Have I been gone from Neverland to long?
Today I sat at home with my children watching one of my favorite childhood movies, HOOK. I enjoy family movie time and for those of you who know me at all know a good Disney or Disney themed movie would be my preference for the event! So Hook it was today. If you haven’t watched it you should and if you have then maybe a family movie night is in order for your family to watch it again.
Hook is the “adult” version of the timeless tale of Peter Pan, the boy who said he would never grow up. This version has Robin Williams as Peter and Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, who steals Peter’s kids from the nursery in Wendy’s house and takes them off to Neverland so Peter will come back and have the war that Hook has always wanted. The only problem is Peter is no longer Peter Pan but now Peter Panning, a lawyer who has no time for anything but work, thinks that all make believe things are a waste of time and defiantly doesn’t think that Neverland is real or the stories of Peter Pan. All because he grew up. I remember when I was a child singing the Toys R Us song of “I don’t want to grow up because if I did I couldn’t be a toys r us kid.” But somewhere among the singing of the song I grew up. There is an old saying that “growing old is required but growing up is a choice” and “that you are only as old as you feel” or something like that, so why do I feel so old?
It wasn’t a choice that I consciously made, it just happened. Somewhere amidst the going to Nursing school, paying bills, doing laundry and dishes, providing transportation to piano and ball practice, cooking dinner and tucking in bed at night, I grew up. There is a line in the movie where Mr Smee tells the unbelieving Hook that Peter Panning is definitely Peter Pan but he has been away from Neverland so long that he forgot all of it. Maybe that is what happened, maybe I have been away from Neverland so long that I forgot it and all of its magic. I have forgotten. I have forgotten how to just put down the work and play. I have forgotten how to and that it is okay to leave the dishes dirty and the laundry in the basket and go outside and play. I forgot how to put down the tedious everyday things in life and play. Maybe really I have forgotten how to play at all. Maybe I have let the everyday things that seem important in life to get in the way of really living it.
I enjoy the trips that my family has taken annually to Disney for the last several years where I can go back to Neverland, where I don’t have to be an adult anymore and I can find my happy spot and live in Pan’s world. But then I find myself forgetting once again and going back to what we sadly refer to as “reality”. I don’t want to live in reality just for a little while. Just for a little while I want to live back in Neverland. I want to find my “happy place” where I can fly. Where I don’t have to do laundry and clean the house but I can find the more important things in life just that, important. I want to see that look of amazement on my kids faces just like on Peter’s kids’ faces when their Dad flies in. I want to go to Neverland, just to remember then like Peter when I go back home maybe I can keep Neverland alive in my head, not just my heart. Wanna go to Neverland with me?
