Neverland.

There's a part of me, I think, that will always be a child. A small, broken child, but a child nonetheless. I realized long ago that she's the one who haunts me when I spiral into that dark abyss. It's her nightmares that torment my thoughts. That black place is far from me now, but that child is still there. It is a child's fears that paralyze me when I would live. But it is not all tragedy, for with profound sorrow there comes profound joy. Her eyes see a world untainted and trustworthy. Some might call her naive, but I call her hopeful, innocent. Her little hands reach forward into possibility, dreaming things I've forgotten I could dream and imagining wonders I've grown to distrust and disbelieve. Sometimes I feel like the people around me know so much more than I and are so much more mature, but then I question it. But that is a feeling I want to hold onto. Maybe that's weird, but I want to hold on to that because that is when I feel her the strongest, when I feel the most unequal, and I can hope for just a moment that I can hold onto her other qualities, too.

Enough of doubt and cynicism. Enough of pessimism and worry.

I'm ready to be naively hopeful, to see the best in the world, to trust that everything will be okay, more than okay--wonderful, to have faith that I'm going in the right direction. That someday soon I'll find what I'm looking for, and that in the meantime it'll be quite the ride. I'm ready to blow soap bubbles just because I feel like it and to forego homework to sketch trees and fountains on sunny days.

I'm ready to live unreservedly.

I feel infinite.

Serendipity.

Listening to: "Drift Away"
Reading: East of Eden by John Steinbeck