I’ve been
Waiting a long time
For this
Moment to come, I’m
Destined
For anything at all

“Oh, interestingly, exciting news.”

My mother pulled on the brakes and her bike screeched to a halt just before the entrance to the alleyway. It led to the park – this I knew – and I also knew I wouldn’t be able to say anything as we rode down it single file.

“Oh yes? Do tell?”
“Well…”

When I stopped, the iconic plinking sound which accompanied my cycles finished their usual tune (which I can still hear – the spokey-dokeys from Monster Munch were placed on randomly, and since I liked the melody, I kept them on that way), and fell silent.

I cleared my throat.

The problem was – and I realised this a fraction of a second too late – that I didn’t actually have exciting news. At the age of ten, nothing in particular seemed to count as exciting. Getting a new Usborne Puzzle Adventures book was an event. Maybe I’d get a SNES game once a year, for birthday and/or Christmas. Those things were exciting.

But I still hadn’t experienced anything which could be categorised as “exciting news”. My mother’s disappointment when I followed my declaration up with a joke she’d heard before was palpable. I went home glum that afternoon, feeling somehow that I’d cheated myself out of a genuinely exciting event. There wasn’t one, of course, but if I hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have upset myself.

A few years later, as a teenager, I found myself, once again, waiting. The sort of exciting news I thought I might get had evolved, in a way, although I still didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for. Nine times out of ten, of course, it was me waiting to get a girlfriend. I would tease the audience with silhouettes of practically all the girls in my life, keeping them guessing.

I didn’t know, of course, but then neither did the audience. We’d find out at the same time. That would have been exciting.

Age 17 was probably a little too exciting… or, at least, it was at the beginning. Very little of it could be categorised as news, however. I had my coach journeys and my girlfriend and my sex – not to mention the A2s I was taking (in a much better mood than my ASs – and I got better grades in a better mood!). But I still felt, in a way, like I was waiting for something.

I still had no idea exactly what it was. As far as I was aware, I had what I’d been waiting for. And yet, still, I felt like I should be waiting for something. Something which I could tell the audience, or at the very least my mother, was “interestingly, exciting news”.

I’ve since gone through four relationships, had at least ten forms of gainful employment, visited the most distant country of two foreign continents, been seen on stage and screen and read in print, saved at least two lives, and learned more about sex than I ever thought I would.

I’m still waiting.