Well here we are again, blogging. Welcome back to the world-wide web. I just finished breakfast, and up until a few minutes ago, the house was quiet. Dad was out running around. Mom and even our dog, Ella, were sleeping. But now Dad is home, shouting into the telephone, and Ella is rolling around the floor. Like they own the place. So I have my headphones in and am trying to find my happy writing place while listening to Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits, but it’s not really working. Emotionally, I’m frustrated. Physically, my skin is itching, my head is full of snot, and I’m pretty much “done with this shit” on every level.

Still, I’m trying to be pleasant.

Last night I dragged my ass out of the house to attend the musical Finding Neverland at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville with a friend of mine. I got our tickets at the last minute, so we didn’t end up in the same row, but we did end up really close to the stage. This made the costumes, characters, and staging even more magical than they already were.

The show tells the story of how JM Barrie came to write Peter Pan and is absolutely delightful, although not completely historically accurate. (I’ve read a lot about Peter Pan.) For example, Barrie based Peter Pan on the children of the Davies family. The show says he met Mrs. Davies and her four boys after her husband died. In reality, Barrie met Mrs. Davies long before her husband passed away and wasn’t particularly liked by him. Also, there were five boys, not four. Michael, whom the character Peter Pan was most strongly based on, came to hate the association.

I don’t particularly have a problem with the fact that the show had to twist the facts in order to tell its story. Still, the commercial for the show does say it’s a true story, not based on a true story, and that’s clearly misleading. Maybe I’ve read too much about it to be objective. One of the things I love about musical theater is that it takes a messy, imperfect world and turns it into perfection. Look! Everyone’s doing a grapevine in unison! And the show certainly did that. Again, it was magical. Honestly, I like the stage version of Barrie’s life better than the one you can find on the internet. Perhaps we all deserve this–a better version of ourselves.

Today I spent some time editing my social media settings, turning off the majority of my push notifications. (Mom, push notifications are the pop-up messages that alert you, “John just liked your tweet,” “Debbie just tagged you in a photo,” or, “Jack just went to the bathroom at Western Sizzlin’.”) Additionally, I unsubscribed from a number of email lists and “unjoined” several groups on Facebook. All of this was in an effort to have fewer distractions, simplify, and spend less time in the virtual world and more time in the real one.

Now it’s five in the evening, and I’m ready to go back to bed. I’ve been debating on getting out tonight, going to a party or running to the natural health food store to try “one more thing.” But I think when this is done, I’m going to take a nap, stop trying so hard if only for a night. Even if the house can’t be quiet, maybe I can be. Chill out, Marcus. Rest. I’ve been thinking today that we’re allowed to rewrite our stories. This isn’t about changing the past, but rather about changing the future. Even if we’ve always done something one way, we can do it differently. We can spend less time online, take better care of ourselves, try to be pleasant, whatever it takes to find a better version of ourselves.