Take this Sabbath Day... if only.

Well, that's me cured.

The importance of being cautious

Yeah, yeah. He da man, and all that. It's all ended fine.

But, let's face it, it could easily not have. I wish he'd exercise cautious optimism. It would just save a lot of us a lot of excessive blood pressure.

Ceilings not falling down would also do that, I guess.

Inches from his head, though. I mean, come on. How is it possible that someone so intelligent and so very definitely heterosexual could be such a drama queen?

And I should, apparently, take the metaphorical bullet for him?

Ha. Some nerve.

You know what, though? I think given the chance, I might.

But maybe I'm just feeling soft because he "could be dead". Or, something.

Financial disclosure

You know what I love about Mandy? The fact I'm no longer the only one fighting a losing battle trying to keep Josh humble. It does make me smile when he gets shouted at.

I worry when he wanders off like that, though. Wonder where he was going. Not to do anything stupid, I hope. Sigh. I can't protect him from himself forever. Or ever, really.

Still, he did good today. The VP may have taken the credit but I wouldn't be surprised if Josh had done most of the leg work. Maybe the tough guy act with the sunglasses... It's actually quite disturbing how attractive I find that.

Bet he looks good in that expensive tux too...

Muffins, bagels and kegs of glory...

Today definitely had the makings of an unbearable day – let’s face it, so many of them do – but it actually only took one muffin and the news about Mandy to shut him up. (Which seems to me to be a clear case of that whole post hoc, ergo propter hoc thing, but anyway.)

It's a shame, because I’d like to see him ford a river or have a go at slaying a serpent one of these days. Most likely his technique would be to yell for me, look away while I do it, then claim the credit. Hrmph.

I had fun drawing up the most complicated way of saying “I’m your boss.” I think someone is feeling threatened.

He makes me smile.

Days like this help me get things back in perspective. It’s not a crush after all. Just a soft spot for an eligible wannabe hero, that comes and goes and will surely be gone forever soon enough. I just need to draw up a few more of those ridiculous charts.

Amazing what a clean shirt can do...

Well, that’s a relief.

Josh keeps his job – I keep mine – everyone’s happy. Well, kinda happy. Seemed to me there was a lot of stress going round the West Wing today. More than usual, I mean.

It is, I’ll grant you, just about possible that some of the stress I was sensing was my own. Getting Josh to change shirts... wow. I should get a pay rise. A big one. (Long overdue, I might add.)

Truth is he looks pretty hot in any shirt, but hey.

I’m not about to let a stupid crush on my slightly arrogant boss get in the way of doing my job brilliantly. Already it’s lasted a lot longer than most crushes, so it’s bound to be over soon, right?

Ten years on from In Excelsis Deo: looks like we made it...

Ten years.

Can you believe it’s been ten years?

I can when I look at the photos of me, of us, from those days. Me so fresh faced. Josh with so much, well, so much hair. And perhaps a few fewer shadows under his eyes and wrinkly lines on his forehead. Those wrinkly lines I love, but still...

The book sits on a shelf higher than any potential damage that could come to it and sometimes when he’s late home from work or when the East and West Wings have worked well together or, more often, when they haven’t and I need to remind myself what it means for him and me to be a team, I pull it down and I read it, over and over again. And it never fails: pride and joy and pain knot together in my stomach until they are all overwhelmed with my love for him, with his for me.

Pain? Yes. Because man, those years. Loving someone that much and having to live in denial? Every day? Working just a kissing distance away from him? For nine years? Seriously. You try it sometime. It’s not a lot of fun.

But pride and joy. So much of those. I wouldn’t trade the memories of those for anything.

You are, quite simply, indispensable.

I know it’s a cliché, and I know Sam taught him to hate those, but my heart leapt when I read that. Did a little somersault right there inside me in the bullpen in the West Wing in the White House. Somewhere in those powerful halls was a fresh-faced blonde who felt for one moment that she was more than just a cog. That somehow she was holding the whole thing together, or at least holding together the man who helped to hold it all together.

Right there and then I knew. I knew: I want to work with this man for the rest of my life. Not as his assistant – as his partner – eventually. Right there and then I decided: my dream is to learn as much as I can from him, and to become all I can be, and to continue to work with him, on an equal footing. But it was him who drew me there. Him and his all-encompassing passion to make the world a better place. As he also wrote, we make a great team. Now that we’re more like equals than ever, it’s still true.

