Childhood’s boundaries are marked in chalk on walls and pavements. They are never completely erased and once you have crossed the border you can never return. You know you’ve crossed the line when you can step on the lines and the bears don’t get you.
Or perhaps that is what happens at the end of childhood. The bears do get you. And take away your own bears. Up to the attic, off to the charity shop, or <shudder> into the bin.
And all the bears in all the books: Pooh, Paddington, Rupert, The Three Bears, Bear Hunts and Bear Necessities; are banished until nephews, nieces, children of your own arrive, raising hopes that they will enable your return. So you gift to them your childhood books and games, hoping they will let you play.
But they do not want you for a playmate. And they do not want your childhood. They are too young for nostalgia and too old to play your games.
You can try to persuade them, and yourself, that you never crossed that line. Remember, childhood is hard work. It’s a serious business. Are you up to the task? You have to believe. There can be no pretence, no make believe. Barrie got it wrong. It’s Everland not Neverland.
And here’s the the truth. Every child that ever was has dreamed of escape from Everland. You cannot stop them. It does no good to warn them that you have been there and that this is better. They wont believe you. They will suspect your motives. Why are you denying them?
The best you can do is to hope they let you share their journey into the future, every step of the way. You can, you will try to shelter their innocence from your experience as best you can, until they stand upon the chalk marks, smudged beneath their feet.
Then take a deep breath. Watch them step across the line and cheer them as they leave you trailing in their wake.
