Friday Five Stairs

Jan posted this thoughtful Friday Five:

"Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
it isn't in the nursery,
it isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

— A. A. Milne
“Halfway Down,” When We Were Very Young

Thinking of your childhood as a stairway, when did you feel (and how did you feel then)

1. at the bottom?

When I was very young I grew up in a home with no stairs except the ones to the basement. So I grew to know stairs in the home of the women who took care of me when my parents worked. I used to 'butt' up and down. She had three much older daughters and even though I felt like a member of the family for my young life, I guess you could say, I was at the bottom rung.

2. at the top?

No, in my young life, I never felt powerful. I lived with an alcoholic father and an angry mother which left me pretty much...out.

3. halfway?

No.

4. At this point in your life, where would you place yourself on your own stairway?

I'm still climbing those stairs. I have a career that I like, and that I have worked for, a happy relationship. I'm sober for 23 years, I have friends and I'm close to my small family. Actually I'm pretty close to the top compared to the people I see every day! I'm a lucky girl.

5. Identify a place for you that "isn't really anywhere" but "somewhere else instead."
When I meditate, Mindfulness Meditation, I go there.