remembrance of turtles past

as a personal gift to myself for my 24th birthday, i bought an action figure of the teenage mutant ninja turtle leonardo. aside from his "Trusty katanas", leonardo also came with "New Sabers!", "New Straight Swords!", and "Ninja Throwing Stars!". and apart from the "New Warrior Weapons!", what made this leonardo cooler was it had "New Ninja Moves! Weapon Spinning Action!", meaning, if you squeeze his legs together, leonardo will start spinning his weapons to make them "Slice and Dice!". "These new moves rock!", leonardo says.

cooool. it's great to escape from the horrors of being "grown up" and go back to being a kid again, once in a while.

i used to have an action figure of that same leonardo eons ago, when i was a kid. of all the action figures i had, he was my favorite. for weapons, leonardo sr. had two katana swords, two ninja throwing stars, a club that looked like an armadillo, a pizza like thingy with blades jutting out of the edges, and a turtle shell that opens at the back where he can store his weapons. i no longer have him with me, owing to my carelessness as a kid.

my love affair with the turtles started when i was in 4th grade. typhoon ruping had just struck cebu, and we spent the next month or so living in the stone age, with neither electricity, light, or television. then when the electricity came back, like the bringers of light, so appeared the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

i remember being glued to the tv on friday nights waiting for each new episode of the turtles. i watched them in their struggle against shredder and the foot, and laughed at their weird and silly enemies like bebop (a mutant warthog) and rocksteady (a mutant rhino) and krang (a brainlike alien with a robot body). then after the turtles, an episode of the x-men came next on tv. i also loved the x-men (i still do), but for childish silliness, nothing beats the turtles.

at the end of the school year during 4th grade, our teachers allowed us kids to bring our toys along with us to school. i salivated at what my classmates brought with them. the ninja turtles! there was leonardo! and rafael and donatello and michaelangelo! i HAD to get one. i begged... no... i pestered my mother to buy me a toy. when that didn't work, i bribed her with my report card (my grades still looked great those days), so she gave in.

after a run of about two years or so on tv, the turtles disappeared. then i lost leonardo sr. and then came high school. the "REAL WORLD" was now upon me. i had to grow up. it was all downhill from there.

so now i struggle with the evils of work, paying the bills, and worrying about "THE FUTURE". work is fine, i can bear it. paying the bills is fine, i can swallow that. but the "THE FUTURE" scares me shitless.

there you are patiently slugging it out with the devils of "THE FUTURE". you seem to be winning. things seem to look good. and then WHAM! "THE FUTURE" gives you a powerful uppercut on the chin, and you are down on your butt on the canvass with the referee giving you the count. you are dazed. you are confused. but you have to get up. you just can't give up. you can't wimp out. it all seems so pointless, but you have no choice.

so you get up off your ass and slug it out again. and it goes on, and on. it's a cruel cycle.

can you blame me then, or anyone else for that matter, if i spend a few moments of my time dreaming that i was a kid again? if only life were as clean and simple as an episode of the turtles, where you KNOW the good guys always win against the bad guys at the end of this week's episode.

but life is not that way. and to grow up is to realize that life is not that way. you just have to swallow it if you are to survive. at times i despair over that fact. makes me want my innocence back.

in his poem "ode on a distant prospect of eton college", thomas grey lamented:

"yet ah! why should they know their fate?
since sorrow never comes too late
and happiness too swiftly flies
thought would destroy their paradise
no more; where ignorance is bliss
'tis folly to be wise."

ahh... the dillema, between sorrowful wisdom and ignorant bliss. but we cannot remain ignorant and innocent forever. either we open our eyes, or our eyes are forced open. but every once in a while, i close my eyes for a moment and pretend that i was kid again, that everything would be alright after this week's episode. then i open my eyes again, and, re-energized, i continue my struggle with "THE FUTURE".

bring it on...