Falling apart at mid-life

http://borislava33.deviantart.com/art/Falling-apart-525640004r

I remember weeping in the bathtub

I remember muscles soft like mush, a broken knee, walking with crutches

I remember healing in the sun-filled solarium in winter, listening to Yo Yo Ma

I remember falling apart

I remember  getting a frozen shoulder a few years later, after bursitis, and walking 2 large dogs every day; the acupuncturist said, can’t anybody else walk the dogs?

I remember tears, and playing lullabies to soothe myself to sleep

I remember daily naps, in the afternoon

I remember asking my daughter to tuck me in at 8:30 cause I couldn’t stay awake

I remember sleeping with a heating pad under my shoulders, intense pain

I remember backing out of many volunteer jobs because I could not handle the stress; And then my shoulders got better

I remember being disappointed in myself

I also remember how hard I tried to be good,  to be counted on, and reliable and how I felt ashamed of not seeing things through.

But my brain was mush, my legs were mush and I was in a fog, lying in pieces on the floor

I wrote poems about this, but nobody wanted to hear them

I could not hide my failing apartness, nor my wicked mood swings

I needed solitary confinement or a straitjacket, not to harm my children with all the yelling.

I yelled a lot, for no reason

As I said, the walls were not holding

It was a time of falling down

And ceasing to pick myself up.

It did not last forever. 

t just felt like it.

Jennifer Boire