The Turning Point

 I had a teacher once who told me that there are only about seven stories in literature, that are told over and over in different versions. This seems like an oversimplification to me, but there are probably that many commonly told ones. What brings this to mind is a recent trip to see The Nutcracker ballet. It was lovely, and a favorite of mine in childhood. The Nutcracker, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz, all favorites, had a common element  A girl on the cusp of adulthood, having a final glorious adventure before making the responsible choice to return and take up the mantle of adult womanhood.

Clara of the Nutcracker and Wendy of Peter Pan both have suitors approved by their parents waiting. Dorothy came at a later time, and too young for marriage in the modern age, still had farm chores and three uncle who needed hot meals. As a child I could never fathom the choice, for the first two at least. What was it they needed to return to? Who decided that the life assigned to them was a responsibility, and who would benefit from their upholding the status quo?

It seems a bit like that in the real world sometimes. Beauty that takes your breath away, a relationship thats more than routine, adventures of the small and sudden, or the large and life changing kind, all are things its thought naive to expect. You stay on the sidewalk, you go with what works, you color inside of the lines and perhaps at the end of your life you will have earned the right to travel a little with your worn body and still have ample savings to leave to your 2.5 children.

I've walked that walk, with everything I had for many long grey years. And what it brought was what it was expected to bring, disappointment and endless toil toward things I did not even wish to acquire. This isn't the case now, and while I shirk no fair responsibility, its my goal now in any element which effects only me to choose for myself, regardless of how odd, how boring, how short sighted it may seem to someone else. There is no use following a map to someone else's destination, and it feels better to trip on the way to my own.

On the subject of childhood literature, a quote that has stuck strongly with me for many years-

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

And a song, from another angle-