Live to my current age.

Not in a desperately ill way, nor an Everest manner, just living. Once upon a time Listen With Mother was my total world, alongside malt extract and free orange juice from the queue of mothers to be found at the Congrgational Hall in Olton. Gradually of course one became aware of wider boundaries; a house, a home, a street, a school. Each widened boundary became a challenge or an obstacle or an exciting opportunity to be overcome, conquered or surpassed.

Each held its own fears and successes and failures and “I’m never doing that again” moments. Embarrassment became a boundary, or a limitation, so that navigating life became like a journey down a pin ball machine; one’s newly developed wary vision detecting unsafe pins ahead to be avoided at all costs. A miscalculation, or an incorrect hit on a pin, gave the ball-bearing a bound or an unanticipated rebound that either scuttled one quickly to the base of the board avoiding every other pin, or gave enough confidence to hit more pins and enhance the score of life.

Throughout this game, the parent/overseer/governor/god gave much needed interventions or irrelevant meddling for which one was either grateful or annoyed until – it stopped, suddenly, unexpectedly. And that became a hurdle to overcome, or a pin to be navigated.

Until, in due time one weighs in the balance the journey of that ball bearing reflecting on the things that seemed unachievable and were, or were achieved in a different way, or not at all and marvel at having lived – the biggest thing you’ve done.