It took me a while to realise that I wanted more than just a work partnership; to understand why when I dreamed of children way out there in the future they always seemed to have fluffy hair and dimples and Jewish-sounding names.

It took that awful night at Rosslyn for me to realise not only the depth of my feelings for him but also the nature of them. This man was no big brother; not even just an attractive boss I had a slight crush on or a soft spot for. This man was HIM. You know, like in the song, “I’ve found the one I waited for... Gonna love you till the seas run dry...” I’d found him and I’d almost lost him, all at the same time, and it was all too much, and I don’t know how I stayed in one piece that night and the nights that followed. Looking after him held me together in a weird way, though every step of it was painful and I still feel sick when I think about it.

That was nine years ago. And he’s still the one I run to. The one I want for life.

Looks like we made it. Look how far we’ve come...

Mission Accomplished

Well, I did.

I did have a good teacher.

And not just in politics. I’m getting better at those one-line put-downs. Delivered with a smile, but chilling for the other guy. Is it wrong that I'm kind of proud of that? Proud of my own imperviousness, my own resilience?

And man, am I proud of myself for being able, for finding it in myself, to do that to Josh.

Because it means – it must mean, mustn't it? – that I’m finally moving on.

I left to find myself.

Mission accomplished.

I left to find out who I was apart from him. To see whether I could learn, could grow, could be more, do more.

To see, too, whether I would ever be able to prise my heart back from him.

Mission accomplished.

I just wish there wasn’t a tiny part of me that was so ashamed for finding it in myself to do that to Josh.

New Hampshire

You should be with me.

Well, yes, Josh, and I would be if we’d had the conversation I wanted and you’d told me your plans. Timing was against us. Well, mainly your busy schedule and your unwillingness to put me first was against us.

I hate that I’m not with you.

I hate even more that I’m against you.

I hate that Will uses that to his advantage.

Don’t you think I would rather be with you? I know there's been all that water under those bridges... but I also know you were there in Germany waiting for me to wake up. You were there. I thought... Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm not putting it black on white. But I did really think...

And then nothing.

Nothing from you, just a bit more of the same banter, a bit more devotion, from time to time, enough to keep me hoping. Just enough to keep me dangling...

I waited, I thought maybe, this time, maybe...

And I thought when I quit, that maybe...

But nothing.

And if my personal life isn't getting the lift I've so foolishly been hoping for all these years, then at least I've made the right decision with my professional life. Oh, how I'd love to be with you. But I can't do it anymore, Josh. I just can't. It's not fun anymore. It's gut-wrenching. I just can't. This way I can at least focus on the job. As much as you can when your heart is breaking.

You should be with me.

What I wouldn’t have given to have you say that to me every time I went out with one of my gomers.

What I wouldn't have given to have you say that before it was too late.

It's too late now.

You had your chance, you had eight years, you had a campaign to run, and if you hadn't held onto me so tight as your assistant, you could have had me... in so many more ways.

You should be with me.

You know what? That ship’s sailed. I know you’re hurting. But you’re not a child and you need to take some adult personal responsibility. Please don’t lash out at me. If you can’t be adults about this, I’m getting my bristles out too. I have to protect myself.

You should be with me.

Well, yes.

Iowa

Tired. Tired. So tired.

Mom called yesterday and reminded me that normal people my age (with normal jobs) do not get up at 5.45 am seven days a week, for like, well forever, and asked me if I was doing okay.

The thing is, Mom, when I have ever been happy being a "normal person my age"? Hmmm? I know you'd like me to be. I know you'd like me to settle down and get married and get a nice office job that doesn't involve coffee beans and freezing to death in the snow listening to crazy people's views on how we shouldn't have income tax. You know what, part of me would like that too.

But I don't know if you will every understand how it feels to have been given this second chance at life.

I don't want to waste life anymore. Not one second of it. And if that means getting a little less sleep for a while...

Still, I'm tired.

Tired of all those buses and planes and meetings and late nights and early mornings and then all the smiling and nodding and intent listening and all the happy smilingness required to keep believing we can win, to keep wanting us to win.

