City of Legends

I have long lived by the notion that one should not have regrets.   My daughter, for instance, tried to convince me once that I should never married her mother, because we were ill-suited for one another.  I told her that without that marriage, she and her two brothers, all of whom I love, would have never existed.  I therefore refused the premise of her point.

I am not perfect.  I have things in my life that are troubling to me, but overall, my life is rich and good and true.  I have my health.  I have friends. I have a literary legacy that may yet reach critical mass, and I have the love of a good woman (whether or not she can put up with me is another question).

But, if I could compartmentalize my life and pick a handful of events that I could and would regret, regardless of what good may have, directly or indirectly, been derived from them, here they are.  Hold onto your hats.

1. Marriage to my second wife.  Huge mistake.  She was young, beautiful and aggressively pursued the union.  But the marriage made me sacrifice my career and literary ambitions for a time, and sabotaged my relationship with my daughter.  She (the second wife) made out well on the deal and is quite possibly alive today because of the union, but…nevertheless.  The financial damage done was massive, to me.
2. The lionization of the Panther Cycles, indeed, the realtionship with the Panther.  It was a clumsy attempt to make a mystique out of a mistake.  My first marriage was a mess, true, but I allowed myself to try and salvage something epic out of what was, in truth, a disaster of epic proportions.  Some of the poetry in the ‘Cycles is solid, but a lot of it is "abstra" work, assigning virtues and qualities to the Panther that she never possessed.  It was hyperbole on a level I would never again touch, and I confess it now.
3. My early infidelities in my first marriage.  These sabotaged the bond and probably were a key element in the slow, painful disintegration of the marriage.  I was always suspect, and subject to a fair amount of emotional and verbal abuse from friends and family thus that I was constantly unhappy.  This contributed to the Panther debacle.
4. Not being more aggressive in my poetry career.  It is not too late for this, as even with it as a part-time gig I have made inroads.  The Sunday Girl, perhaps, can help me by giving me the support, emotionally, that no one previously ever has.  I seem to have been forever deviled by those who either a) had no conceopt of what poetry means to me or b) were there for a quick immortalization treatment.  I earnestly believe she could finally be the one.

I think that’s enough for now, my head hurts.  But I am trying to purge my demons to make myself a better person, a better husband in waiting.  And to do this I must be honest with myself to a degree I have never before accomplished.