Real Dreams

I don't blog much as I want. Time takes a way a lot of that for me. Life's been crazy lately. Well, that's an understatement. But I want to write this out, for those somewhere out there that might be going through something similar.

Growing up is hard. No one can legitimately say it's easy. It's not.

waiting for the parade as a kid on Main Street. 

As a Disney fan since near-birth, I've always grown up with good triumphing evil, and the protagonist learning a great life lesson and growing from the experience. One film, and I've referenced it many times before on my site, that stands out and speaks volumes to me is Tarzan. The concept of growing up from a boy to a man. Protecting your loved ones, and being truly, who you are supposed to be in the world are all messages that I take to heart.

In this world now, it's hard to find that peace and contentment, when so much goes on. I'm twenty. High school was a good time, but I feel I didn't really grow up then. The last year of my life has been the most life changing so far. I'm steps away from being really a man, and no longer a little kid. There's been fights with family over how to handle life situations, slowing down and realizing I don't need to rush into things, but consider everything before I make a move. But now, I'm becoming my own man. I'm moving out of my house I've grown up in for twenty years, and into a studio apartment in town. I won't be down the hall from my parents. I won't wake up to my little sister cannon-balling onto my bed on Saturday mornings to watch Jake and The Neverland Pirates, or even arguing with my bigger little sister (closest to me in age) over the last slice of leftover pizza in the fridge. It's the oddest, weirdest transition in life. But at the same time, the funnest and most exciting. I'd be lying if I said that this isn't hard on me too, but I know that it's time to grow up more than I am now, and this is helping the process.

I'd also be lying if I said I hate not being a kid anymore. There is something to be said about the innocence of children that I admire the most. As a young kid, I spent hours in my room building sets out of legos and creating my own adventures. I dug trenches and tunnels for my hotwheels in the back yard, right next to the dirt circle I played marbles with my grandma. Or the countless afternoons of eating Kid Cuisines and watching Steve Irwin on Crocodile Hunter. It's a simple, nothing but fun life as a kid. They don't know what cold realities the world has waiting in the shadows, ready to pounce on them as they age. And with recent times, it's really been hitting me hard that things like Sandyhook Elementary, or even the child that lost his life in the Boston bombing had to face that reality even sooner than they should have.

Which is why I'm writing this, saying that as grown up as I'll have to be, I will never lose sight of the childhood innocence. Having a little sister who's just starting first grade soon, I'll always promise to never do anything that won't break a real of naivety and innocence, and will always keep the magic I had as a child of Disney and things like that alive. Worlds such as Cars, Tinker Bell and her Pixie Hollow. The Hundred Acre Woods of Winnie The Pooh are all real. They exist as long as you believe in the stories. And I can guarantee you, the day I marry the girl of my dreams, and we have our own children, I'll be the dad who brings characters from stories to life with acting them out with voices, and jumping on the bed, or hiding behind curtains. Building pillow forts in the living room to watch movies all Saturday morning. And not just leaving them in the living room to do it on their own, but being right in the fort with them. And always instilling in them that this world may be hard and cruel. People will hurt you. But it's up to you to make it happy for you, and for those around you. I can't live with myself being upset over how cold the world is. And I can't live with myself if someday I don't carry on happiness and true creativity and an awe and wonder for the world around us to the next generation.


I may not work for Pixar or Disney, but they have it right with creating worlds and elements that I used to look at as real and believe that Pirates pillage towns, and I can climb Tarzan's Treehouse, and Escape Pleasure Island with Pinnochio, or fly off to Space inside a Mountain. It's all real...if you believe in it. I want to create and make worlds better than ever for kids younger than me to fall in love and wonder with. And as I pack up my room in a week and leave home, sort of like Andy did in Toy Story 3, I'm sure I'll cry, because my childhood has been over, and reality of adulthood is really fully setting in. But at least I can now find fun ways to watch the younger ones enjoy it like I once did.

My oldest younger sister and I planning out our adventures. 

This is just a collection of random thoughts that's been heavily on my mind, and I'm sitting at my desk at work tearing up right now as I write this, but I don't want to lose sight of how the world CAN be viewed, and honestly should be viewed. Because cold darkness that is portrayed through so much is a virus that infects too many people. There really needs to be more genuine happiness and appreciation, and love for things. I just want to be another person in the world providing that for the next generation(s) to come.

So, like Russel from "Up" says, "Adventure is out there!". Do something in the world to make an adventure to go out there for.