Tweezers
After you broke away
I kept finding splinters
everywhere:
in the hall and in the bed
and even in my heart.
But you took the tweezers with you.
Well what would a man do with them?
6 August 1989
It’s been almost seven years since my first wife left me at this point. I had to look it up. I couldn’t’ve even told you the year. This September it will’ve been thirty-five years and I’ve still not got over it; I still get angry when I think about that time. For years after my daughter used to ask me why her mum and I broke up—the same question ever few years—and then one day the question changed; she wanted to know how on earth the two of us have ever got together in the first place. I’m not sure I answered that one any better than I’d answered her previous inquiries but I did my best. I wonder what her mother told her. I assume she asked her the same questions.
For the record I now own two pairs of tweezers, an ordinary pair and a pair with handles like scissors. Not sure I’ve ever used either of them.
It's best to not get angry. The past is the past. The future's the thing.
ReplyDeleteThe past is the past, yes, Gwilym, I’ll give you that but it’s what our present grow out of, it’s what our present is made of and it’s unavoidable. I say I’m angry about the past but I was being reductive. I’m not an angry person. I feel resentful probably more than anything. The life I’ve lived was not the one I’d envisioned at nineteen. I’d expected to live with my wife and daughter for the rest of my life and that was taken away from me. I had no say in the matter. Overnight I became a part-time dad and not even a weekend dad. That was not a part of the plan and I’ve never forgiven my wife for depriving me of that. We coped and I have a good relationship with my daughter who actually came to live with me when she was seventeen of her own free will and that was great while it lasted but we missed out on so much.
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