For some, the memory you have of finding out that Santa Claus wasn’t real is seared into your consciousness. And for me, it’s in the dismantling of my naivety. With the demolition of the LaToya who believed in fairy tales rises a LaToya who is more pragmatic and factual. There are things that you lose in your adulthood, a kind of innocence, a patina of life that you can’t get back. April 13th the dismantling of the person that I was unwillingly beginning to give way to the person that I must become. Survival.

Bleeding heart. Romantic. Those are among the words that I would have used to describe myself. Not now. Not ever again. I believed in a singular thing, no, not God (that’s a whole other blog entry). And when the dust settled, I was the only one who believed. I had regarded someone for such a long time, despite many reasons why a rational person would not. The heart wants what it wants. Then too, a heart is a living thing, and it too can get it all wrong and it too can die. I had to accept that image of what was in my head had no place in reality.

I had loved that particular feeling, like the new toy on Christmas Day. It had built up inside me, as if it was the singularly perfect thing, a feeling that could envelop me, one that I drew comfort from. Things change. People change-ish. I realize now that this was just something that I didn’t ever want to let go of. But part of that feeling was in believing that the other person believed it too. And in realizing that I was the delusional one, for the past two weeks I have spent a great deal of time being introspective and practical. I’ve allowed life’s darkness to creep in. Sometimes we let go not because we want to but because we must. And so, I am bullishly overruling the former by the latter. Oz is a beautiful place, but it was only real to Dorothy and she doesn’t live here anymore.