a sixty fifth story...'chasing butterflies'

It’s funny how adulthood turns out to be such an anticlimax.

Seriously.  It’s funny.

..Sometimes. 

Funny as in haha.

(Yes, sometimes that too).

- Look, see here:

I am sitting at my desk.

Perhaps I am supposed to be working, or giving the impression of being at work.

I am not at work.

Instead, I am reminiscing about times gone by, childhood and so on – searching for a little boy.

The little boy that used to be me.

Where did he go? 

He can’t have just vanished into thin air, and I am sure he wasn’t pulled like a rabbit from a hat!

That little boy.  Me.  The one who used to run around the sunlit garden, chasing butterflies; the one who would bounce out of bed on a winter morning and catch snow flakes with his tongue on the way to school.

That was me! (or at least I have this memory of it being me).

..But what about school?

Maybe it was school.

Maybe it was school that set me on the path to adulthood and anticlimax.

Although..maybe, just maybe..I went gladly along that path.

(I did not).

But back then did I know which path I was on in the first place?!

(I doubt it)..

..Anyway, they say in life you should know where you came (have come) from.  But who is they?  And what do (does?) they know?

I know nothing about how I came to be an adult.

But I do know I am now an adult.

I am afraid.  I am anxious.  I am tired.  I can see the beginnings of crow’s feet around my eyes.  I even see children in the street point at me, and say to their mothers: ‘look at that man’.

It still surprises me.

That man?! Where is that little boy?

That little boy who was fearless and brave – would scrump apple’s from the blind farmer’s (decaying) orchard, would dance and sing nursery rhymes in front of family, friends, anyone.

Where I wonder?

‘That man’ is afraid.

Here, at work in my office, I am afraid of the people who I work for, the people who work for me, the people who work alongside me:

The people who I work for have the power to fire me, the people who work for me have the power to undermine me, the people who work alongside me compete with me.

(of course, in reality, we’re all afraid of each other).

For similar reasons I am afraid of my wife, and my children. 

(But I never let it show – they are probably afraid of me too).

I sometimes find myself looking at my wife, usually when we’re in the company of friends (all my friends scare me – one day they just might show me up! And vice a versa) thinking what happened to the little girl in her; or rather the gay, confident and attractive twenty something she used to be. 

That woman (or - little - girl) I fell for.

Fucked in a pedal boat at Whipsnade Zoo.

And then subsequently married.

I used..

I used to have to fight for her affection and attention; now, she is easy and sad.

Perhaps she is sad with me.

Or simply with adulthood.

..Still, my wife scares me.  For since she is sad and unhappy, I worry she is thinking of leaving me, and so at home I walk on eggshells (and have taken to staying in town and on occasions taking other women – the gay, confident and attractive twenty somethings - to bed, somewhere, anywhere else).

And my children..

..My children say to me I don’t pay enough attention to them.

And my wife reminds me of this (too) often.

Because at weekends I like to spend time on my own – reading a magazine, washing the car, walking the dog. 

(So far at least, I don’t think I am afraid of my own company.  And if and when the day comes, I will take to drink.  For this reason I have started collecting old wines and whiskey - as well as for the reason that should my wife in fact want a separation, I have a nest egg ready to pay for a divorce).

(haha!)

And nevermind.

(!!)

..But back to my children.

OK.

I do worry about them!

As an adult it’s astounding how much there is to fret over. 

My boy, who is six: I worry about him playing in the front yard in case he should chase his ball into the road and get run down.

For this and reasons of a similar nature, he scares me.

My girl, who is going on twelve: I worry about falling in with the wrong crowd, smoking marijuana, or drinking too much at a sleepover and having her stomach pumped.  She scares me too.

Everyone I come across appears to me to be on cusp of becoming wholly unreliable, and as a result, to me everyone appears entirely unpredictable.

Everywhere I go I experience this!

Where is that fearless little boy, I ask?!

Well…?

Well:

These days, that fearless little boy (Me?) is anxious, because he is afraid all the time.

(Where would he register on the autistic spectrum? Then again, where would anyone else!?)

He is tired because his state of anxiety and fear keeps him awake at night.

Most nights.

..most nights..

He will join his wife in bed after the ten o’clock news (his wife has taken to going to bed early these days – why? She’s never been a reader) and quietly undress.

Then he might – depending on his state of anxiety – kiss his wife good night before sliding into bed next to her.

And then he will lie, lie, lie and lie, his head and limbs feeling like useless appendages uncomfortable with being attached to the rest of his body, until at some point during the night he will slip away into an uneasy sleep.  And then yet, yet, yet again (for he is an insomniac, still a living entity) he will be hauled out of the dreamy depths by the nagging sound of his alarm clock and the beginning of another day of..

..adulthood-
-anticlimax.

(As well as by the sound of one or another of his children snoring peacefully in the next room).

What happened to that little boy chasing butterflies?

What happened?