I often think about when I was younger and wanted to stay a child forever. I’d always look at my grandmother with bright, hopeful eyes and say, “Drann, I’m never going to grow up!” And she would laugh, entertaining the foolish words that came out of my mouth and replied, “You’ll have to eventually, baby girl, but you can stay Peter Pan for now.” I wish I’d just shut up and grown up like the other kids.
If my future children ever ask me if they, too, can be Peter Pan, I’ll simply tell them no because being Peter Pan is hell, no matter how good a façade he puts on. The childish ways became tiring after years had passed and I no longer wanted to play. Instead, I made up excuses of why I couldn’t hang out with my very own lost boys anymore.
“My mom says I can’t go out today. Neverland isn’t safe for me anymore,” I’d say. They would only cackle and, one by one, pull at my limbs, dragging me back to Neverland, tying it around my ankles. I would always yell at them, telling them to stop. I tried to run but everywhere I went, Neverland went too. I continuously watched my peers blossom and bloom, growing up as a child should eventually do.
However, I had to continuously fight for my growth. Though I finally began to grow up and leave my childish ways in the past, the lost boys continuously came back to remind me where I originated from. They’d hold me captive. I could never tell how long. One day, I guess they got tired of me fighting because they brought along another old friend of mine. Tinkerbell only stared at me with such intensity, gaze tearing into my flesh. Then, she would shoot betrayal in my eyes and I was constantly blind. That’s when my reality became frustrating. I became a mess because I desperately wanted to see. I wanted to understand what everyone else was going through. I wanted to break the hold. Every time I regained my vision, Tinkerbell would make sure that I was to be blinded again. With each time, came more intensity.
She knew what it did to me internally. She knew the desperation I felt to finally be like the rest of my peers, but she continued to isolate me from them. She continued to build onto my fear. She and the lost boys would sit in wait for me after awhile, forcing me to come back.
I begged them to please let me go. “It’s my time. I have to go.”
They couldn’t hear me, though. Their ears were clogged with fairy dust that deafened them because they only chose to hear what they wanted. I couldn’t leave until I let them have their fun and, again, I would return to reality only to feel stupidity rush over me. I would shake vigorously, trying to shake the shame away.
Don’t get me wrong, Peter Pan is growing up now. Every now and then, though, Tinkerbell will sneak in my room, blinding and deafening me with her fairy dust again and I’ll recover, shaking. But even still, Peter Pan is escaping Neverland.
An interesting take on growing up, that’s for sure! It’s something that needed to be said.
So Tinkerbell WAS lying when she said “All you need is Faith, Trust, and a little bit of Pixie Dust.”
Tinkerbell was my favorite. I own all the movies.