The suspension of disbelief, such an innocent principle. Go to a movie, go to a musical, go to a concert, and lose yourself. Lose yourself in the imagery, the costumes, the magical fantasy world you watch. and enjoy yourself. And appreciate the time, work, energy, creativity, talent that went into making these things. And then two hours later, go home and reflect. You were moved. You felt something new, or familiar, or soothing, or raw. And you left your life, your grounded earthly normal life, and flew up above it for a moment. You forgot about your problems, your faults, your limits, your failures, or maybe you found comfort or empathy about these things. and this is all very innocent. and nourishing.

But what if you were to continue to suspend your disbelief for a week? a year? a lifetime? Is reality so terrible, so frightening, so unbearable that you must constantly strive to avoid it at all costs? Are you satisfied here, in never never land? Are you fulfilled? Do you feel loved, appreciated, seen, understood, worthwhile? Do you want to feel these things? or maybe all of these things are exactly the monsters you're hiding from.

I'm a little cryptic. I'm a little lost. I'm a little jealous. I'm a little jaded. I have no interest in being swept away from my life. My life is too short. and I don't want to miss it. I want to be known, deeply. I want to love and to be loved and to build. and I can't pretend there's not pain. To fully live my life is to embrace the pain. Sometimes I wish I could just forget like you. Detach. Break off into pieces and leave the hurt pieces in a room, locked and hidden from the part of me that floats around dancing and flirting and smiling and dreaming.

and sometimes I just think, maybe you're onto something. We live and die alone at the end of the day. We lose everything eventually, and it's true: life is so hard and unbearably dull sometimes. Why not make believe it's just a pretty picture?

Maybe it's a solid plan. Until I think about the end. The certain death we have to face. Reality hunts us down, and even if just for a moment, it seizes us, clings tightly onto our hearts, and you must see it. But at that inevitable point it's too late to do anything about the fact that you have nothing to show for your life. and to me, that moment would be more terrifying than all these difficult things along the way combined.

It's worth it to live here in reality. It's hard. It's complicated. It's boring sometimes. and maybe you would just suck at it ultimately. But at the end you can still say you tried. and you lived. and you were honest.

I miss my life. So it makes me ramble.

signing off, from dance camp, the land of the lost.

People like us, we get by through the day,

Surviving the city way better than most.

We go through the motions from nightcap to nightcap

Here but not here, with the heart of a ghost.

People like us we meet up some night

In a room full of strangers who call themselves friends.

It feels like a dream but it's too hard to tell

Where the dream begins and the real world ends