Starting Over

 I used to gave a blog before, like way before. I think some good 10 years ago, I used to write things about my life story. Serious and petty stuff, all I can think of - I blog it. Until I felt tired of writing them, writing my stories. I mean my point of blogging then was to vent out and just put all my frustrations into the void. 

The World Wide Web can provide that. The Void.

And then I stopped. For some reason blogging became tiring and sad at one point. Imagine documenting the things that happened to you on a particular Sunday night, an argument you had with a friend one Friday morning or how fun it was trying the new buffet restaurant 10 minutes away from my house that weekend.

But in reality, in those years that I have been blogging I realized that all I've been meaning to say, is I am not happy. I seriously am not. I am grateful.. Thankful actually. To God for keeping my family and friends healthy, for being able to work and provide for my family. Not all has the chance to support their families especially during these trying times. 

But I just can't ignore the fact that I am not happy. I can't even recall the last time that I felt genuinely happy. You guys know what I mean? Was it what..10 years ago? 15 years ago? I don't recall anymore. 

“Has the world become so complicated that happiness has suddenly become so elusive?” It's a quote from a book I've read before.

So here I am fantasizing about what happiness really means. I tried to bounce back from fantasy, just to witness for myself my complicated stubbornness. I decided to watch something that most people of my age won’t watch, due to a certain complacency which by later would make my soul and mind debate for.. say.. 2 hours or so. I decided to stick my eyes in “Return to Neverland” and return to Neverland, I did.

I was instantly transported back to distant memories of simple joys found in mud puddles or alulod of our roof everytime it rains or paper boats and airplanes, sandcastles and cartoon weekends on ABS CBN! When bad hair days didn’t matter and mornings were something to look forward to. Back to a time when I didn’t curse traffic for making me late again, or I didn't have to worry about what to wear because people wont care. 

The realization came upon me. I’ve changed and forgotten. Despite childhood amnesia, or whatever it is called, my return gave me the chance to recall the kind of rush felt in believing that, to a child, there is something different about the smell of Christmas morning, rain; and that “beautiful” meant seeing sunlight peeping through the leaves atop high trees, or feeling the warmth of the summer breeze against my face. I thought about fresh watermelon and cookies ‘n cream flavored ice cream, then I smiled and remembered why children are happier people.

In this age of anxiety and restlessness, the potential to succeed or even just to survive is predicted by our track records — elaborate documentations and proofs of how grown-up we’ve become. And also, how we coped with what Antoine De Saint-Exupéry referred to as “matters of consequence” another quote from Little Prince -  these could be inflation rates, credit limits, profit growths, political orientations, graduate degrees, prenuptial agreements, cosmetic treatments, account balances, titles, mortgage payments, status symbols, income taxes, insurances, logical explanations, and religion.

Unfortunately for most of us, growing up simply became synonymous to growing old. Peter Pan was the boy who didn’t want to grow up, and never did. For an hour and a half, I took great pleasure in my good fortune of being able to retrace the tracks of the Lost Boys and of reliving my own happy childhood.

There are some people who have grown to mistake cynicism for wisdom. I might hear them say that while half the world thinks of childhood as the happiest moment of their lives, the other half spends lifetimes trying to overcome it. Well, I believe that youth, like happiness, is a state of mind: a consequence of our choices. My allusion to Peter Pan and Neverland should not give the impression that we need to wallow in fantasies and daydreams, adults call it delusions in order to find happiness.

Children are not happier people because of magic and fairy tales and happily-ever-afters, but because of their belief that good things, even better things, are still ahead of us. Keeping the faith in simple joys.

It has been said that places like Neverland and Middle-earth are found to be “a place to live, a green alternative to each day’s madness here in a poisoned world.” Label it escapism. Even denial. We can come up with more names if only to justify why we have become the hard and bitter grownups that most of us are. Or, we can choose to be happy in the fashion of children that we once were.

As for me, I’m beginning to see the sunlight through the leaves of the trees again. I intend to hold on to that wonderful feeling as much as I hope to keep that memory of my childhood alive. For as long as I can. Because again, this the only memory of happiness I can come up with now.