perpetual adulthood.

roughly a year ago, i wrote about adulthood.

i talked about turning twenty-three and what adulthood meant to me.

a year later, i see a little bit differently.

i recently took the opportunity to watch a Malaysian production of Into The Woods, a musical that has always touched my heart and soul in ways i never thought it could be touched and transformed. my favorite song from the musical speaks to me a lot about adulthood. about growing up.

the gist of the song: no matter what happens, you're not alone. we all grow up, and things will seem less clear, less simple than it was when we were younger. no more mere rights and wrongs, and doing unto others what they do unto you. 'you decide what's good', based on what you believe in, what you know to be true. if you want to forgive a giant, then do it. if you want to love a witch, then do it. i find the song to be enormously powerful because it was sung by adults (Cinderella and The Baker) to the children (Red and Jack), which was one of the fundamental themes of Into The Woods. these relationships between adults and children--adults were once children too, and now they tell the younger ones about their experiences. they become storytellers of their own, and children too, will grow up to be another generation of storytellers.

it also talks about the mistakes that we all make: no matter who we are and how old or experienced we become, we're all human and we make mistakes. i really love how the adults tell the children to honor people's mistakes and fight for their mistakes, even, choosing to see the strength and necessity in making such mistakes, instead of finding fault in people, but at the same time without ever discounting the cost of these 'terrible mistakes'. somewhere in the woods that is adulthood, we're bound to lose our way a little bit, stray from the path, and make mistakes--but we're told that we're never alone. that no one is ever alone.

my favorite lines are definitely

"witches can be right, giants can be good"

it underlines the fact that nobody should ever be judged by the roles that they are assigned. just because the characters in the story are designed to be inherently evil (the witch and the giant), and even though they do act the way they're designed, Cinderella and The Baker refuse to believe that people are merely the way they were made to be. things are no longer as simple as they seem to be in the storybooks we read. 

as i've entered into my woods, though the woods are trees and the trees are just woods, i will be aware of wolves, of witches, of giants, of princes, of curses, and of anything in my path. the woods maybe a little bit dark and scary and uncertain of events, i'll know this in my heart: no one is alone. i can always count on someone, even if i think i'm in the loneliest of situations.