccato beat is detected in the air and Loch comes running. 

Because he just knows. Knows when it changes, knows when something's different, knows when there's a shift in the matrix and something is wrong. 

Jacob followed me inside on Tuesday, screaming helplessly at my retreating form, shoulders rounded in against the rain, head down against the wind, legs wet from the tall grass, ears broken to his pleading voice. The wind took it and it wasn't until I reached the patio and pulled the doors across the tracks that his voice came into focus and I could hear him and so I was granted half of a one-sided conversation which makes things neither comprehensive nor fair. 

I tried to respond but then Lochlan was there with a warm towel and he started to say something but then he abruptly told me to finish my thought, and then he never took his eyes off me as he told Jake to please leave and then I heard and felt nothing after that and we were alone. 

Then he watched me for a few minutes as I started to stutter and flutter and lose my shit and he cancelled the week and everything else too and he called for Ben and that was that. Four arms to hold me while the ghost of Princess Past breathed on the top of my head in my mind but not in real life and sometimes they get a little bit mixed together and so this was a much needed reprieve. 

I know I'm never going to be okay, I was never going to be the same anyway, and this always serves as a reminder that I was supposed to be something special and instead I'm just something, alright.

Doesn't matter what flavour (and it's the only time I don't care that I'm allergic to food colouring).

Planted the potatoes, tomatoes, basil, wildflowers, peas, beans, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, pumpkins and sunflowers yesterday. 

Very excited. Wore (that took a while, kept writing whore. SNORT) myself out a little in the heat and we had slushies from the gas station for dinner so not a loss exactly and I am excited to see if any of these seeds come up. It's supposed to rain all week so who knows? I'm just glad it's done. We also gave a spare lawnmower and a bike to the neighbours which is nice because it saves them a few hundred dollars and frees up some space for us.Win-win. 

I want to do the front gardens a little better but I also have zero energy and no one else does either. Fun times! 

Might get another slurpee today and snooze by the pool. Duncan has an exceedingly comfortable lap to rest my head and unless Lochlan randomly tickles me like he does when I nap by the pool it could be a good day. 

(Oh my god I just realized I can buy a slushie machine. BRB shopping.)

No one banished the bug.

Today I had a phone call from the Devil, which I was permitted to answer, I got bitten by a ladybug after doing some garden prep ahead of this weekend's planting and I was cleared to swim, and so swim I did, first around the point after jumping off the cliff to celebrate, and then in the pool this afternoon with the boys and the cover a quarter open to the sunny skies, as we celebrated the first nice day this year. It's almost twenty degrees and I am embracing it. 

Daniel also trimmed my hair for me as it somehow grew two inches after he cut it all off a month ago and so this time it is boy-short and I love it. 

I harboured no bad feelings toward the ladybug, who didn't want to be trapped under my shirt any more than I wanted it there and I released it into the backyard after losing and catching it twice from the couch to the patio doors. 

The Devil is doing well and was very pleased to learn I have the all-clear and there is hardly a mark there now, just a pink semicircle where the punctures were. No more scabs, and the bruising has faded to a yellow-brown shadow. Not that I would know but Ben looks and then gives me highly detailed reports from my backside which makes me laugh and then he'll make terrible jokes or even worse propositions and I have to bury my laughs in my hands because it isn't supposed to be funny. 

But yes, floating in the coldish pool in the warm sun on a Friday afternoon is possibly the best thing. We even invited Batman and New Jake but neither of them showed while I was there. Maybe they did later. I'm hoping to go back in after dinner for a quick swim but dinner is always so late and I have to wait an appropriate amount of time so maybe not tonight.

Maybe tomorrow though.

Progress?

This morning I asked Lochlan if we could audition for the new iteration of Ringling. 

He didn't say anything but he also didn't say no.

The tin girl (who already had a heart so she wished for a brain instead).

Oh, don't mind me. I was spraying painting some old picture frames out on the far lawn. I put down newspaper weighted with small rocks and I grabbed my trusty chrome and copper metallic krylon cans and went to town. I was having a good time, holding each frame up by one corner so I could get the inside edges and outside all the way around and then I laid them flat to dry. An hour later, same deal on the back side of each frame. 

They're now having a final cure up on the porch floor by the patio doors so I figured it's a good time to go clean up as my hands are bright silver up to the wrists. 

And the nail polish remover didn't work. 

Neither did the paint thinner. 

I think I should have learned my lesson with that oil-based exterior paint that time but apparently I HAVE NOT.

(Also I have pretty silver rocks in the corner of the yard now which is really neat looking, truth be told.)

Hoarding daylight.

Dalton and Duncan are making a farmhouse breakfast for the whole point this morning. Baked beans, scrambled eggs, toast, super-thick bacon and fruit bowls and coffee and juice and I am here for it. Pastries too because we have scones and croissants to use up and then we are doing a major rain-gardening event today. That's where you garden in the rain, if you were wondering. It's a bit messy but the ground is soft, the plants are happy and if you leave everything on the lawn afterward you can go back the next day and all the shovels, rakes and claws are clean so you don't have to waste water hosing everything off and waiting for it all to dry before putting it away. Saves a step, if you will. 

Also nothing beats coming inside and changing into dry clothes and warming up by the fire so that's maybe the best part. Maybe we'll order pizzas tonight too and just have a quiet day catching up. I am still exhausted from the wedding whirlwind and still in awe that Ruth is married and so my brain has been drifting along on auto-pilot since. Lochlan too, though he did take my phone away since Caleb won't stop messaging me and he stuffed it in a drawer I can't reach in the walk-in closet and then for good measure took the little wooden stool away. 

