Life is not all that simple

Oh, isn’t life just so simple and predictable when you are six years old! Just ask Little Egg, my daughter, and her boyfriend, Alex.

Everything is planned for the next two or three decades, as they explained to me over the past weekend.

School is simple. She’ll be an academic top performer and teachers will know her as the best-behaved pupil in their class for the rest of her school career. He’ll be a top Pokemon card collector.

When they’re 13, she and Alex will kiss. She will wear lipstick for the occasion. Alex nodded. That’s exactly how they’re planning it.

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“Then we will be grown-up. Things will become much easier at that stage,” he said. “She’ll become a vet and he’ll be a fireman or an astronaut. She’ll have a lot of dogs and he’ll swear a lot,” he assured me.

“Swear?” I asked. “Yes, swearing. It’s saying words like f**k and f*****g,” he told me without batting an eyelid.

“And when we have lived life to the fullest, when we are old, we will get married,” he said. “I think we’ll be 22 by then.”

“Hmm,” I said. “She’s her mother’s daughter. If you marry her, you will probably need every swear word you can learn.”

“Life’s not all that simple when you’re an adult,” my 29-year-old son said when I announced their plans to him.

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“I have to run the Two Oceans and I missed six weeks of training due to Covid. And then there’s work and things that have to be paid… I’m not ready, but I’m going to enjoy the Two Oceans!”

I looked at his wife. They got married in October. I have noticed that her biological clock is ticking and she is planning a family. He doesn’t suspect anything yet – he’s dreaming of a new car.

“Even at almost 30 there can still be the occasional surprise,” I told him. “As John Lennon said: Life’s what happens when you are making other plans.”

How wonderful youth is. All the plans, all the dreams… At my age, I have very little to say about my future.

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“You don’t matter,” SnapDragon told me last week. I hate to admit it, but she’s right. There’s a grandchild planned for me. And a potty-mouthed son-in-law. And I have no say in it. Isn’t life great!