Wendy

I fell in love with Peter Pan. It was quite unexpected. I didn’t expect him to pay attention to me, I’m just a girl. Perhaps not altogether ordinary, but not exemplary, and certainly not the sort of Lady that attracts heroes. I didn’t think so. But then Peter Pan came in through the window and surprised me. He was fun, and brave. He was sensitive, and daring. I loved being his friend. And then, then I began to wonder why he seemed to favor me. Then I dared to hope that maybe a hero had fallen in love with me.
When I look back now I see how little I really knew Pan. But those months in Neverland taught me a lot about the eternal boy. He was handsome, charismatic, and many other wonderful things. When he cared, I felt like a princess. The magic night with the little lights that spun around like so many fairies streaking about in a joyous dance…the enchanted evening that promised so much…
But soon I learned that the hero was in fact still a little boy in many ways. It seems silly, but I never thought of him as Peter Pan. I didn’t see that he did not want to grow up. When I did see, it puzzled me. It tortured me. Hook’s words penetrated me, “He’s Peter Pan, he can’t Love.” It was true. He could not love me. He could never let himself love. He wasn’t ready.
It didn’t matter if being ready was merely a choice to leave Neverland, if being ready was a choice in and of itself that he would have to make and nothing could really prepare him for it.
So Pan took me back home, and returned to Neverland. I don’t think I will ever see Peter Pan again. And if all I have done is be Wendy to someone’s Moira, then perhaps I at least enabled Pan to someday grow up, even if it wasn’t for me.
“I want always to be a boy, and to always play and have fun.”
“You say so, but I think that is your biggest pretend.”