(...) and I didn’t speak up because the padlock in my mind was locked and I did not have the key. I did not have power, I hadn’t taken it, and it was still wielded over me in the form of a lifelong knot of silence.

(...) and I didn’t speak up because the padlock in my mind was locked and I did not have the key. I did not have power, I hadn’t taken it, a...

A few years later I was a functioning delinquent, vandalising buses with stolen marker pens. Such behaviour in someone bereaved or abused, I’m told, is more positive than a common alternative, depression leading to suicide. Although shoplifting, vandalism and insolence won’t earn any accolades for an adolescent, they might be evidence of a person making a space for themselves in the world, having been dealt a poor hand.

A few years later I was a functioning delinquent, vandalising buses with stolen marker pens. Such behaviour in someone bereaved or abused, I...

Annoying as that was, I imagine he just preferred the routine. He took the same route to work every day of his working life until he retired at sixty-three, working for the one firm throughout, same firm, same route, same chair, same breakfast, same toothpaste, same soap, same everything, every day. With hindsight, I wonder if he was trying to impose structure on the turmoil of feelings and emotions suppressed inside, to control himself.

Annoying as that was, I imagine he just preferred the routine. He took the same route to work every day of his working life until he retired...