Sometimes I feel like I don't belong

When I was about 8 years old, I wrote a story at school which featured an old man, aged 50. I remember how mortified my 50 something year old grandfather was when he read the story. Fast forward, thirty five odd years, and I realize why my grandfather reacted the way he did.

I was a sensitive child, who grew into a hypersensitive teenager. I used my intelligence and leadership qualities to wander aimlessly around the paddock of my high school. Like a sheep, I followed bad shepherds, experimented with substances, jigged classes, and played around with some criminal activity until finally dropping out. Working to finance binge drinking seemed like a better option. I had no idea what I was doing with my life.

Fast forward thirty years, and sometimes I still wonder what on earth I am doing. I am driven. I am ambitious. I know what I want, but I am not prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. I've been married and we have two teenagers. I have a mortgage and seven years of university education behind me. I'm working as an English language teacher. I am a published novelist, with two out and a third on the way. I am well and truly in the settled phase of my three score and ten. Yet there are still times when I feel like I am just playing a game.

I live in the tension between what is and what could be. I live in the great in between land called Earth. I live, grateful for what I have, but ever mindful of the fact that what awaits me will be so much better. In some ways I will always be that ten year old budding writer, and that directionless and selfish fifteen year old, and the newlywed, and the new dad. I am all those people, but still far from being complete.

There's so much more to my story. Thanks for reading.