Never Neverland

I think I want to move to Never Neverland. No...not freak-boy Michael Jackson's llama-infested ranch. I mean, the place you can only get to flying through the clouds powered by Pixie dust and a child-like imagination...a place where you never grow up.

I watched Hook this morning. I've seen it a dozen times. It is corny, but I'm a big fan of Robin Williams. It hit me just right today. Made me wish I could go back several years and do it all over again..and continue to keep doing it over and over. Maybe it was because I have a house full of snowed-in guests...one, of which, is my baby brother. Being around the adult version of him always jerks me back into the reality of how quickly time has flown...he was seven years old when I packed my bags and trekked off to college. And wasn't that yesterday? Or maybe it is because I really do get overwhelmed sometimes by my responsibilities. But who doesn't, right, especially given the state of our world today? Or maybe it's because in just three short weeks, I will be another year closer to 40. FORTY! I realize it is just a number and it is "better than the alternative", as they say; but it blows my mind to realize I am there...a place that, at one time, seemed a light year away.

Whatever the reason...I want to go back to a time when my biggest responsibility was doing my homework and eating all my veggies...to a time when it was pretty cool to find a quarter and two pennies in the couch which was just enough money to buy a small cherry ICEE at the little gas station a block from our house...to a time when Saturdays meant getting up early with my younger sister, eating a pop-tart (to hold us until Mom got up) in front of the boob tube while getting lost in the swamp with Shaggy and Scooby, hollering "Captain Caaavvemmannn!" 'til we got fussed at for being too loud, riding along with Speed Buggy and imagining what it would be like to end up living with dinosaurs like the kids on "Land of the Lost". I want to go back to a place that allowed me to safely ride my bike for miles, all day long, with the kids in my neighborhood while Mom and Dad weren't even home...to a place where my best friend Beth and I waded in the cool water in the creek behind her house on a hot, summer day (even though were weren't supposed to because of snakes) wondering if we followed it far enough would we make it to the Cumberland River in Nashville and then to the Atlantic somehow...and to a place where the swing set at school enabled you to fly, the monkey bars made you feel like you could climb a skyscraper and the hills in our area turned you into a seasoned mountain climber. I want to go back to a time when I felt like I would live forever...like I did when I knew I would become a princess because I grew up and married Prince Charming...and like I did when I had my whole life ahead of me, when all of my experiences were new and exciting and scary.

Of course, I know it isn't realistically possible. Time travel, to my knowledge, is still non-existent. And I know that I would be in the same shoes as Robin's character once he embraced his alter ego, Peter Pan, and had to make a tough decision...to become an immortal child in a fairytale land or go home, grow up and enjoy the blessings of family and friends and life experiences only gained through marking days off a calendar. I would have to give up countless blessings. Not sure it would be worth that. The thought, however, still amuses my restlessness sometimes. I enjoy remembering, if nothing else. It makes me smile! I guess growing up is a choice, a mindset, anyway...and, I am very good at stomping my prissy little foot, willfully protesting the notion of doing anything I really don't want to. And, hey, maybe Heaven will be like that for me...reliving those childhood moments forevah! Who knows?!

"Things never turn out exactly the way you planned. I know they didn't with me. Still, like my father used to say, 'Traffic's traffic, you go where life takes you' and growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next you're gone, but the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a time a place, a particular fourth of July, the things that happened in that decade of war and change. I remember a house like a lot of houses, a yard like a lot of yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. I remember how hard it was growing up among people and places I loved. Most of all, I remember how hard it was to leave. And the thing is, after all these years I still look back in wonder.
~The Wonder Years

(written originally on 3/1/09)