Innocence Lost

It's strange, but as I was contemplating my answers, to the series of questions posed by our  dear Ms. Kimball, in the car, on the way to a sale at Kohl's on Friday night, a song played on the radio that perfectly matched my thoughts. The song's name is "Where are you, Christmas?" by Faith Hill, from the Grinch. The line that stood out the most in the song was "My world is changing/ I'm rearranging/ Does that mean Christmas changes too?"

At the end, the narrator realizes that although Christmas will never be quite the same, as long as one has "love" in her heart, one can rejoice in the spirit of Christmas... and so on.

Adam and Eve changed just as the narrator of the song did, and just as in Emily Dickinson's poem, "Eden is that Old-Fashioned House", they symbolically "sauntered" away from home. they never thought about "returning" because they didn't think Eden would disappear. No one thinks their home would change. The narrator from the song didn't think Christmas would change/ disappear, but it does.

Therefore, Adam and Eve left Eden symbolically by leaving  innocence behind.

It's strange that once one knows something, they can't un-know it. For instance, this weekend I watched "American Horror Story" for the first time (late, i know). So on Saturday night, I sat down in my dimly lit room and switched to Netflix on my tablet. I scrolled down the list of episodes, found that there are 13 episodes in season one, and scrolled back up to play episode 1. 

I began watching what i thought was the pilot episode and was instantly confused. That's because it wasn't the first episode I was playing; I accidentally played episode 6 and, in one move, ruined the entire suspense in the show. Although I tried to watch the show innocently from the beginning and although i tried to forget what Tate had done, it wasn't the same.

Innocence acts the same way. As one grows up and "changes", they can't revert to their carefree 10 year old self no matter how much they may want to be carefree again.

So when we leave for college next summer, we will be leaving our home, our Eden. None of us will be thinking about what we will be leaving behind because we don't really think about what will change. We think about our future instead. In other words, we think about will be be getting in the future. 

Adam and Eve left behind simple innocence when they ate from the tree of good and evil. At the moment,  they didn't think of the consequences. They didn't think that they would be booted out of their beloved Eden  They just wanted to be as God is, and therefore they ate. 

Just as our naive ancestors cannot return home, we will not find home again either. We would all leave our Eden behind forever.

Now, if I somehow was to break the ritual of forgetting that as I leave, I am leaving behind Eden, I would pay respects to the times when i was sick and nursed by my mother, the times i would break something and blame my brother, the times i would stay up thinking about the most pointless things and the times when i could rely on my helicopter mother (because i wouldn't be able to anymore).

Therefore, on Sunday night, as I was typing up these last words and watching "American Horror Story", my mother turned on the radio while telling me to turn the lights up in my room and the song "I will be home for Christmas"  filled the room with its melody.

I cried as Ralph did at the end of the Lord of the Flies for innocence that would be lost.