My Life in Words 3. The Long Middle

The long middle of my life

was a novel: one of those 

family sagas. First love, 

first job, first marriage, 

first affair ... and all the rest

in each category.

The first and only

full-scale nervous breakdown 

came early, in that first, young,

brief marriage. 'Compulsive

gambler', I say now, to explain.

And pathological liar, I might add,

and bipolar, and impotent. Or

I could trace the cause further back,

remembering my drunken shrieks 
of wanting to kill my father –

surprising myself most of all.

Years of therapy. Do we ever 

truly recover? I learned to go on

into new chapters, new men,

and the everyday miracle of children. 

School, cooking, travel,

financial planning, all that.

Love in the suburbs.

After some decades, if we're smart,

we give up trying to conform.

We start to honour the self.

I let go of magic, pushed it away

(not to be mad) shut the messages

out of my ears, and the power

out of my hands. Eventually 

stopped remembering.

Poetry, though, would never

let go of me. Words 

have always saved me, 

whether talking my way

out of potential rape, 

or telling myself the truth 

in writing – mining my depths.

Twice divorced, once widowed.

And there was that other, younger

love who died. And one of my sons

permanently estranged. (My choice,

for good and sufficient reason –

are you shocked? Never mind.)

Bankruptcy. Poverty. And finally

the Pension. Learning to be frugal

and live well. Learning all kinds

of competence. Along the way 

the magic poured back – too strong,

too real, to stay suppressed.