======================================================
 Writing.Com Item ID: #742623
 Title:  When I Grow Up
 Item Type: Static Item
 Brief:  ... from the point of view of someone who should already be grown up...
 Last Modified: 08-28-2003 @ 8:59pm
======================================================

This is the first draft written as I watched students passing to and fro across campus while I waited for a class. It will be rewritten most likely, but I don't know when.

When I Grow Up

I had a mental picture
of what one day I'd be -
wise, serene, unflappable
for all the world to see.

I figured that by forty
I would have reached my goal,
and young girls could look at me
to model for the role.

But now I've passed that marker
plus gone a decade more
and what have I discovered?
It's all just myth and lore.

There is no ultimate end,
no goal for which I strive.
Nothing I will ever reach
while I am still alive

will satisfy my longing
to reach for more and grow.
Compared to what I was then
I've traveled far, I know.

I still look beyond today
to see what I will be,
but forty's not my marker.
It's now one hundred three.