A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

I looked at the Moon, bulging white in the dusty blue sky. I was standing in almost exactly the same spot as the night I howled at it after choir practice that time. There was to be no frustrated howling tonight, just a look of thoughtful disappointment.

I'm wrestling with a missed opportunity. I wonder sometimes whether I'm caught between two worlds - one, where you have to pursue everything you want with everything you've got. It's Nick's world, that: work hard, struggle through until you've got to where you're going, learn from your mistakes, never give up and never ever let anyone give you any nonsense about it... and then the other, where if you're patient, kind, calm and consistent, if you're faithful, if you work hard with the little things that you have and you grow a heart of good character, those things that you desire will be given to you at a time when you're ready for them.

If I'm honest, I've grown up in that second world and it shows. I'm scared of jumping outside my comfort zone, I'm petrified of getting it wrong, getting into trouble, behaving inappropriately and generally failing. To someone from Planet Go-getter, where the young Richard Bransons hang out, I'm an unacceptable failure. Better to try and fail, they chant, chinking each other's champagne flutes, than never to try at all.

What they don't know is that I did try. With wild-eyed abandon in the year 2009, I jumped into a life-on-the-edge that I thought would be the single greatest adventure of my life. But I messed it up. Injured, embarrassed and hating myself, I retreated back to Niceland where I nursed my wounds. Oh it's great for that; in Niceland, everyone thinks you're great. They remind you as they fly past you on the way to greater things.

And so along comes an opportunity, a beautiful, scary opportunity, and I'm too afraid to do anything about it. Then, suddenly without warning, that door clicks shut and you know that you'll never know. You'll never know.

"You're looking thoughtful," said someone, emerging into the car park. I hadn't seen them there in the twilight.

"Yep, just er, just looking at the Moon," I smiled. I pushed the keyboard into the boot and slammed it shut. Then I said my goodbyes, got into the car and drove home to the safety of my parents' retirement bungalow, with only my thoughts for company.