Where's the buzz of that first campaign? Why do I feel like my heart is not in this? Not like it was? Is it just that I'm older and more jaded?

Tired, tired, so tired of fighting with Josh, fighting against him, tired of all these conflicting emotions that I don't have the time or the energy to analyse...

I miss him.

He's just there. Just the other side of this door. It's so pathetic that I want him to knock. But I don't want him to at the same time. It's weird and it's horrible and I miss the old Josh, the gather-your-rosebuds Josh, I miss us being us.

What I wouldn't give for one of his hugs. You know, from the old days, when we were Josh and Donna. When we were, let's be honest, "will-they-won't-they" - and not "well, I guess they haven't, and they won't, and that's that".

Or even before that, before I really realised how I felt. That hug from that second Christmas. That's the kind of hug I need. It's the kind of friend I need.

I'm so tired...

I'm leaving you

Josh,

This is one of those letters my counsellor suggested would be helpful for me to write, not to, you know, actually give you (heaven forbid that we might actually discuss our emotions), but because it might help me somehow. I’m sure she explained how, but there’s always so much I don’t remember in those sessions, it drives me crazy. I have to fight the urge not to make index cards in there, fight it with every muscle in my body. And this is exactly why. Anyway, I digress, which is something she says I do a lot. I guess you’d say the same.

There’s another reason I’m writing, too, and I know this might sound weird, although if you are reading this it will all make sense and you will be nodding your head. It may sound melodramatic, but if anything were to, well, happen to me I would want you to know this stuff.

I want you to know that I am not leaving you, although it will feel like that to you, and goodness knows this heart-breaking, gut-wrenching decision feels like that to me. Leaving this job – leaving you – is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.

And I do have to make it, Josh, and I know you won’t understand, but here’s the thing: not only do I only get one career, I only get one life. And I want it to count. I want to grow and I want to learn and I want to figure out if politics is really it for me, if it’s enough to drive me, or if it’s your passion that’s been energising me all these years and I’ve been running on someone else’s fuel.

I have to figure out who I am and what I want from life and when I’m with you all day every day I simply can’t see past the fact that what I want from life is, in fact, you.

And that because of that my dreams are tied up with yours and my successes and failures are all about yours, and I feel as if I’m losing myself, in fact I’m not really sure I've ever known who I am, really. My heart has been yours for so long that I don’t remember how it felt before.

I love looking after you, peppermint cream bits and all. I love that we’re such an effective team. I love that I’m the one you come to when you’re drunk in the middle of the night.

But I also hate that it’s all I am. I hate that my giving to you, my looking after you, can only go so far. A wise person forced me to look the truth in the face recently and she was right. It’s you that’s been keeping me here, you and my feelings for you and the certainty I’d be lost without you.

I can’t do it anymore, Josh. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life is too short. I can’t come into work every day and pretend I’m happy being just your assistant and tying your shoelaces for you. It's not that I don't glady do all that. But I can’t do it in this role anymore. It’s been too long, I love you too much, and I’m too confused about life, and I don’t want to blow it.

And I need to get some air. I need to discover that I would not, in fact, be lost without you. I need to figure out how to be me, who I am, apart from you. I need to learn some more and try some new things and forge an identity for myself that doesn’t revolve around you.

That scares the hell out of me.

A huge part of me would so much rather stay in my comfort zone. I’m comfortable with you.

And man, oh man, I don’t want to leave you.

I hope, I hope you know that I am not doing this to hurt you.

But what I’m not comfortable with is the nagging accusation in the back of my brain that I’m allowing myself to be chained to a desk because I’m in love with my boss. If feminism has taught us anything – and not the ridiculous, bra-burning feminism (I’ll pause here while you regroup – mentioning bras may have been a mistake) but the sensible sort, lipstick feminism I think Ainsley once called it – it’s that we are not to expect our lives to somehow count less than men’s. That we are not to put our lives on hold for men. And for years now that’s what I have been doing. Or maybe it really has been my life too. But I just don’t know. And I need to figure it out.

So maybe in a way I am leaving you. Trial separation, let’s call it that. Like couples on the brink of divorce who try one last ditch attempt and hope they will realise they can’t live without each other.

