Age Related – Written February 2025 (Aged 49)

Age Related

When I was 10, I lived on a housing estate —
the sort that people did not want to talk about
or know existed.
We were shoved and shuffled out the way.

I got my first Beano comic
when duvets seemed exciting and new.
My mum was only 35,
and Dad was not someone in whom I could confide.
He wasn’t someone I even really knew.

When I was 20,
I had that long mid-90s-style hair,
second-hand clothes from the 1970s,
and a media career that wasn’t really a career
because it was going nowhere.

There was a girl with a hat,
but I can’t remember her name —
even as I look back.

When I was 30,
I was respectable and about to be married.
It felt like every life blow had been avoided,
or at least could be parried.

We had those checklist plans
that people have when they’re moving forward in life
that they don’t really understand.
We were ticking off our plans,
but sadly, we lost the grip of each other’s hands.

When I was 40,
I was now divorced.
And I’d spent some years going quietly mad —
with a male-type toxicity
that turned everything I touched
into something deeply bad.

But I was in love,
and now living elsewhere.
You come through phases —
often salvaged by someone else’s love and care.

Now I am nearly 50,
with both parents no longer here.
I reflect on a life
which has been sometimes hard to bear,
and at times has brought myself and others to tears.

I am still in love.
I am still fighting.
And I am still here.

I wrestle with my conscience,
and I think about the past.
I wrestle with decisions and people —
and those I left in a cast.

I think about what’s gone before
and what is here now.

I learn that, like so many of us,
we are irregular shapes —
but somehow have to make our way forwards.
It does not mean we should be devoid
of love,
care,
or even being adored.

James Garratt – February 2025

More poems at
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/

More about this blog, The Boy Behind the Glasses, here
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/2020/01/08/the-boy-behind-the-glasses-an-introduction/

More poems from 2025
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-and-writing-2025/