Peter Pan

Last night, my roommate and I watched the new Peter Pan movie on DVD. It was a good adaptation of it. It kept all the whimsy of the Julie Andrews version but added a little bit of edge. I'm surprised it had a PG rating.

Yeah, so the movie didn't suck.

But as I was sitting there, watching this movie, I finally got it. I got what the story was really about. It was about me. And I was afraid.

Peter Pan is a boy who never wants to grow up. But more than that, he's a boy who has no idea what growing up is. In every adaptation of this story, especially the more poignant ones, there is a point where he finally realizes that there is a concept of what it means to grow up. And it floors him. Fortunately for him, it only seems to take him but a minute or two to understand and toss aside/accept this truth (depending upon the adaptation) and rush forward to resolve the climax rosily by fighting Captain Hook.

If only I were so lucky.

I have realized that I don't want to be a boy. But growing up has so many strings attached. All of a sudden I have to worry about things. I've moved out of the halls, so I have bills to pay. I no longer have residents, so my years of being a mile-wide, but an inch-deep have finally caught up to me. I get lonely.

All of a sudden I worry about what my future holds. My cares and plans for my future have shifted from being a kaleidoscope, changing with the angle -but always different in every viewing; to being worries and plans with walls and doors and keys that must be fashioned, books that must be read, people that must be impressed and deadlines that must be met. I have to start budgeting for my future.

All of a sudden the worries about being alone for my entire life have left the mouth of my older sister and begun to ring around my own head. (And here's the scary part) the voice is not my sister's, but mine own. I all of a sudden wonder if I've met the girl I'm going to marry.

And for every time I have answer "I don't know", I feel a little bit of my confidence ebb away. The sheer reality of phrase, "I don't know", has morphed from the magic egg full of possibilities I could get in return from a mechanical rooster for a quarter, into two pieces of molded plastic formed by the hands of Malaysian slave workers and hold nothing more than a scrap of soft aluminum bent and painted to resemble, "bling".

I never used to care about "not knowing". I used to find the idea refreshing and empowering. But now, I yearn for the truth.

I want a Jesus that is real and in my hands. The closest thing I can find is at the altar when Father asks me if I care to receive the "body of Christ". THAT, my friends. Is real. THAT, my friends, is what Jesus left for ME. And while this does give me respite, it seems a floating barrel to a man treading water in the middle of an ocean. I need to take my barrel, and find my island or, if I'm lucky, continent.

I've had enough of my Castles in the Air. Fuck Thoreau. I need the foundations he said, as if in afterthought, should be built to support them. I need my earth, so that I may know which way is up.

I know God has something very important for me to do in my life. I know it. That thought defines me. It, quite literally, is what I live for. But I feel sometimes fear I'll become the man waiting on the roof of his flooding house who passes up a truck, boat and helicopter because of his faith the Lord will save him only to hear later in conversation with the Lord exclaim, after his immediate death due to drowning, "what do you mean I didn't save you?!?! I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter!"

I'm beginning to realize, and fear, that God has given me more power over my life than I had ever fathomed. Okay, maybe "freedom" is a more suitable word. But to be honest, I'm scared by either.

I'm no longer afraid that whatever it is the Lord has planned for me is to be the foil to someone else's rising star. I now fear most of all that I'll not make use of my "talents" while waiting for my master to return.

I'll have no more being Peter Pan. I've made the decision. My age of reason is now. To every season, there is a turn. I will laugh. I will love. I will learn. I will do so with hope. I will trust in the Lord, and hold onto my barrel, until we both find our paradise... or at least a bit of sand.

22 1/2 years of virginity

I'm a label-ripper.

I peel, tear, scrape, etc, every label or sticker off of every coke, beer [gasp] etc. If it has something that can be peeled, I'm all over it. I don't even do it consciously. So I did it a few weeks ago in front of the Mary. She told me how doing that is a sign of "sexual frustration." Then like four hours later, my friend Blake reiterated the same point when he noticed me absent-mindedly rending label from yet another drink.

Once more, I hear the words "sexual frustration" pointed towards myself.

"Sexual Frustration"

All of this begs the question: "Can you be sexually frustrated if you've never had sex?"

If the answer to this question is "yes", then I guess you can sign me up. You know, it would be nice if I could blame my lack of a sexual life for all of my frustrations.

I'm going to be honest. I think about sex. I think about what it will be like. I wonder if I'll be any good at it. I've had friends-that-are-girls who've told me how afraid they are that its going to hurt. Some of them who would know, have told me how it really did hurt. So that scares the royal hell out of me too. I don't want to cause my wife pain like that. Especially in that area of her body. What in the hell? Yes, I know it doesn't hurt that badly, or that women obviously don't mind it that much or else they wouldn't be doing it. And yes, I know it gets better (hopefully), but remember this is all bouncing around inside the head of a guy who usually won't remind the lady at McDonald's she didn't give my my Hot Mustard sauce for my Nuggets (mmmmm nuggets) because I can't stand the look of disappointment on her chubby little face. If I'm afraid to sing in front of people on the chance they might not like listening to me, where am I supposed to get the guts to put my new wife through that kind of pain? I mean, sometimes it causes them to bleed!

The idea of having sex someday definitely does frustrate me. I mean on the one hand, I have my Catholicism telling me that I should do my best to force these thoughts out of my mind. And on the other, more prevalent, side we have a new American Pie sequel/clone coming out what seems like every other Friday. Its kind of tough being a consigned virgin in a world in love with sex.

My mom knows who Jenna Jameson is. (I'm not even going to touch that one.)

I sometimes feel like a Mariner trying to get his "wand'ring bark" through a stormy sea of Late Night Girls Gone Wild infomercials, Victoria's Secret magazines, Coors Light Twins and Baylor Girls in just-long-enough pleated skirts crashing over the sides of my boat trying like hell to drown my weak little boat.

Yeah, that's about it.

One thing I've realized lately, is that the older one gets, the more complicated things grow. Its sad, but true. Depressing, but true.

Now, I feel the need to say this: "I am not a prude." I'm not innocent. As my mom would say: "I got the 4-1-1, Neil. I know what's hip. Fo' Shizzle, dizzle, silly nizzle." (That was an amalgamation of actual things she's said.)

That being said, I am glad to say that there is a lot of the world I don't know about. There are things about sex that years of Baseball bus trips and Boy Scout Camp didn't teach me. And I'm happy about that. Another thing that needs to be said is that I have a wonderful set of parents who've put sex in a very healthy perspective for me. My mom has a master's in Health Education. Yeah, it was embarrassing in High School. But then again, everything is.

My parents did a wonderful job of framing what sex is, means, and in what context it should be shared. They weren't Nuns, but they weren't hippies. They trusted me, but I wasn't free to do "anything I wanted."

They helped me to know that sex isn't only for procreation, nor is it only for pleasure. Its a little of both. And its also for bringing two people closer together. Did you know that there's a hormone that women release only once in their lives, and only during their first sexual encounter? It helps to bond the woman to the man. That's why you see girls who have sex with some asshole in high school have so much trouble letting go.

Sex isn't something just to be thrown around. What good things have happened to people who sleep around?

Yeah, so I'm frustrated. I'm really frustrated. I'm a virgin and my Cubbies are droppin like flies. Nobody sneeze.

Frustration, Death and Taxes man. Everyone has to deal.

Go Pistons.