Part of me, of course, would really much rather not come to that conclusion. Part of me hopes I can leave this desk, be done with you, done with this job, shake my head at how silly I’ve been, and walk away unscathed into new adventures and who knows maybe even new relationships.

But part of me desperately, desperately wants to come to the conclusion that you and I are in fact meant to be. That we are nothing without each other. That we do in fact have the same driving passions. That we do, well, fit. But of course, it’s all very well me coming to that conclusion, but unless you get there too, then it’s all pretty much a waste of energy.

So I’m giving us both this way out, even though I know you won’t want it. But maybe in time it will be for the best.

Maybe, just maybe, you will realise not just that you can’t function without me professionally but that deep down, emotionally, as a human being, you can’t function without me either. When that’s down on paper it sounds so arrogant. But to be ruthlessly honest, and this surely is the place for that, then that’s what I’m hoping we’ll both conclude. That we need each other desperately. And if we don’t, then it’s better for both of us that I’m out of here, so we can get on with our lives.

If we are meant to be – if I’ve not misread things, and I could not be less sure of how you feel about me – then I’m sure it will all come out in the wash. Who knows, maybe it will bring you to your senses and you will remember some of that wise advice of mine and try the wooing thing.

If we’re not, then I need to get my head together, and start making the most of this second chance I’ve been given at life. I don’t want to waste it, Josh. I don’t want to waste it pining after my boss. Life is too precious.

I love you, Josh, and that’s why I’m leaving you.

Disaster management

I feel so helpless.
Reach out to me, Josh. Let me in.
Let me hold you.
Yeah. I think we both know that can't happen.
I'm way past the point of trusting myself just to hold you.
But I so want to hold you together. With duct tape if that's what it takes.

I want you to know how amazing you are. I want you to know that we all make mistakes and screw up and make bad calls and beat ourselves up about it and you're no worse than anyone else ... In fact, you may be most amazing man I've ever with, will ever measure.

You take it so hard. I understand why. I just wish there was something I could do.

Something I could do to make you believe in yourself again.
Something I could do to bash these people's heads together and make them see how amazing you are.
Something I could do to take this pain from you, this tension.

Let me in, Josh. I hate when you're like this.

When you hurt I'm hurting too. You feel helpless. And I feel helpless because there's nothing I can do to take that feeling from you.

You should bear in mind all the things that you do right.

You should bear in mind that ... I'm here. I'll even make you coffee if you like. Foot massage. Hug. The love of a good woman. Anything.

See how self-sacrificing I am.

Well, I've managed to make myself smile at least. Which is something, I guess. But what I wouldn't give to see your dimples again this week ...

Holy Nights and elephants

“It’s not what it looks like.”

What did he mean?

Man, I wish he would just come out and say what he means.

I’m just about running out of patience. And room in that metaphorical notebook where I keep a record of all the weird moments we are meant to ignore. (Well, okay, it’s not exactly metaphorical, since this is pretty much it.)

Let’s have this conversation, admit we are attracted to each other, decide it’s not a good idea that anything happens, but that maybe, in four years... And then maybe kiss a little bit. And then maybe...

Anyway, I’m being whisked off in a helicopter to spend a snowy, romantic Christmas with a very attractive man who looks a little like Christian Slater. So I’m not complaining.

Though Josh getting me drunk at the Hawk and Dove does sound like it could have been nice.

Sometimes I think us getting horribly drunk is the only way we’re ever going to deal with this elephant. You know, the one in the room. The one in the bullpen. The one, according to Wikipedia, where “people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one”.

Except, in our defence, the issues with which we concern ourselves are not small and definitely not irrelevant. Child poverty? I mean, come on.

But, still. We’re just going to leave this elephant there? Does one of us have to have a(nother) near-death experience or something? I hope not. That was stressful enough the first time round.

Maybe we can get drunk some other time instead. New Year, maybe?

Come on, Donna, get a grip, and focus on the happiness that is here, right in front of you, very, very pleasant, and, you know, real, and not all in your head.

So let's recap.

I really like Jack and he is very handsome. And also, let us not forget, able to, you know, do something about how he feels about me. He is also powerful. And, well, lovely. I really like him. Did I say that already?

