Somewhere In The Middle

You suppose that being a middle child was a bit of a benefit. You didn't think so at first of course. You were never first and never last. You were what described you most- you were in the middle. If you fell down, no one picked you up because you weren't the youngest. You often got interrupted because you weren't the oldest.

You were fit to be the middle child too, for you were so different. You didn't like the outdoors like Charles, so you didn't exactly connect with your father. You weren't as tough as Richard, who was always getting into trouble. You only stood out in small ways. Like the way you liked to raise your hand all the time. Or the way you liked to take long walks through the woods. Or the way you sometimes liked the smell of outside after it rained. No, you weren't like Charlie or Rich. You were William. Not Will, Willie, or Bill, but William.

Even though it was a benefit, you had to admit that being in the middle was lonely sometimes. You had had your books of course, as well as your teachers. However sometimes, not often, but sometimes, you'd wished you'd had someone your age to talk to- someone who would listen to your thoughts and dreams about becoming a writer. Mr. Karwacki was nice, but he was a teacher. It was his job to pay attention to you. He wasn't Rich or Charlie.

You weren't particularly close to them. You weren't close to anyone really. It wasn't that you didn't know them. Charlie was nicer than Rich and liked to help your father the most. His favorite color was red and he couldn't see too well out of his left eye ever since a baseball accident when he was twelve. Rich always looked tough. Even though he was the youngest, he got the most respect. He didn't ask for it, but his body language demanded it. He always looked older than what he really was. He looked as if he never needed anybody. Unlike you, you think perhaps he never did.

You are older now, though. Older in the way that as a kid, you could never imagine yourself being. Your skin contains wrinkles and gets paler and paler with each passing year. You find you don't like to stand for long periods of time, your knees crack when you bend down, and you always wear a turtleneck under all of your shirts, for it gets harder and harder to keep warm. You are old, there's no doubt about that, but you have led a life, and you owe it all to being the middle child.

Books became your friends, for there was no one else to talk to. Through the books you learned human behavior. Being the middle child you watched a lot, and somewhere between the books and the watching, you made your handshake perfect, your words clear and crisp, and you didn't look away when people looked at you.

You had written a few books, good ones too. Not magnificent- you wouldn't have any monuments dedicated to you when you died- but your name was in the papers every now and then and people's eyes widened when you signed anything.

You had had a wife, Clara, and although she was dead, you believed in an afterlife, so you weren't one of those men that didn't eat or sleep and had to have a nurse take care of them. It hurt though. You certainly weren't a family oriented man, and you never had had any pets you cared about, but Clara was the real thing. You had never known a better person and although you held nothing to your heart, Clara had slowly but surely stole yours. The books you wrote said that there was no such thing as a perfect person. but you are pretty sure that Clara was close.

The point is that you had a good life, better than most people can say, and being the middle child had helped a lot. You weren't a man to dwell on your mistakes, and your family. they were just that. nothing more, and nothing less.

It was only at night, in the dark while you lay in bed, that you thought about it. You lay on your side breathing deep. If you concentrated hard enough you could smell Clara's scent. lavender. It was there that you thought maybe you missed something. something important. You hadn't talked to your father in almost a year, Rich worked in a garage, and Charlie's youngest daughter just had a baby girl. Maybe family was more important than you had thought.

But that's something you never understood, anyway. You were, after all, the middle child.