All Those Years {a poem}

I remember all the different kind of years,*
the angsty teen years, Doc Martens,
the used leather jacket I bought
with my catering money at Roz's place,
that half-finished house up in the hilltowns
some guy's dad was building, sawdust empty, vodka
from a passed-around bottle, Marlboros, music
I didn't even like in that lonely standing-around circle,
later driving home in someone's car who had no business
driving me -- or driving at all, for that matter.

I remember the years after the years after the years,
feeling lost, feeling alive, feeling hungry,
feeling small, feeling longing, so much longing,
feeling multitudinous yet unknown.

I remember all the different kinds of years,
the sure of my feet ones
and the undertow ones, all yank and flail and sink
despite a calm surface
that didn't call attention to itself.

I remember the years of colicky babies,
walks at dawn, front packs and backpacks
and breast pumps and packing preschool lunches.
How on earth did I make dinner night after night,
year after year?

I remember years of sweetness and sorrow,
crying in the shower, walking the streets or sitting
by the lake or filling yet another journal searching,
so much searching, for where I wasn't.

And how all of those years slowly delivered me to this year,
this year, this time of masked faces and faces on screens
and avoiding places I used to love
and more grey day every day,
my children becoming adults before
my speckled green eyes,
the very eyes everyone says haven't changed one bit
through all the different kinds of years,
except now, maybe, I can see some things a little more clearly.

* opening line from this poem by Linda Gregg