Tuesday 4 August 2015

August forth.

It feels like fall today. I am underslept, overmedicated and uncharacteristically clingy-feeling, as if I want to hide away, stop the world, gather arms close around me while I close my eyes and sleep for a whole day, maybe two until I can answer that stupid question without inexplicably tearing up.

How are you, Bridget?

It seems like such an innocuous thing but to me it's always a homing beacon or an invitation to say way more than fine in return. License to be honest. To be raw. A fork in the road that says Deal with how you feel right now and if you're successful we'll give you the map to the next part. That's how August plots out his counseling, you see. Each thing you deal with is a point on a map and the map is your life and he wants you to heal all along the way. More than once I have thrown a whole stack of papers up into the air and walked out, insisting that I am lost, that I'll never find my way back, and that he'll be waiting by the side of the road for a while still, I'm probably in a different but parallel universe. Go on ahead. Leave me here. I understand. 

But August asks me to shelve the drama I am concocting and to embrace the glorious east-coast-imposter wind as it ruffles through our hair, the sunlight as it dapples the leaves and and the cooler temperatures which promise level-headedness and easier sleep tonight. Things to look forward to, Bridget, he implores me and I know damn well he's right but I threaten the two days of sleep anyway as an unattainable reward. As a plan that I'll never fulfill because interruption is king. Distraction is the rule and Bob's your uncle. 

Wait, that isn't my phrase, it was August's, as he imitated Gage, who always says he can eat the whole _______ (whatever I put out for dinner) and Bob's your uncle. 

But what does that even mean? I ask, curious because I love words and I'm just beginning to figure a few of them out. 

He can't explain and he finds that funny and we all laugh because it's so absurd and yet I still feel like the sadness is right there on the other side of a door in my brain and if it gets windy enough the door will fly open by itself and I'll have to deal with what's on the other side so if it's all the same to you I'm just going to stay right here for a little while, spot marked on the map and when it's safe I'll move forward. 

Or not.