I've learned that in life, you go through stages and within those stages, there are microstages. The older you get, the bigger the leap in a shorter period of time (or the faster you grow).

Child stage 1: 1-3 (Who am I?)
Child stage 2: 4-7 (Oh, here I am! Here's me!)
Child stage 3: 8-12 (Do I like me?)
Teen (metamorphosis 1): 13-16 (The chance to be someone else, but who?)
Teen/Young Adult: 17-20 (I'm a grown-up, dammit!)
Young Adult (metamorphosis 2): 21-24 (Am I a grown up? Do I want to be a grown up? I'm not so sure...)
Adult stage 1: 25-? (Do I like who I've become? Is it okay to change who I've become if I don't? Why did I choose this? Where did "me" go? Who is "me" again?)
and beyond...

The ages of 1-3 are important, every parenting book and magazine on the planet tells us this. This is where our personalities develop. They never change. There's no point in trying to change one's personality past age 3. Trust me, I have a soon-to-be three year old, I also have a soon-to-be eight year old. They are who they are, I just try & hold their interest long enough to guide them through the path they chose.

And they did choose it, just as I chose mine and you chose yours. It happened once upon a time. In the place we are before we're bound by flesh, we all wrote the stories that would become our lives.

The problem with mine though, I'm fairly certain, is that being the verbose little creature I am, I got a little carried away. Too many plot twists, too many challenges, too many words, too many characters...and I'm fairly certain that, like most things, I probably never finished mine. I don't think I was given the chance.

I can picture my soul, a happy soul full of sunshine and love, happily laying on the grass, under a tree in some Utopian place, pen in hand, a magic journal in my lap, trying to write the story of me. I see it so clearly, a crystalline being just happy to be writing, shining brighter with each stroke on the page.

This is me: "La la la la la la la la la...." *scribble, scribble, scribble*

This is the universe, talking to its many selves:
*sigh* "She'll never finish y'know..."
"I know, but look at what a happy soul she is...."
"It was your idea to make dreamers..."
"That's true, it was."
"But what purpose does she serve, really? I mean in the grand scheme..."
"Does she need one? Look at how brightly she shines. Can't we just watch?"
"For what, infinity? No. Push her."
"But which way, do you think?"
"How about we all blow together and see where she lands?"
"Let her write a little more, it can't do any harm..."

So the universe went about its business, creating planets and stars and animals and rivers and people and magic and demons and madness, correcting minor mistakes here and there, but it always kept one eye on our happy heroine soul, reading over her shoulder now and then, giving a nudge to look up at the world around, to be inspired by its brilliance, to be lulled by its beauty, to be comforted by its wisdom.

But the little soul never looked up and with each nudge of the universe, the pen only moved faster.

"Well what now?" The universe asked its selves.
"Blow?"
"I think we'd better..."
"But she'll never finish..."
"Finish what?"
"That life!"
"Oh yes, there's that..."
"Does it have to be finished all at once?"
"Y'know....that's a very good question...do you think...?"
"I don't know..."
"Well, maybe?"
"Let's try and see?"
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"We could watch..."
"Yes..."

And with that, the universe's many selves started blowing in all directions at once. It was gentle at first, creating a small tornado just strong enough to make the journal's pages flip and flutter, the ink unable to catch them, the words unable to stick. The soul burned with a new brightness, a blue brightness overcoming the white. If souls had brows, this one's would have been furrowed.

The universe blew harder.

The soul stood defiantly, dropping her journal. She looked up, looked around and looked down at the book laying open on the grass, its pages turning so violently this way and that, the soul became afraid they'd tear out. It was a heavy book with tattered, ink-soaked pages, heavier than the soul herself. Too heavy to pick up she found, because she tried.

The universe blew harder, picking up the pen she dropped and teasing her with it as it swirled around her head, leaving a faint trail of ink on the wind. She knew it could not be caught, but she turned in circles anyway, getting dizzy as she watched it pass her by.

The universe stopped blowing. Everything was still. The pages of the journal silently falling into place, open to the first page. The pen floating gently into the crevice of its perfectly bound spine.

"Loooooooook...." whispered the universe's many voices.

The soul, my soul, cautiously knelt down beside the journal, peering at its pages with curious confusion on the borders of familiarity.

The universe blew as hard as the universe can.

Part of her lurched forward, part of her pulled back, all parts of her splitting into tiny pieces of sunshine tumbling through the book and down down down, like sand in an hourglass, emptying into the womb of a young stranger, displacing the innocence therein.

This is Sunnyland: Fragments of Self playing together in the same stream of consciousness.

(Originally posted here, but posted HERE because I had to post something to justify my own existence on dA.)