Wendy Darling

I don't really want to grow up.

It wasn't until this morning that I came upon what might be the reason for my lifelong love of Peter Pan. I'm not sure exactly what had me thinking about it. I watched She's Having a Baby last night as I fell asleep...maybe that's what did it. (If you've never seen that movie, I urge you to check it out. The further into my twenties I get, the more relevant it becomes.)

Maybe it's that I've been sick the past few days. I can recall being a little kid, sick in the middle of the night, sitting in my mom's lap in the den watching Disney's original animated Peter Pan...on VHS. Memories such as these make me feel warm and fuzzy.

I'd say "maybe" again, but this is what it probably is. I believe that I've entered what some might call a quarter-life crisis (thank you, John Mayer). It seems I am always thinking about the fact that I am on the verge of a stage of life that is just plain weird. I'm getting ready to graduate from college and it's overwhelming.

This is what I'm anticipating. In an attempt to create my adult, post-college self, I'm going to lose half of the identity I solidified during said college years; I shall bid farewell to all of the structure I've had for 85% of my life; and, oh yeah, an enormous slice of my childhood will be snatched away. Hello, Responsibility, I want my life back.

Let's be honest, most of us aren't really adults in college. We have our mature (responsible) moments, sure, but for many of us, it's still so safe. Maybe I'm wrong, but for me, it's been safe...so safe.

And really good, too. So good.

But it isn't really adulthood.

And that's what's so scary about it all; that's what makes me want to retreat.

So, back to where we began. My knowledge of the tale of Peter Pan is limited by the fact that I've never actually read the book, but here is what I gather from the numerous screen versions I've seen...

Peter Pan was stuck. He's a middle-aged man living in his parents' basement. He's clinging so desperately to his childhood that it's become embarrassing to admit that perhaps growing up wouldn't be so bad after all. And he's missed out, boy, has he missed out.

Yes, Wendy and the Darling boys return home because they miss mom and dad, but they make a compromise in doing so. They have to grow up. The boys are carefree...they have time, but Wendy knows what she faces in returning home. She has to move out of the nursery. She has to become a woman and do womanly things. She can't be a kid anymore...but then I wonder if she really wants to be. My guess is, she doesn't want to get stuck like the boy who won't grow up.

So she grows up, maybe reluctantly, but she does. She has a life...a fictional one, but you get the idea. She makes the most of what she can't actually control. Yes, she waits for Peter's eventual return, but did she really want him to come back? Think about it. Would you?

It might be exciting to revisit to the land of perpetual juvenescence, but, like Wendy, I don't know that I'd go. I'd feel obligated to, of course, that's just part of my personality; I'd hate to let him down. Honestly, though, why go back when you've found something so much better and fuller and richer? Pete's enchanting, sure, but the guy's got no life. He's been so afraid of failing, that he fails; and so afraid of losing, that he's lost.

So, like my fifth Halloween, I'm going to be Wendy Darling.

It's just better this way.