Misguided Ambition by Celia Woodruff

It could have been so different but for……………..

As George contemplated life in his tiny two up, two down country cottage he watched the spectacle before him with wide eyes and lowered shoulders. If only he had done what his mother had advised. If only…. He had been so keen to cultivate the opportunity. He had been so eager to develop what seemed like the perfect journey in life. What had gone wrong?

Well, he thought, if someone else hadn’t messed up his plan he would be doing exactly what he had dreamt of in his teenage years, on that day he had first had the opportunity to grasp the nettle and set his heart on pursuing it to reality. But she had told him it would be a stupid, indeed an impossible dream to fulfil. It was she who had grasped the nettle and grasped him. And look where it had got him! Nowhere! And with all the talent and charm his mother had assured him he possessed it would have been a foregone conclusion that success would follow.

But she had other plans and he was entirely taken in with them, blindly following where she was leading. Up the garden path, that’s where. Her idea of a dream of that two up two down country cottage had come true – with the a neat and tidy life where any hint of looking beyond the garden gate was squashed without hesitation.

So they settled into a life of routine and a sort of happiness which became the norm, year in, year out. People looked in on this life of theirs with envy – they seemed to have everything everyone else did not. Security, solidarity, safety. But was that the whole truth. Behind that tidy facade, life was boring! But then life changed. When she had gone all that he had  left was that neat and tidy life with little to commend it, except the security, solidarity and safety they had created together.

And as he watched the events of the day roll past, he wondered again why he had missed the opportunity of a lifetime. When he had been introduced to her, she was clearly very taken with him. She had even invited him to another event. According to his mother, the opportunity to nurture the relationship was his for the taking. A life of luxury and excitement would follow after  a glamorous wedding. No two up two down for him!

Watching the spectacle of the coronation, the tiny but elegant princess carried herself with great poise and glamour. And beside her, her own Royal Duke ………………

But perhaps his mother’s advice was wrong, perhaps after all, life hadn’t been so bad ……….but he couldn’t help wondering if his teenage ambition could have come to fruition. Was his ambition a little misguided. Was his mother’s opinion – or her ambition misguided?  Perhaps it was all a dream! Well, we can all dream!