Neverland

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet. ~Victor Hugo

In less than five months, I will turn 21.

According to the world, that means I should have turned in my dreams a long time ago...

...packed away my fantasies into a brown leather suitcase and tucked them away at the back of the closet.

The fingers are pointing, the grown-ups are whispering..

"It's time for Wendy to grow up."

But for me, that will never happen.

I simply cannot stop dreaming.

Dreams are what keep me from despair.

When the nights are the darkest they've ever been, when the winds are ice cold and the candles have all burned down...

...it's then that the books come off the shelves.

It's then that my dreams are the brightest.

I refuse to lose myself in cynicism...I refuse to let my heart harden.

I still will reach out for the hand of my Father, whispering, "teach me, Daddy."

I want to always hear the Lion's roar.

So, I will never stop dreaming.

Not at 21. Not at 81. Not at 101.

Not ever.

I can't keep myself from getting older, from shouldering responsibilities...

...from stepping into the real world and making my own place there.

But, in the still of night...

...I do believe in fairies.

"You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always think of you." ~J.M. Barrie