Temporary Insanity. Inanity too.

Here we are. Kids in La La Land. Pretending to go to work. To cook. To pay bills. To be adults. Some of us really work, some don't. Either way, we still pretend. The results don't matter. They don't determine our fate, our careers or any potential raises. There is no need for fear there. Just comfort, however we prefer to take it. We cook on post-teen EasyBake ovens, we pay luxury bills (internet, cable, etc). We drink and travel and avoid and confront at will. We aren't adults, we're spoiled rotten children.

There's so much lacking that people just start creating. Like a bored toddler we just pick up something and see what we can do with it. Sometimes what we can do is ingenious. Other times, most times, it's lame or random or even destructive. We are living the life of our inner child. Rather than being freed by this we are crushed by it. There's a reason why that kid is kept quiet and doesn't run things: she's an idiot.

I think I've been an idiot in some form or another since I got here. Actually, I think it's how I got here. Whatever. Point is that I do things here that I'd - the old, real me - never do or think about doing. What I do. What I stand for. Where I draw the line. "This isn't me," I constantly say to myself. Others tell me the same about themselves. We're living in a parallel life from the one we had and the people we were. We don't know these people at all. When we close the door at night, we face The Stranger.

In addition to the rather obvious personal strive and identity crises we face, there's the other obvious one: who ARE these people? We're stuck here, on a deserted island of sorts, with people we didn't know before we came. In some ways we are extraordinarily close, in other ways we are not. I don't know the me that is here. Likewise, I can't expect to fully know the "them" that is not here. Who and what do I really know about my friends and confidants? The amount of chaos and havoc and absolute wreckage caused by me is only matched by the amount caused by others I know here. I know this person - this destroyer that I can be - isn't me, but when and how do I know if it isn't others? What's a serious character flaw and what's a lapse of judgment? What's grounds for confrontation and what's grounds for simply walking away? I don't claim to know.

Forgiveness and release of anger has been on my mind a lot recently - both needing to give it and receive it. Primarily from local devastations. Escalating battles of who-cares-less and verbal knife fights haven't left anyone better for the wear. We're broken - as much by what we've taken as by what we've given. We've let the inner child out to roam free. Unattended, she's wrecked everything in sight. Now we clean the mess.

A few days ago some kids passed me. One of them, a local kid, likes to shout "what time is it?" to me in English. He's bashful but learning. It's a game we've played for months. Anyway, he was with friends a few days ago and they decided to practice their knowledge of English too, a knowledge that centered around the phrase "fuck you." Pissed and angry I wanted to give them a proper Jen-verbal-smackdown and then I stopped myself. I took a moment and called on my inner adult. I needed to see what she thought. She laughed, said "stupid kids" and walked away. For the first time in a long time, I listened to her. It's what the old me - the real one - would have done. It felt right.

I'm spending a bit more time with my inner adult these days. We've got a lot of cleaning to do. Stupid kids.