The Trials of Life

Saturday 14th March

I thought it might get easier as I got older.  In fact I have always thought it might get easier when I was older.  As a child one thought ran through my head “Wait till I’m a Grown-Up” and then I would show them; then I would be a free man; then I wouldn’t have to obey any of society’s stupid rules.  Ah, or so I thought.  But nobody tells you, do they?  Nobody hands you a book of answers – “How to survive the Trials of Life”.  And so you get to seventeen and end up in the big wide world, with no school to go to.  And the first thing you realize is that you have to work or you starve.  No Mummy to put your meals on the table every day or pay your rent.  And so you put your head in another yoke and like dumb oxen you work.  Only no one tells you it’s for forty odd years…Then you fall in love, and with no thought at all you are married and have children.  And then the trials of Life really start.  Forget those smiling pictures – we all have albums full of them.  Just remember the sleepless nights, the dirty nappies, the teething, the feeding and clothing of them, the years of going without so that your children can have nice toys at Christmas.  Then they leave home without a by-your-leave, and especially without a thank-you for all your hard work.  Just as you did to your parents of course too in your own thoughtlessness.  Then your marriage breaks down and you have a few rootless years, working hard, trying to climb the greasy pole, brown-nosing your way up.  You get a decent salary at last, a larger home.  But the mortgage gets larger too, and you realize you cannot leave your job or change your career or you will lose your house – for the next twenty-five years.  Then the grandchildren start popping out – more expense for Grandma and Grandad.

At last retirement looms and a chance to put your feet up.  But at just this point your body starts to fall apart.  Your dentists tells you that all those expensive crowns you had will have to go and even more expensive implants need to be considered.  Hips fail, knees fail, arthritis sets in.  Glasses and hearing aids and sticks and mobility scooters beckon. You ache in places you didn’t know existed.  You start going to bed before ten, you watch more and more telly…..Ah the trials of life.  How hard it is to be a person and to survive these trials of life.  Hahaha….