I'm not sure how that last one is a "fun" book.
Sometimes it's fun to ball your eyes out uncontrollably. Okay, maybe not. But I haven't read it in over a year and the movie is coming out so I want to make sure it's fresh enough in my memory that I can be completely dissatisfied with the movie. I'm not done with John Green's best work quite yet, but I finished Peter Pan about a week ago and was surprised at the adult themes in so blunt of a children's book. The first time I read Peter Pan, I was probably around eleven or twelve years old. Once again, here's what eleven or twelve year old me looked like:
But in my incredibly vivid and ever daydreaming imagination I felt more like Rapunzel: strong, independent, creative, and possibly on the verge of meeting a handsome someone who could be the key to helping me reach my dreams and discover that I'm actually a princess.
(Rapunzel was totally my princess before the movie even came out.)
Anyway, when I was a kid I read Peter Pan to be all hipster and have read the actual book that the Disney movie pretended to be based off of. I loved the idea of this fresh, youthful boy taking a very practical girl (like me) off to a world of adventures and fairy tales that she had only read or daydreamed about. So when I read it then, I only focused on that fun, adventurous aspect of it and used it as fuel for my daydreams. Ten years later, I'm reading it and thinking, "Holy crap, this is all about growing up. And Peter's kind of a jerk." I thought the whole idea of the book was the beauty of childhood and how children are waaaaay better than adults and adults can all go suck it (the plot of all super crappy kid's movies). But, of course, it is much better than that. It's about how even though it's wonderful to be a child and everyone should revel in their childhood, one day we must all grow up and that's okay too. Wendy is a very grown up little girl to begin with, but she enjoys adventures as well. Peter, on the other hand, will never and can never grow up. He's actually disgusted by the idea. When I was that elevenish imaginator, I really romanticized Peter. I thought he could do no wrong, and I quickly forgave him for his cocky attitude and horrible memory. Now though, I see Wendy as the heroine of the whole story. She bugged me when I was younger; I thought she was whiny and prudish. But now I see that she had a good head on her shoulders and knew that the fun and adventures were only temporary and that they would have to grow up someday. Honestly, Wendy had it right. Growing up isn't easy, but we all have to do it, so we might as well get used to the idea.
Is growing up really all that great?
No, I mean it kind of sucks. Suddenly life gets a lot more serious, with serious consequences to every serious decision. If I could do the ghost of Christmas future thing with my elevenish self, she might've jumped out her window in an attempt to fly to Neverland just to avoid the paperwork, responsibilities, and pain that comes with being a grown up. All she wanted to do as an adult was sit in big bay windows next to warm cozy fires in Switzerland, reading Keats and watching snow fall on the Alps (okay so that's still all I want to do). Despite my elevenish self's possible misgivings about growing up, present twentyish self is very glad to be growing up. In fact, as fun and comfortable as my childhood was, you couldn't pay me to press rewind. A long time ago, I decided to stick with Edith Piaf's motto of "je ne regrette rien" (I regret nothing). This wasn't in an attempt to YOLO my life away; I simply wanted to become content with my past because I can't change it. It also means I don't long for the past because it's dead and gone. So childhood is gone and I'm stuck in adulthood. Being so content with my past may be my best way of coping with my present, but I also honestly believe that being an adult is fantastic. I also think that many of the problems that twentyish people like myself face is because they are unwilling to fully make the transition into an adult.
In the book, both Peter and Wendy like going on adventures, playing pretend, and having fun, but there is a big difference between the two. Peter is stuck as a child and doesn't know the difference between pretend and reality. Wendy can leave the land of pretend anytime she likes and is very aware of what's real and what's not real. I think as twentyish people, it's very easy to fall into the incredibly romanticized idea that we don't have to grow up. Sometimes it's almost as if college is Neverland, full of adventures, some scary, some fun, but we have to decide to either be like Wendy, who even while in Neverland remembers who she is and who she will become, or like Peter, who can't make commitments or take responsibility because everything is a game of pretend to him.
So which are you, Wendy or Peter?
I'm still transitioning into my role as the half-way-through-college-married-twentyish-without-children person. It's a pretty weird place to be. I feel like an adult because I pay taxes, am married to a handsome guy, and work to support my family, but I still feel like a child because I rely a lot on my family, enjoy playing video games, and sometimes have cake for dinner at eleven at night. When I meet a freshman who talks about how annoying her FHE brothers are, I feel like a sixty-year-old woman thinking, "Oh, I remember those days. (Wait, do I? Where are my teeth?)." But when I'm with an incredibly capable mom of four who is only four years older than me, I feel like a child playing house. And don't even get me started with the 23-year-old-I-just-got-home-from-a-mission-and-that-makes-me-better girl who I carpooled with on the way to Provo (When I told her I was 21 and married she said, "Oh, you're so young!" as if I was 16). The point is, I'm still in transition as I'd say most twentyish people are. But I'd say I'm like Wendy. I'm in Neverland, this incredibly fun place with opportunities to be immature and have fewer consequences, but I've got my eye on where I want to be. I'm ready to be all grown up. If a-few-years-after-college me could do the ghost of Christmas future thing with me this is what I'd hope to see: I've got a little person that looks like Matt curled up in my arms and I'm sitting in a crappy apartment waiting for Mr. Matthew to get home. Our budget's tight, our hearts are full, and there's a sheet of paper stuffed in a tiny closet that says I have a degree in English. There's laundry and dishes to do, but I'm content to sit and look at the little person and hope that he is far away in Neverland.
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