meloncholy...choly...choly...

You know how when you were a kid, there were all these things that you had planned? Things you planned on doing, things you planned on seeing, things you planned on experiencing. A hodgepodge of promises you make to yourself, to your young self, still fresh with wonder and eagerness to set about on making good of those promises.

Lately those promises I made to my eleven.year.old self have been coming back to me. Eleven was before any hardship, heartbreak or religion. Eleven was when I remember wanting to live a pure, clean and idyllic life. Even then I wasn't yearning for the house and picket fence, but a life of adventure filled with excitement and love -- the excitement and love usually reserved for the big screen. I would live my life as nobly as the kings and queens in Disney movies. I would be as brave as Rainbow Brite as she constantly faced those who would extract the color from our lives. I would be as glamorous as Jem, virtuously standing up for the weak while rocking out in (appealing albeit guiltless) rock star fashion. All this whilst maintaining the childish innocence that allowed me to literally roll on the floor bursting with laughter at the mishaps and endearing nature of Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

Those promises I made myself have been echoing into my ear, bouncing around the insides of my brain, wedging themselves into the crevices of my mind like a bit of popcorn kernel stuck between your teeth. "When are you going to make good of this promise?" my eleven.year.old self asks me, "When?"

These days is saddens me that I can't give her a straight answer. I can't say for sure what'll happen or why things have happened the way they have. I'm sorry to her that I haven't lived up to everything she had dreamed. But then there's always hope. It's that which keeps most of us going. So though those promises may echo in my head, and though that little girl may ask "when" and "why," I'll have that much to provide her. Hope.