Who am I?

What happens to innocence? After life experience robs us of it, are we the better for this? I think not. Suddenly everything is raw, ugly, frightening. You realize that no one else is looking out for you--you are alone. This would not be such a tragic event, except we are born into 'family' which provides a sense that we are not meant to be alone. We come to believe that those around us are there for our protection, for loving and nurturing us--it is our 'instinct' to believe this, even if they fail.

While still encapsulated in our own personal cocoon, we grow away from this dependence--or remain unnaturally attached to it because it seems demanded of us. We begin to see life as it truly is, not as we feel it should be.

If we are fortunate, maturity takes us by the hand and leads us safely into the world. Many times, though, we cling to our childhood--attemptng to write our future as we want it to be, rejecting the reality of the present. We are neither here nor there. We are neither adult nor child. We are nobody.

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Sometimes when I experience such a stream of consciousness, I begin to doubt the validity of my own thoughts, as is the case now. So I looked up the meaning of the word innocence in Encarta. One of the definitions supports my feelings, I suppose, so I will include it:

innocence

4. lack of worldly experience: a lack of experience of the world, especially when this results in a failure to recognize the harmful intentions of other people