Lost Girl

I'm starting this post under the assumption that we all have that one weird movie that makes us cry. That one movie that isn't really cry worthy but for some reason when we watch it our little hearts go pitter pat and our eyes feel compelled to shed a tear or two (or three, or four, or a hundred). I actually have a few of these, among which are "My Best Friends Wedding", "13 Going On 30", and the one that takes the cake "Peter Pan". Lets discuss Peter Pan shall we? As a kid I liked Peter Pan but I didn't LOVE Peter Pan. I now LOVE Peter Pan. I think my adulthood love for the movie goes back to the moment when I first cried watching it. I was about 19 and I was babysitting four of my favorite little girls on the planet. We had bunkered down in their theater room, dimmed the lights and snuggled up to watch the movie. I was glued to my seat intensely watching every minute and by the time the credits started rolling I was tearing up big time. One of the girls noticed the water works and sweetly but bluntly asked me, "Why are you crying? Are you ok?" It's kind of hard to explain to a three year old the reasons for which why as a fully fledged young adult you're crying at Peter Pan so I just sniffled at her, "I just really like this movie". She accepted this as a perfectly reasonable explanation and excitedly went on to ask me if I'd spin her around. Bless her heart.

Now, lets talk about why I went into full on wacko head mode. I've never really been one to act my age. I've always had two ages that define my personality and my behaviors, 5 and 75. From the ages of zero to five I generally acted my appropriate age. Then, from the ages of five to about fifteen I acted like a 75 year old grandma with a bit of my five year old flair and tendencies on the side. When I turned fifteen it's like a switch flipped and my inner five year old got sick of being side lined and decided it was time to sideline my inner 75 year old grandma instead. That's kind of about the time that this happened:

I went from looking forward to the day when my advanced vocabulary and love of mushy foods that didn't require chewing would be acceptable to behaving like a five year old frolicking in a field of daisies sucking on a lollipop while spouting out fancy words that only a 75 year old English professor has the right to know. 

{F21: plaid button up similar, black shorts similar here and here, pearl hair pin -borrowed from my sister-similar; Tanger Outlets: white oxfords similar; A&F: belt similar; Watch: borrowed from my little brother similar}

Can you understand why I could relate to Peter Pan so much now? I went from looking forward to growing up to never wanting to age another day again. I wanted to be a Lost Boy. Except I'd be a Lost Girl. I wanted to go to Neverland where I'd never have to stop imagining, daydreaming, skipping randomly, riding on the wheels of the carts at supermarkets, singing about everything that I do, getting overly excited about dessert, and living 90% of my day caught up in the world that is my mind. At nineteen I was already longing for my "lost youth". I know, I was crazy. Nineteen is still young, but in that tear filled moment I just felt like my youth was fast fleeting. Now that I'm seven months away from turning 22 I'm feeling that way all over again. (22 guys! That's so insanely old! Anyone older than 22 feel free to virtually punch me now.) Twenty-two just seems like it's the age when I will probably be forced out of the Neverland I've been living in. Like it's the age to finally stop relying on my creativity and imagination to get my by in the world and let my inner 75 year old grandma make her reappearance. That's the thing, though. If you think about it, 75 year olds really aren't all that different from little kids. They're both short highly emotional people. Except that children don't know much about living and 75 year olds do. Maybe this maturity thing will be a win, win? I'll let you know once and if it happens. In the words of good old Peter, "Never say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting." So maybe I shouldn't completely say goodbye to my inner five year old? Maybe I should just let my inner grandma and my inner child split their time evenly because saying goodbye to my inner five year old would be saying goodbye to who I am and after all, "I like being weird...and I'm gonna have fun cause there's nothing wrong with who I am". 

Much Love!

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