i am peter pan

i will always be a child in so many ways. it was a teacher who has said it first, you are an old soul. frankly it took me by surprise. i have thought myself as new to this world. i've always held a lot of fascination for the ordinariness of things. i have the eternal wonder in me as if i'm always seeing things for the first time. then i started to think, maybe it's true. that my soul, ancient, has gone through childhood in so many lifetimes that i remember it with graceful ease.

which is why this halloween i went as peter pan. not as the boy who never grew up. but as someone who vows to be forever young.

there comes certain points in our lives when we stop and realize that we are in the middle of nowhere. oftentimes we lose our way simply because we've forgotten who we are. i've suffered through a drawn-out quarter life crisis agonizing over not knowing who i was and where i was going. years have taught me that the answer wasn't out there. so i drilled down to the deepest place i could find within me and like peter pan, i realized i was not young enough to know everything.

thus i started being a kid again. i rediscovered old favorites and more importantly, i started remembering the things that made me happy as a child. i remembered my dreams which were sorrily dismissed somewhere along the road to being an adult. it's ironic how we couldn't wait to grow up and learn to become this amazing person, when we've had what it takes all along. as grown-ups we have learned to fear and hesitate on the brink of our goals. we've simply forgotten that no dream is too impossible, too wonderful to be real.

this journey of unlearning continues today.

if you find yourself lost or at the crossroads, remember. go back to that place where all our happy thoughts live. which way to neverland? second to the right and straight on till morning!