The child in me

When I was a child I used to imagine that ‘old’ people, I think at the time I defined ‘old’ as anything over about 23 years , knew what life was all about, they had it well and truly sussed, they knew the answers to the stuff I didn’t, they could solve problems, nay, they probably didn’t even have them, they seemed ‘grown up’, they seemed 'together' and in my little mind there was always going to be that stage in life for me, the one where everything in life ran like clockwork and on the rare occasions it didn’t I would be grown up too, I would fix whatever the problem was without delay and with expertise, after all, that’s what all those tall people I saw around me did wasn’t it?!

I was told in a moment of childhood complaint, about something I now don’t recall, that ‘no one promised me life was going to be fair or easy’, I can still remember it vividly, not because of the message it should have been taking from it but because my young mind was so astounded that anyone should even so much as suggest such a thing let alone believe it, my life, that’s for sure, was going to be all things good, including fair and easy!

How so then it didn’t quite work out like that? Don’t get me wrong, I may have had my fair share of life’s ups and downs but no more or no less than most of us.... but it just doesn’t seem to work out like that child imagined, where are the instant and all encompassing answers? Where did ‘fair’ go to and what on earth happened to the perfectly fun life I envisioned all those years ago?

Er..........life happened I suspect.

And then there is the question of life and it’s up’s and down’s, those tall people ( ok so everyone is tall in relation to me before one of you points that out) I saw as a child, those that had it sussed, they learnt things from life did they not, or that was the theory that I commonly heard bandied about, they came up against life’s troubles big or small, they struggled through them and they learnt stuff didn’t they? They gathered this vast store of knowledge on how not to fcuk up again and how to mend those glitches that occurred when all else failed and life dumped a big heap of something unpleasant on top of their heads.

So what happened to my childhood ideal then, how comes this ‘grown up’ isn’t, how come that when things go pear shaped in gemmak’s-ville there is no vast store of knowledge, no instantly available solution and no magic wand to put it right. How come that I like everyone else seem to flail around in a state of confusion just trying to do the best I can......and usually getting nowhere fast? Where did all those adults go that knew it all and what happened to my theory that ‘grown up’s’ had it sussed?

The child inside is still there, that idealist little kid that saw the world as a wonderful place full of wonderful things, that thought life was fair and the lives of grown ups were hunky dory, she’s still there but maybe, just maybe this time she has learnt a little, maybe despite herself she is beginning to be a grown up, just not the grown up she imagined.

.....but she never did get tall!