So I’m off to my snowy Christmas... romance on the horizon. At last. Sigh.

(A contented sigh, for once. Not a wistful or longing or frustrated sigh. At least I don’t think so.)

that first Primary...

He’s brilliant. I loved what he did with the Flanders.

But, wait. He is brilliant. But I did my bit too. We’re brilliant.

Like he said himself years ago in that book, we make a great team.

And why is it that wearing his coat, having his hand on my back and working alongside him like this makes me happier than going home to Cliff?

I think we know the answer to that.

Damn it. There’s that Square One again.

In the shadow of two gunmen...

It’s 2 am. I’m still here. Of course I’m still here.

Where else would I be?

God, if you’re out there, listen to me. I’m begging you here. Give me this man back. Give this country this man back. He has not even begun to be all he can be.

This man, this man... so fragile inside but so... so... I can’t find the words. He’s precious. The world cannot afford to lose him. America cannot afford to lose him.

Aargh. Who am I trying to kid? You’re not stupid, God. You’re not fooled.

Stuff America. This isn’t about America. This is about me. I’m trying to sound all selfless and
appealing to you for the Greater Good, but the truth is -
I cannot afford to lose him.

He’s everything to me. He gave me that opportunity to find my confidence and start over. He gave me a reason to live. A reason to pick myself up off the ground.

Or was it him who picked me up? He said he couldn’t carry me. But the thing is, he did. His passion, his energy, his busy schedule even. His belief in me. His belief in me made me what I could be.

He makes me great.

He makes me all I can be. I’m not fully me when I’m not around him. It feels like something is missing. Right now sitting here at 2 am (well 2.27 am now) something is missing because he‘s not fully here. Part of me is missing. Part of me is lying on the hospital bed whether I am going to live or d..

Not going to write that word. Not even going to think about it. Lord, I pray for health and vitality. I pray for life. Life. Life. Life.

L I F E

His life, my life. Intertwined. I don’t think I can face life without him.

Oh my gosh. I’m in love with him.

****

It’s 6 am and I’m still here and now I’m panicking.

I can’t be in love with him.

That’s not in the script.

But it does explain a lot of things. The butterflies for instance. The tears when I read what he wrote in my beautiful book from last Christmas. The way I will do anything for him, go above and beyond the call of duty, every time, without any question, just because.

How did I not see this coming?!!!

What do I do?

Help me someone, what do I do now?

HELP!!! HELP!!! HELP!!! SOMEONE!!!

But I can’t talk to any of you. This has to remain unsaid. Otherwise... otherwise I have to... No. That’s not going to happen. He will get well, I will be by his side, I will help him to become all he can be. There is so much in him. So much, so much good.

Help me God...

I’m a wreck.

Health, strength, vitality, please God I pray.

The rest we will deal with somehow.

*****

I want to add an epilogue to this. I know that I was just going to stick the pages in, in no particular order (which is driving me mad, by the way – if this baby takes much longer I am going to have to start putting them in date order or color coding them or something), and not comment. Let the pages speak for themselves. But here... Here I can’t keep the emotion that’s welling up inside me from spilling out.

That night... I can’t think about it without crying. Sometimes, even after all these years, all this water under all these bridges, I wake up sweating from a nightmare like that one and I have to turn over and I have to look at him and touch him, and sometimes I have to wake him up and get him to hold me, hold me till I stop crying, till I stop shaking, till I remember all this was a very long time ago and he’s got me, and I’ve got him, and he’s fit and healthy and all mine and there never needs to be any pretence again.

That night... Nothing has ever compared to it, and hopefully nothing ever will.

But the thing with that night too, is what followed it. The realisation that I was deeply, passionately, head-over-heels in love with him, that there was nothing I could do about it... literally nothing. Nothing. For the next seven years. (Like Jacob who had to work seven years for the woman he loved. But then he got the wrong one. I tried not to think about that.) You know, that was like a hand reaching down inside my gut and twisting everything. Seven years seemed like a very long time.

It was.

That night was just the beginning of a gut-wrenching eternity.

Oh no. I’m welling up. I’m going to have to call him. His staff are going to love that. Still, we can put it down to hormones this time... Sometimes only his voice can calm me down. I wonder if that’s what will stop the baby crying too.