Truth in Humour

So there I was, early this week, jotting something pithy, quick and hopefully witty for my profile here and I put:

"...who only has one of the goals he sat at 21 still to accomplish: to have something published..."

Sad thing is, it's true.

Thinking back, it wasn't my 21st, it was my 16th. Short, scrawny, isolated by geography and my own problems I couldn't imagine ever getting married, having a family, tying down a decent job. Academics didn't seem as important to me as it did to the people around me - I thought I knew everything already, and didn't feel compelled to prove it to anyone - and I'd just about begun to grasp the life-altering concept that I was going to be a professional footballer, singer or astronaut and would have to settle for the real world like everyone else.

So I sat one night, in the dark of the dormitory, in that interminable semi-silence between lights-out and actually needing to sleep, and made THE LIST.

I wanted to fly - not just get in a plane, but actually sit at the controls, take it off, fly it around, land it; the whole nine yards. I wanted to parachute. I wanted to visit a foreign country. I wanted to see my name in print. I wanted to be a black-belt. I wanted to drive faster than 100mph. I wanted to be a hero.

They, though, were just sort of gloss things. Fundamentally, deep down - and I think this probably true of us all - I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be a part of something special. So I added marriage to the list, and children. I couldn't imagine what sort of husband or father I'd make back then, so I started actually paying attention to people, caring... it did wonders for me.

Fifteen desperately short years later, and they're all in the past. I've flown, and it was wonderful. I've parachuted, and it was one of the single scariest moments of my life. I been to foreign countries, and found them to be pretty much like my own, largely. I've got my black-belt (thre of them), and I've done a ton, and more, on the A3M in a Seat Ibiza (and nearly killed it and me both). I've stepped up to the plate when called upon, put if not my life then certainly my immediate health on the line, and wondered guiltily for years if I didn't do it just a little too eagerly.

And I'm, somehow, married. And a dad. Twice. That I've unwittingly inflicted Autistic Spectrum Disorders on both my children is something I've come to terms with, just about, and we're generally happy.

But what do I do now? I'm still working on getting published, in bits and pieces, but inspiration is fleeting and intermittent (Vagrant Muse didn't just sound nice, you know). I'd like to learn to play the guitar, but it isn't really as pressing as the urges I felt back then. I sit down to make a list, and I find I don't really care about anything that I can't do, or haven't done, to feel compelled to add it to the list. I'd like to sculpt, but if it doesn't happen I don't think I'll really be upset.

So I have no real goals... and that frightens me. Am I facing forty (ish) more years of just getting by, getting through, getting nowhere special?

Where do I go when I don't have anywhere planned... can I just sort of trundle on and see if something occurs to me. It's not in my character to be directionless, but then it's not in my character not to be able to pick a direction, either.