Peter Pan Syndrome

Peter Pan was never my favorite movie growing up, something about Tinkerbell I think- homegirl’s too sassy. But as I grow older I’m realizing that it’s definitely my favorite message. As a kid, I was justifiably obsessed with The Little Mermaid and I strove to be like her in every way. In hindsight however, binding my feet together with a diving ring to emulate a tail, jumping in the pool, and immediately proceeding to drown was probably not the best idea I’ve ever had (although regrettably not the worst). But how could I resist being drawn to the thought of a magical life under the sea with perfect hair, spontaneous chorus lines, and 20 dinglehoppers at my disposal? I was obsessed to the point of manipulation. My older sister, Kaitlin, and I shared a room once upon a time and I distinctly remember conversations such as these taking place:

Kaitlin: “Mojo, mom says we need to clean our room.”

Mojo: “I don’t wanna clean it. You clean it.” (I was a caring child.)

Kaitlin: “Well I would... but ARIEL alwayssssss cleans her big sister’s room...”

*silence*

Flash forward to an hour later while I’m child laboring it up in our room while Kaitlin’s off creating a fake library in the den or whatever intellectual playtime activity she had planned for the day. And she’ll try to refute that story, ohhh she’ll try, but DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. It got to the point of classical conditioning where, to this very day, if I hear “Part of Your World” gearing up somewhere in the background, I swear I can smell the scent of Pine-Sol the air.  

Anyway... back to Pan!

Just think about Pete’s life for a moment. The kid has it all. The ability to fly, a gang of ragamuffin friends ready n rarin’ for adventures at anytime, pirates to fight, mermaids to hang with, and the unbelievably functional-yet-comfortable combination wardrobe of tights and swords!

But the most amazing perk of all?

Never.

Growing.

Up.

That’s the dreammmm man. To have youth the rest of your life! Sittin’ pretty in that comfortable slot between childhood and adulthood; old enough to go out on your own but young enough to have no responsibilities. Young enough to still believe in fairy tales, heroes, and the undeniable fact that people are ultimately good and just.  

Youth is something precious; something you can never get back. It reminds me of the summer I worked as a bartender at the local restaurant on the canal in my hometown. The most diverse and eclectic people would wander through the crooked front door, sit at my stools, and spill drinks and words alike. I soon developed a habit of asking these strangers for life advice or words of wisdom that they could share with me. The answers were as varied as the clientele:

For example, Old Man Walter gave me indispensable advice on the joys of marriage:

“You turn an old man loose from his wife, you’d be surprised what he can do-- honest to God.”

(talking about the 2 week cruise he went on... without his wife)

Or Nelson who lent me his wisest business tip:

“You wanna know the secret to making more money? Wear a lower shirt.”

Or Jimmy speaking on the sanctity of love:

“You can make more money in a five minute marriage proposal than in an entire lifetime of working.”

But amidst these terrible tips that made me question the overall decency of the entire human race, every so often someone’s life advice would strike a chord with me. I remember one particular rainy evening when an old man walked through the door, sat down, and ordered a Maker’s Mark on the rocks. I slide him his drink and he downed the liquid in one fell swoop. He placed the glass down on the withered bar and let out an audible sigh, raindrops still dripping from his hat. While the scene in front of me had all the makings of the next big country song, I decided to dive in anyway and ask him for one peice of life advice.

He looked up at me under the brim of his hat and in a course, crackled voice (like the one you’d use after just waking up) I’ll never forget the words he said next:

“Time is the only true commodity in life. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Youth is a precious thing darlin’ and it’s the one thing in life you can never get back. No matter how much you want it...

you’ll never get it back.”

Apart from making me want to run home crying and go dig my barbies out of the shadows of my basement so that I could cradle them while weeping in the corner... his words made me think. We spend so much time wishing for tomorrow. Impatient to what lies ahead of us while never appreciating all that we possess right now, in this very moment. We long for the future until we reach a certain age where suddenly we ache for the past. Where is the desire for the present? Where is the longing for the here and now?

Peter Pan never has to worry about that. Never has to yearn for lost youth or the glory days of yesteryear. He enjoys every moment of life because there is no fear of losing what cannot be lost.     

My mom has always said that I have “Peter Pan Syndrome”. A constant stubbornness where I refuse to grow up, refuse to abandon the ideals of childhood (boring people like to call it “immaturity”). It’s weird but for me, the word “mature” has always been the one that possessed the negative connotation.

