So in continuation of my micro-blog/mini-novella/life experience notes, here's my latest installment and string of thoughts. Enjoy!
Where Have All the Children Gone? A Loss of Innocence
When we were kids, we had everything going for us – nothing could
stop that childhood motivation and energy and those impenetrable smiles. When I
was little, I can remember getting up at 7 in the morning and going outside to
play incessantly until my mother threatened not to feed me if I didn’t come
inside for dinner ‘right this second!’ Days filled with cartoons,
trampoline-jumping, games of tag and hide & seek, riding bikes,
jungle-gyms, pools, and ice cream – life was good.
But life couldn’t be more further from the truth…which begs my
question, where did all the innocence go? Where have all the children gone?
I can answer that. After years of learning more and growing into
adults, we learn more than we care to – about ourselves, our community, our
world. The good and the bad. Soon we discover that life isn’t a series of games
and cake and cartoon Saturdays – it’s a string of incessant events where our
heads spin in an effort to comprehend what’s going on and what’s changing and
how to keep up with it all without losing our minds. In a word, chaos.
I can target the day I first lost that innocence and found out
that the world wasn’t so nice and fun as I thought – the day I got my period.
Yes, a little gross and disgusting and personal, but hey, every girl goes
through it, and it’s for the greater good here, so whatever don’t judge me. It
was 8th grade and I was babysitting – I came home for lunch around
noontime after about 5 hours of sitting these devil children when I found blood
in my underwear for the first time that didn’t look normal. I was so not
prepared for the moment when my life transformed from being a kid with no
responsibilities or problems to a young woman who would soon learn that life
was not so forgiving and pretty to everyone at every moment. A turning point,
as they call it in the literary world. From then on, each day brought more
devastation as I realized that I would have to keep moving through life
regardless of what evils and travesties I would have to keep facing. An awful and
very Armageddon-like thought, quite frankly.
High school was more of that, and then college taught me the
worst of all evils – the art of growing into my own skin and truly learning who
I was and in what direction my life was going: onward with no real assurance of
what was in store next. Great – the perfectionist who was wedded to innocence
and comfort and everything simple was suddenly smacked in the face with the fact
that life was messy and complicated and sometimes downright wicked. Super. I was
totally prepared for this! Not. At. All.
Now after thinking it over and having survived so far since that
first realization, I had another one – I was doing just fine on my own. Wow, I thought,
I can do this! Living day-to-day knowing that anything can happen and it might
not be what I wanted or was expecting and that all will go on as it has always
before was so awesome! This reminds me of a quote from Under the Tuscan Sun:
“Aunt Mary is everywhere here, her calm presence assuring us that all things
will go on as they have before…” – Beautifully said. And remarkably true. That
and the common saying that ‘God never gives you more than you can handle.’ I believe
those two statements to be very true. After going through some life experiences
of my own and still not knowing exactly what’s in store for the rest of my
life, I’ve come to find that I can handle things – one at a time, little by
little, as much as I can, without panicking. At least most of the time.
And that’s all we can do. Keep calm and carry on…
