The Pause (ENOUGH)
(spoken word version — my words, my voice)
I was the matriarch elephant,
the steady footed keeper of the herd,
the one with the long memory
and the broad back
where everyone laid their worries
like warm hands needing comfort.
I carried love,
friendship,
guidance,
the stitched together wisdom
of every year I’d lived.
And beside me, always,
my bag for life.
Not the supermarket kind —
the real one.
The one I filled in my twenties,
my thirties,
my forties,
with everything no one else remembered to hold.
My partner’s forgotten tasks.
My children’s joy.
My children’s heartbreak.
My own rage, folded small.
My employment hopes.
Their disappointments.
Every unspoken thing.
The rucksack became a tote,
became a suitcase,
became a hippo bag
bursting at the seams,
dragging behind me
as my shoulders curled forward
and my heart grew heavy
from the weight of it all.
Funny how happiness fits in your palm
like a spark,
but sadness expands
to fill every corner of the bag.
But one day —
mid stride, mid life, mid everything —
I paused.
The pause.
The menopause.
The moment the body says:
enough.
And I put the bag down.
It stayed there,
brimming,
overflowing,
waiting for me to pick it up again.
But I didn’t.
I stood up straight.
I walked forward.
And for the first time in years
I saw the world clearly —
the tree,
the leaf,
the bird in the garden,
the glint of light on a window
that somehow looked like hope.
And slowly,
the weight slid off me.
My shoulders rose.
My posture returned.
My spirit remembered itself.
I will never carry a bag like that again.
The only weight I carry now
is the kind that lifts me:
my children,
my grandchildren,
their hugs,
their laughter,
their joy pressed into my arms.
My partner of 33 years —
the privilege of him,
the person I held so dear —
those feelings are starting to come back.
But our journey is shared now,
not mine to carry for both of us.
We now step side by side,
and we will see
where that will take me.
Open and honest.
Words kept inside help no one.
Words given freely
change the world —
the place we finally learn
not to hide,
but to be seen
and heard.
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