Let me explain it this way: I am a 24 year old with bunkbeds and my idea of being responsible is forcing myself to turn my clothes right side out before washing them. So you can understand why someone like me sees the allure in finding Neverland.  

But maybe Neverland isn’t some distant world far away second star to the right and straight on til morning. Maybe it’s more a state of mind than an actual state. Maybe it’s in that big pile of leaves that you just can’t resist jumping into. Maybe it’s riding your cart down the cereal aisle luge-style in your 3-piece business suit. Maybe it’s the fort you build with your two year old nephew for no other reason at all besides fun. Maybe it’s not as far away as we think.

And maybe youth never has be mourned... because it never has to be lost.  

S#!t My Grandma Says

My Grandma Beth and the endless stream of comments that come out of her 92 year old unfiltered mouth.

[watching NCIS]
Me: What show is this?
G-Beth: NCSI...NCIA...NICA... It's a great program. They have cute boys.
Me: I haven't seen it. 
G-Beth: You haven't lived.

[eating dinner]
Me: I'm getting steak all over my face.
G-Beth: It's quite the improvement.

[unloading the dishwasher] 
Me: Grandma you almost stabbed me with that knife.
G-Beth: I was trying to make it look like an accident. 

And this was just the last hour and a half. 

92 years old and still making my abs hurt. 

Wigs & Winners

So my brother's night last night consisted of being transported back in time to the 19th Century and escorting Katy Perry down a fight of stairs to introduce her new perfume at a glamorous event in New York City. 

Mine consisted of eating a 3 scoop ice cream cone. 

So I think we all know who came out on top with this one.

My Standby Life: 2 Fast 2 Furious

Ok so i need to write down the debacles of all my travels before I forget them (I have the memory span of a flea... if fleas have really short memory spans). So since I haven’t really kept track, I’ll start from the most recent trip and work my way backwards, Benjamin Button style.  

Two days ago I got back from Puerto Rico. I went to visit my good friend Vanessa who is doing her student teaching at a school down there and let me tell you, it was AHHHHmazing. But before I can dive into the epicness of the trip, I have to first paint the picture of our transportation situation.  

Puerto Rico is a small-ish island but we still had to plan a way to get around in order to be able to do everything we wanted to do. Before I had left, everyone I talked to warned me not to drive in Puerto Rico. It’s narrow streets, psychotic drivers, and lack of consideration for basic road rules and regulations is universally known (not to mention the fact that I’d have no idea where I was going or that every sign and direction would be in a different language). So first rule of the trip was simple: Do Not Rent a Car.

So the first thing I do when I step off the plane is rent a car.

This is where the title of this blog comes in. If there’s an easy way to learn a life lesson or a hard way, you can bet good money on the fact that I’ll always choose the hard way. I don’t know what it is, call it stupidity or just a glutton for punishment, but I can’t help but think that the best stories come out of the worst decisions. And it’s not like I put myself purposefully in these situations just for the potential stories; my brain just seems to have the soundtrack of  “ehh you’ll be fine” playing on repeat whenever a potentially tragic decision arises. Besides, safety is for those who have no stories to tell when they’re old.

Alright back to the streets of San Juan.

So after a minor mishap in the Hertz parking lot (an employee chasing me down the street yelling to me that I was driving with the emergency brake on) I managed to make it to Vanessa’s school in one piece.  

After spending the day playing soccer with 30 rambunctious kids in 90 degree heat, we jumped into our kia and headed to the beach. The sun soon set and we hopped back into our swag-wagon (already regretting that) and headed home.

Midway down a particularly busy street with a lively, incomprehensible Spanish song blasting on the radio, Vanessa suddenly yells, “WOAH Mojo! Look at that giant swarm of bugs!” Now people... you can’t say the words “giant”, “swarm,” and “bugs” together in a sentence and NOT expect me to abandon everything I’m doing and stare at what I can only assume to be a sight equal to the flesh eating beetle scene in The Mummy.

So stopping everything I was doing and openly staring was exactly what I did.

Unfortunately for us (and the car in front of us) the activity of which I abandoned attention was driving.

Needless to say, I crashed headfirst into the car in front of us.

It’d been roughly 7 hours since I’d arrived.

