Apparently, I know everything. Apparently. According to my kids.

Well, I used to, anyway. Back when I was young my scope of knowledge was so incredibly vast that I knew-because-I-knew that getting to the end, to knowing truly Everything, was not so far away.

I’ve learned a lot since then. A. Lot. And I’ve had three children, which, one would presume, would qualify me now into Knowing-Even-More-Than-Everything, except for the slightly odd fact that the exact opposite has happened.

I am NOT forgetting things. Well, I’m not forgetting the important things, like pi and the Battle of Hastings and the words to all the Duran Duran songs (I can’t honestly say I’m not forgetting trivial things, like we-need-bread-and-milk, or oh-darling-are-you-taking-the-car-to-work-today?), but as I’ve pushed my head deeper and higher up through the ceiling of adulthood I’ve realised that outside the nursery walls of childhood are a billion other, different nursery walls (all painted differently, and some not painted at all), and above my small head are other, still-taller-than-mine heads, and beyond them are histories and dreams that stretch beyond my own space, and beyond that the face of a God who sees it all. In short, and because I am old enough to remember when Hogan’s Heroes was on TV (okay, the reruns at least), I can honestly say “I know NUTTINK!”

My kids, on the other hand, especially the smallest one, know everything. Well, almost everything. They know that there’s a small amount of things in life that they don’t know, such as what’s-that-man’s-name-in-that-car-next-to-ours? and what-does-the-Easter-bunny-do-in-October? but they presume that one day they too will know everything, like I do. Apparently.

Here’s the thing though, the thing I now know: the more that I talk to my much-older-and-extremely-wiser friends, the more I learn from them, and the more they tell me that they don’t think they know much at all. It’s a Mork-from-Ork (because I’m old enough to remember when Mork and Mindy was on TV…or at least the reruns) scenario, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, we are born old and knowing everything, and we die young, knowing nothing at all.

Here’s one thing I DO know, though: I will keep learning, and keep learning, until I can say as much as my extremely-wisest friends: that truly, I know so little it isn’t funny. It seems to be the best way.