Living up to words

"Here might not be a permanent, but is there a possibility?
Or does it remain a far-fetched utopia?"

I haven't felt this way since I was a wee lass getting onto a roller coaster for the very first time. I was eight, or nine, and my (still) fantastically, brilliantly, awesome friend, Fatima sat beside me. I think it was a first for both of us, the rest were better schooled in the disambiguation of the world-out-there. We were only just catching on. It was a primary school field trip to Gold Reef City, but I can recall the way I felt as if it were yesterday, a mixture of terror and excitement clenched like a flyweight's fist in the pit of my stomach.

A minute later, I got off that roller coaster, Fatima and I smiled at each other and rejoined the queue, "Please Sir, a little more of the same.' But that second time, exciting though it may be, never lives up to the first. Roller coasters lose their potential to exhilarate after a while, so much so that you can be sitting on a mega-roller coaster and yawning during the biggest dip. Walking away from the theme park you eventually realise how wonderful it is to be a child, experiencing the world for the very first time.

But then years later, it happens again. I hold the controls to this roller coaster. Fatima's not beside me yet, but the adjacent seat is filled with a number of great people, so many of them, friends, and I'm grateful for here and now.

There's still a child of the world within.