“A Simple Woman” would be the name of my biography, with a little bit of irony and a bit of truth.
When I was younger, I was complicated. I have a history of childhood emotional and sexual abuse which led to untreated bipolar disorder, and I was a bit of a mess because of that. I didn’t always make great decisions, although I generally didn’t make disastrous ones. I was lucky that the drunk/stoned driver I got in the car with didn’t go off the road. I had lots of unrequited crushes. I made choices for boyfriends that didn’t bode well for marriage, and the first one I did marry betrayed me. I was considered by one friend as “the most stable person [he] knew”, which made me wonder who else he knew.
My life now is simple. I have done lots of therapy, am on good medication, and am living a more stable life than before. I’m married to the right person. My life now doesn’t make for a riveting story, and I’m grateful for that. I look at my past life, which bordered on scandalous, and I hardly recognize it now. How did I make those decisions?
I do sometimes think I was more interesting when I was younger, but maybe it was in a Chinese curse sense (“May you live in interesting times”). But I’d rather have this simple, stable life.
Words Like Me 