when I was a child I believed I could fly

I'm 22 now, and I'm firmly stuck on the ground.

When I was a child, I was just a kid living day to day, wondering whether I would get a new toy tomorrow. Today, I'm living the dream of the archetype worker slave of Western Civilization. Live, Learn, Conform, Get a Job, Contribute, Die. Every day of my living existence I submit to the wiles and whims of my teachers, my superiors, my bosses. One large heirarchic tree stretching to infinity, with God at one end.

Congratulations to me - I am one year closer to my death. My hair's getting whiter by the day. I'm loading up on crap and toxic substances with every breath and every bite and every sip. I'm living my life, while dying at the same time, in every single second of my existence. It's a wonder what aging can do for you. When you were a child you believed in a great number of things, and as you grew older every one of those beliefs was thrown out of the window.

When I was a child I believed that tongue was spelled T-A-N-G. When I was a child I believed you can get pregnant from oral sex. When I was a child I believed that the SNES was the pinnacle of video game entertainment. I believed that whenever I watched Unsolved Mysteries or Inhumanoids an invisible hand would abduct me. I believed I was from Venus and was the reincarnation of a 600 year old person.

What I believed was nothing compared to what I learned. I learned that when you opened up yourself to another person you would get the world. I learned that friendliness and companionship are things not all people seek. I learned that when you opened up your feelings to different kinds of people, they shun you. I learned that one perfectly timed bad moment screws up everything. I learned that things like love are really amoral, and that people can do evil things in the name of love, while at the same time people can do the greatest things in the world because of the same reasons. I learned that there are some things that cannot be fixed. I learned that miracles do happen, despite that. I learned not to close my mind. I learned that Samm Schwartz died years ago, and I will never see another original Jughead strip from him again. I learned that time is relative, fleeting, precious.

I learned that even if I could never truly fly, I could try.

Here's to one more year of existence. Happy birthday to me b(^_^)d