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Kelsey Jensen

Mrs. Jackie Burr

English 1010

1 January 2019

Hiding in My Neverland

Everybody has a place from their past that stays frozen in their mind. It is a haven, the

only place where they can hide from the world when it gets too hard. For mine, it starts with a

tree, pink blossoms from even the smallest branches, then small green bitter apples. Scarred

branches where I would lay my head to cry when I wanted to be alone. The tree is only the

beginning; however, it stretches to the fairyland garden that was the scene for many adventures

with my fellow heroes. It spreads to the store where I would run into my patchwork family of

friends that had looked after me from the first day we had lived there. It is what I have kept

frozen from what I remember of my hometown, my Neverland. Over the years, as I have moved,

and life has changed me, my Neverland has changed continually. But there is an overall image, a

master painting, a massive series in which I have combined everything together into the

Neverland that is in my mind. It is the impossible place. But it is how I have gotten through my

hardships, hiding in my perfect place. My Neverland is a place where everything stays the same,

and nothing ever grows up, and everything I love is safe, and it is ever evolving. In the eyes of

my younger self, I see my Neverland, because for my childhood, I did not need a Neverland in

my mind. It was there, though I did not fully appreciate it, but it was there nonetheless.

Before the Neverland was in my mind, it was all around me. My younger self lived in

that Neverland when it carried my sled up the hill with my friend, Cedric, who I would have a

crush on in years to come. I basked in my Neverland’s sunlight when played soccer with my old
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friend Tori, my fellow agent in the war with boys. I lived in that Neverland when my sister and I

defeated a dragon that had terrorized the local park. I did not see the simple happiness that came

from going to my friend’s house every day that her mom would pick us up from school, or when

she came over to mine when it was my mom picking us up. That was the first paradise, along

with many other cherished memories. It started in that grove, where the apple tree blossomed,

that’s where the foundation of my mental haven was set.

My first Neverland came crashing down when I moved away from Idaho. It forced me to

abandon a physical surrounding of it in my real life. Everything was so different, and it was so

abrupt. I remember the first time walking into our new home, which we would be sharing with

my uncle. The light was shining through the blinds in the living room, there were stairs, which I

had wanted in a house all my life, but it all seemed wrong. My vision of home had been broken,

it clashed in my mind. Home is where the heart is, some even say it is with the family, both I can

say are true for me, but even with my family here, along with my heart, this place could not be

home. Where were the trees, the hard wood floors that I had grown used to their cold nature,

where was the pillar with which our leader and friend was tied to in a game of infiltration? This

could not have been my home, but it had to be, my old home was gone. I think it was so jarring

for me that this moment is when I started to create my perfect utopia. It was slow, I would think

of friends, my patchwork family, I would think of the apple tree, my room, the creaky old shed

that I would climb on top of to watch the stars, and slowly my Neverland came into being. A

long day would lead me home and into my mind, friends would hurt me and I would pretend that

my old ones were still by my side. It became my life to live in that place where everything was

right, and it kept me trapped in the past.

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But with time passing, things started to get better, though I still did not like to

acknowledge this as my home. I had new friends, I had more opportunities where I was than

where I had been. I would laugh with my friends, and make inside jokes that would inadvertently

disturb other people. I began to find new things that I loved, that beforehand I had never even

considered. I realize now that I was building a new Neverland with my everyday life that I

experienced, and became apart of an everyday thing. Even then, I was unconsciously adding new

things and people that brought me joy to my Neverland, forever collected and safe. On bad days,

I would often look back and hate myself for believing that this “new” life was normal, because I

did not want it to be, I wanted to be back home. However, there was nothing I could do, I was

confused, and just wanted to go back to the last place that I could remember was perfect, or at

least in my mind it had been. Looking back now, I know very well that I was remembering the

frozen place I had in my mind, the Neverland that I had built inside my head.

The new Neverland that I had created in middle school did not crash, burn, and break

around me like the first, but time did take the people in which I had found a new haven. One by

one they moved away, and we have grown somewhat distant. For a year or so, I was lost, I lived

in my head some more, where I had close friends, my favorite places. Of course, the mind can

only do so much to replace real life, and things could not stay the way they were. I started to find

new things that I was attached to, new people that made me even forget the perfection of my first

Neverland. I started changing, the fears and anxieties that I had adopted upon my move that

seemed like yesterday, were being pushed into the corner of my mind. The safe place inside my

head was more of a fantasy that I read out of a book, I knew my Neverland was imaginary. The

experiences that I had with them I cannot describe fully, but they were somehow able to distract

me from such a happy illusion that awaited in my head. There were many, what I would call
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adventures, that I had with them, and I am grateful for each and every one, even if I cannot

remember them all. At one point, after having had nothing but fun together for months, I made

them aware of my struggles, things I had not fully confessed to anyone for a long time. Their

comforting texts back let me know that they were true friends, what I did not expect was their

unexpected visit to my home, where they gave me the warmest hug, and insisted on taking me

out. To this day we are still close, and in retrospect, I believe that the reason they were able to

distract me from hurt and the daydream in my head. I had found a new Neverland in them. It was

not perfect, as nothing should be, but they are there.

The paradise inside anyone’s head can lead to distract from real life. No one wants the

pain that life offers us every day. I chose to hide from that in my head, and that lead me to ignore

the last five years of my life. I chose to ignore the hurt, and in doing so I ignored the joys of life

as well.Life and time and change hold hands like the best of friends, and with all of that I have

inevitably said goodbye to many, including them. But I know that it will not be forever, because

they are inside my head, they will not distract me from life, but they will be there for when I am

hurting. I also know that they are out in the world which I currently live in, the people which I

hold most dear are around me, even if they are not right next to me. I am grateful for this, and

while burying myself in my thoughts has blinded me to this for some time, it has now helped me

realize all of life’s greatness. My Neverland is all around me.