But to my defense, if you know anything about Puerto Rican traffic, I consider it an extreme accomplishment that I had made it that long without getting into an accident. Seriously it’s like Fast & Furious with none of the perks (ridiculously sick cars and Paul Walker in the passenger seat).

So I run into this car (didn’t even get to enjoy the swarm of bugs, so annoying right?) and the driver of the car gets out. Let me paint this picture for you: two clueless white girls in a foreign country, in the middle of a raging intersection, in the middle of the night, and the driver of the other car doesn’t speak a lick of English.) To top things off, all the vocabulary I learned in my previous high school Spanish classes flees from my brain and I’m stumbling to find the word for “I’m sorry” as the driver walks to the back of her car. I don’t know what came over me- let’s blame it on the Puerto Rican heat or the fact that I just hit a car to stare at bugs, but right at that moment my idiotic brain triumphantly comes up with a word that it’s convinced means “sorry.”

That word?

I kid you not...

“Gracias.”

As in “thank you” gracias.

Let’s just take in the stupidity of that for one moment.

Sunk in?

Ok good.

So I, being the brilliant international conversationalist that I am, am now energetically shouting “Thank you! Thank you!” to the woman whose car I just hit.

She looks at me for a moment, obviously confused, takes a look at her car, AND BY SOME MIRACLE gives me a nonchalant wave like, Eh I’ve seen worse, gets back into her car and drives off.

Vanessa and I stare dumbfounded at each other for a moment and then do the only thing we can at this point and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

7 hours in and we’ve already managed to secure a driving misdemeanour in a foreign country.

So yeah, renting a car was probably not the greatest life decision I’ve ever made but it allowed us to have free roam of the island and provided us with some pretty entertaining stories in the end. And if by some serendipitous chance that a San Juan Hertz Car Rental employee is reading this, I am completelyyyyy making this up. No need to add extra damage charges to the rental fee... I mean, rear ending someone to watch bugs fly and then yelling “thank you” at them until they get back in their car and drive away? No one’s that stupid right? [uneasy laughter & shifty eyes]

Ok, moving on...

So yeah, don’t rent a car in Puerto Rico. Learned it the hard way.

My Standby Life

So this one time I was given the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world that I wanted to go. But I had a very limited window to do it in and I wasn't sure how long that window of opportunity would be open. So I did what any sane person would have done... dropped out of grad school and packed a suitcase.

To my school’s defense, the program I was in was great; the students, the professors, the classes, all top notch stuff. But there came a point mid semester when I realized that it just wasn’t something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. That I would be doing it just to do it and not really feeling any passion for it.

Around that same time, my friend Ben (who works for the airport) had a buddy pass that was up for grabs. Buddy passes are basically Wonka’s Golden Ticket in the airline world. The holder of the pass can travel anywhere in US for free and anywhere worldwide for just the price of taxes. Goldmine right? So he posted the offer on twitter to a few people who he knew would be interested. Naturally I responded to his offer in a very calm, very mature way:

Long story short, I won the auction, got the pass, and started making a list of places I wanted to go (there may or may not have been an in-front-of-the-mirror-booty-pop-celebratory dance thrown in there as well). The only catch with the ticket was this: the magic of the pass would only work while he was employed at the airport. He told me he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be with the airline but that it would definitely be at least a month or so. So with an unbelievable pass and an uncertain deadline, I dropped out of grad school and packed a suitcase...

So This Blog...

This isn’t a blog about fashion (a topic of which i know little of), or food (a topic of which I regretfully know too much of). This won’t help you save money or point you in the promising direction of the latest and greatest online deal (like a Black & Decker 10C Food Processor powered by a 500W motor for only 15 bucks at Walmart.com say whatttttttt?!?) Nor will this blog give you superior enrichment in some buddah-licious, ghandi-tricious way. Nothing extraordinary happens... unless I tell you about that one time I slapped Matt Damon’s butt-- and yes (to answer your question) the hand which dealt the blow is still securely saran-wrapped to this day. 

More than anything else, this is just a tiny cobweby corner of cyberspace where I can write down the daily debacles of my so-called life in order for me to remember them when I am undoubtedly senile by the age of 40.  So if that kinda thing floats your boat or steams your peas then welcome aboard matey, this captain’s ready to set sail. (And if those cringe-inducing nautical references didn’t just scare you away, then you’ve proven yourself strong enough for what’s to come.)

Welcome.