He asked me to not reply if I need my phone back, which I do. If Ruthie messages me to go to Marshalls with her I need to know, you know? Then I will load up on handbags and everything will be well. A handbag addiction is an attempt to organize your life, or so I've been told and I'm terrible at it, I guess. Maybe a Longchamp or a Gucci would change that, right? Oh, probably not, but a girl can try. Valentino will look smashing with my new button fly jeans and my twenty-year old Switchfoot t-shirt, right? Right? 

Of course it will. Valentino looks good with everything. 

Not like I'm going anywhere though so maybe just a Longchamp, but only if the leather ones aren't heavy. I have a Rogue bag by Coach that I can barely lift and need to sell but I also want to keep it because it's easy to organize. And it fits my laptop and my ipad. So there. 

I also have a bag coming from overseas presently. So excited. 

Give me a break, it's the only vice I have left, if you don't count men.

Can't feel my fingers.

Today we got matching button-fly jeans (not matching inseam sizes, SIGH) and yaki veg noodles from my favourite Japanese chef and I made Lochlan listen to the whole new Stray Kids EP and I contemplated getting a pair of bonded cats that were in the window of the pet shelter but I just lost a cat and it's too soon and also I think when all the pets are gone, and Henry has moved out and I have given away all my plants too and reassigned anything that is dependent on me I will sleep for a whole week and get up for nothing. 

I'll let the laundry pile up and the groceries run out. I will read every book on my nightstand (Lochlan's nightstand. There is no middle nightstand in a poly bed) and watch every dumb show. I will not speak to anyone except for the kids and I will catch up on all the sleep I ever missed all at once.

This will never work. Someone will do the laundry for me, PJ and Ben keep the grocery shopping under control, Dalton loves the plants, and I am slow to read easily and every day. I also have that speed-mouth thing where if I go too long without talking I will catch you up on my thoughts in seconds with a manic verbal-diarrhea event of epic proportions. It's weird. I'M weird. So it makes sense. 

Going to spend my Saturday night drinking ice water and watching the second season of Bling Empire. What are you all doing?

Perfectly normal conversation save for the fact that one of us is dead and I'm not sure which one.

I think you were better before he came back. 

That was before people died. Things are different now. 

Yes but you were navigating life with more confidence then. Now you shake almost all the time. You don't do anything without permission or approval. 

Lochlan would not agree with you-

He never agreed with me about anything anyway. But we do have something big in common. 

The kitchen table-

No, we both want you away from Caleb. 

I don't want that. 

That isn't you talking, it's the abuse he inflicted on you. 

Yeah, well, it's not like it's a separate entity. It's part of me now. 

Does it have to be, Princess?

If I want to keep him in my life it does. 

Cut him loose and save yourself. 

It's too late for that-

It's never too late for that.

If he left forever it would be like he was dead too and I can't do that. I can't-

Like everyone else, those who are gone are still part of you. They shape who you have become. 

Now you're contradicting yourself.  

Am I? Oh, I am, I guess. I just want to give you permission. 

I take a bite of my ham sandwich. The wind whips all around me and I shiver. It's so cold today but I am promising myself a picnic a week and it's the only dry day we're going to get. I stare at Jacob but he is hard to focus on because my eyes keep swimming and then dry in the wind and then swim again. 

Permission? 

Since you seem to look for it. Permission to let him go. You don't have to keep everyone. He will probably flourish too, just like you will without him-

I fall apart without him. 

Maybe at first but eventually it will be easier. 

In fifteen years like with you? Be careful with your answer here and remember I have known Caleb since I was eight years old. 

I wish I had done things differently. 

Me, too. 

I should have killed him but I was trying to keep God in my heart when I spoke to him. 

God likes to throw punches though, huh. I laugh in spite of myself and Jacob frowns. I can see my Jeep right through his face. Wow, this sucks. 

I should have said it was an accident but then I wouldn't have been able to live with mys-

I choke suddenly, rush to climb down off the wall, gather my lunch and my book and run up the hill. It's too cold suddenly and too hard to be out here and PJ was right. I should eat by the fire. 

I get a glass of water and then for good measure finish Lochlan's tea. He is amused and waits until I am finished. 

Did Jacob at least try to talk you out of letting Caleb come back? 

Yes. 

Good. He is relieved. At least now someone's on my side here.

Exponents, opponents, moments.

Caleb's penalty was a million dollars and a thirty-day break. Batman said it will double for every infraction going forward. This sounds like a Lochlan-plan but Batman will always offer to be the bad guy (the worst guy) if it means Lochlan can get ahead by an inch or two and so I dutifully nodded and then tried very hard not to laugh in his face because this is ludicrous. He is my boyfriend. We can't play the revisionist history game. We just need a cage for his head so he can't bite me when he loses it but then all I can think of is the Jackal in Thirteen Ghosts and I would just scream and scream. 

They won't listen in that the longer we spend apart, the more violent our reunions. They don't understand how much he aches alone and how easy it is to placate him once he's had a recent taste. They seem to forget so easily that my brain and my heart will only willingly work together if everyone is home and safe and this isn't going to work at all. 

But for Lochlan I would do anything, including rip out my heart, handing it to him with my last breath if only he asked. 

I wish Diabhal knew that, Lochlan says.

(He does. That's the problem.)

Anyway, he comes back June tenth and it could have been worse. PJ's plan was to vice Caleb's head in the garage on the workbench and pull all his teeth out with pliers. They were lining up to help. Fucking barbarians, here. 

Yes, WE are the barbarians, Ben says, not kindly either.