second star to the right and straight on 'til morning

when was it that life became so difficult? that we became so jaded, so cynical? when did we stop seeing the good and the beautiful, not just in things but in people as well. b/c we do look for it; we just aren't as open to receiving it. was it when we started seeing the faults in ourselves? b/c granted i was always able to see the faults in my mother, my dad and most def. in my brother. but now i see them in myself. and the truth hurts - every day reality slaps us in our face, and it's not so easy to turn the other cheek. that's what we ought to do, turn the other cheek. much easier said than done, however. our lives are a culmination of what we've done and what's been done to us; all we can control is what we do, not only for ourselves but to other people as well. it's hard when you realize that not only are you not going to achieve all of your hopes and dreams, but that you are going to fail and fail miserably. down in a blaze of glory.

it used to be so easy, life that is. wake up every morning concrened only with what you're wearing to school, what you're taking in your lunch, and whose mom was driving carpool. now it's wake up, run around like mad trying to figure out what in the hell you can do, not just for the day, but in life in general.

growing up is completely overrated. all we ever want to do when we're little is to grow up. and i doubt you could find many adults now who wouldn't give it all up to revert back to their childhood. this explains the appeal of peter pan (my favorite story). are we supposed to feel sorry for him for losing his mother? hardly, we are so envious of the ageless boy who spends his days fighting pirates and hanging out with the lost boys and fairies in a magical land where humans can fly. why should we mourn when he so clearly doesn't?

it seems so easy. follow your dreams, embrace your passions, live your life. even loving isn't easy anymore. b/c now it's not just loving for the sake of loving - it's expectations and pain and difficulties. we've lost our childlike innocence and replaced it with negativity and skepticism. we no longer embrace the miraculous, but rather expect the inevitible. our dreams have faded, almost to the point where they exist solely in our memories. and our memories have become our saving graces. we look back and see not only what was, but what could have been. we whitewash our mistakes, seeing only the good. it's our futile attempt at optimism. a subtle effort to revert to our earlier exuberence, to create a world in which all was good and beautiful. that which does not factor into our vision of perfection is simply phased out. it never happened, or at least the way we really experienced it. rather we sugarcoast it to the way we wish it would have happened.

so how can we change what we've become? b/c maybe it's not that we're jaded or cynical but that we now just accept reality. as it is and not a rose-colored glasses version of it. the past is simply the past - it's behind us, there's nothing we can do but learn from our mistakes and move on. b/c maybe that's the point of it all: while we've lost certain childlike abilities to always see the positive, we've gained so much more in that we can recognize not only the past and the present, but the future as well. we may not understand it all, but isn't that what life is all about?