To grow, you dimwit.
(That answer came from some deeper part of my subconscious, about the size and shape of an unshelled peanut, marking the beginning of a dialogue that came out of nowhere on a wet afternoon, which I will continue to record here for your amusement and hopefully mine after an interval, because, as you will see, it was mostly frustrating).
So, in reply to that encased nut: That's an awful lot of formative years: to learn, make mistakes and repeat them. And I still have two years, give or take, to go until as they say: Life Begins. Then what?
Unshelled nut: Live as if you've never lived.
Me: Huh?
Unshelled nut: That's right, start over. Not from scratch, just from an entirely new position. Be you but not the same you. Leave that old skin behind.
Me: Right...so basically you're saying everything I've accumulated up to this point and everything I'm still accumulating was, is a gigantic waste of time?
Unshelled nut (in a condescending tone): Did I say that? When did I say that? Haven't I just stated the exact opposite? You can be so dense sometimes... thank your lucky stars I'm the patient sort, though it pains me to dumb down my perfectly-good explanations to accommodate your...
...I interrupted here, bristling with indignation...
Me: There's really no need to take that tone or be borderline offensive. You haven't really told me anything – nothing concrete, just vague, hippy, self-help sh...
Unshelled nut: Stop! Don't stoop any lower, not on my account. We're one and the same. I'm you aren't I, so you're wasting your breath if you do – I'm not beneath you and you're not above me. And I was going to say 'analytic ways.'
Me: Like hell you were.
Unshelled nut: For goodness sake let's be civil rather than quibble so early on. There'll be enough of that to come later when we reach the preparation stage for the level three examination...I had hoped you'd get there on your own, but that's obviously not going to be the case, not at this tortoise pace. And you used to be such a good student...
Me (in a less gravel tone): I may not be as learned as I want, or you'd like me to be, but I read and explore what interests me further. I set my own course of study.
Unshelled nut: True, but your sponge-like abilities have declined massively. You barely retain anything from one week to the next....well, we'll work with what we're got. It's not a lot but we'll get there...hopefully before you turn the Big Four-Oh. Notice what I did there?
Me (ignoring that clever remark): And if we don't get there?
Unshelled nut: No matter, except the transition to the first module of level four will be harder than it needed to be.
Me (more to myself than to the nut): So, I've been going through life being tested at the end of each decade...I don't recall this happening when I turned Three-Oh? Then in a whisper: I can do it too – ape your clever intellect.
Unshelled nut (overhearing everything): Ooh, yes it did, but you scraped through. You were in crisis mode at twenty-six and then at twenty-eight you really ballsed things up.
Me (slightly worried): Did I? I don't remember...why don't I?
Unshelled nut: Least said, soonest mendest.
Me: What?
Unshelled nut: Never mind. Shall we get on?
Me: Wait! If this new life you talk of, that's apparently mine for the taking at forty, could be lost in the prep years, then why bother contemplating taking it at all?
Unshelled nut (with an audible sigh): Growth, dear, personal growth.
Picture credit: Peppermint Patty, Peanuts
