Never never getting lost

"I can see why you have trouble finding a happy thought. So many sad memories, Peter."  - Tinkerbell (Hook, 1991)

This happens all the time. All the time. I take a break from working at home by having something to eat and eating it in front of the TV, cable on, scanning channels to temporarily watch for maybe 20-30 minutes or so, then back to work. But when a good film or show comes on, then all hell breaks loose in my work sked and I find my butt nailed onto the couch and my eyes glued to the screen while my imagination takes flight with the film I'm watching.

And this is why perhaps I have this personal relationship with films, filmmaking, watching films and absorbing films. Stories affect me, as they are universal, and they have some plotlines I could identify with, storylines that make me reflect on my own life as they run parallel with the film's. 

So this sleepy Sunday afternoon, as I decided to indulge in my last cup of coffee for the day while eating cheezewhiz-stuffed pandesal, I decided to stay on and watch a 1991 favorite of mine: Hook. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the story is a take-off of the premise "What if Peter Pan grew up?"

Julia Roberts' Tinkerbell character made me sit up and reflect on what I'm writing here now. Hers is that quote above the post, when she was trying to teach Peter Pan how to fly again. All it takes is one happy thought, just one, to soar through the skies. And that line of hers hit me, like KAPOW!

So many sad memories, my dear. And yet we yearn to fly. Oh, what to do? Well, you know what -- replace the old with the new. 

Life is full of half-enlightenments. 

Push 'til you find them whole. [January 2013]

As I enter my fourth decade of existence this year, God knows how I've accumulated so many of those sad memories in my life. But the universe knows how to balance things out. I am glad that the cosmos is still sending me meteor shower upon meteor shower of good thoughts, happy experiences, and great new people along the way, to co-exist alongside the old and still happy ones, to make me grateful that each and every painful experience is a human reminder of why it is so peaceful to smile after you have cried, a jolt to make you feel alive again when you think life has pulled the rug from underneath you. To just be, to feel good, to reflect on the not-so-good stuff, that's how to fly. That's how to recharge those happy thoughts when they seem to be in low supply. To remind yourself that you still have many happy thoughts to create with people who are equally happy to be with you to create these thoughts, these memories. That's good enough for me.

And then of course, the realization that you, as you exist, as yourself, as who you are, you are someone else's happy thought. You, your existence, your person, you. You make someone happy. You make someone smile. And by thinking of that thought, that makes me extra happy. Extra extra extra. Yeah, read all about it. It's here. It's a full circle of having a happy thought -- your happy thought is this person whose happy thought you are a part of. Now that's happy, and grand. 

So really, there's no need to be sad, to be depressed, to feel the negative vibes that sometimes sticks to your skin when you pass by a glob-full of negative people and negative places. These things, they get washed away eventually, and they don't sink in. Never should. Never should.  

I have so many things planned, so many things I still want to do. That's a happy thought.

I have someone who cares for me deeply, who loves me no matter the distance, the space, the circumstance. That's a happy thought.

I have a handful of people I trust who trust me back, and they have my back wherever I want to fly. That's a happy thought.

I'm excited to see where life will still take me in the next decade of my life, and I'm excited to know that the person I love wants to still join me there, in my journey -- eventually ours. That's a happy thought.

See Bayli, so many happy thoughts. Now that's your fairy dust. FLY!

And them sad memories? Well, that's what fiction writing is for, right? Go type away. NOW NA! Expunge.

Second star to the right beks, and straight on 'til morning. 

Don't get lost again.

Misspelled happy thoughts. 

Pushed by sugar rush, good enough to last. 

[July 2012 Marikina]