Misty watercolour meeeemories...

Let's rewind to 1990 for a brief moment, shall we?

Five year old me.

(This totally breaks your heart in the very best way, amirite?  Hee!)


Karlovac, 1990 (one year pre-war); five-years-old; "Ciciban" and ardent singer, soloist of Karlovac's children's choir Cicibani; impossibly ebullient; irrepressible; bibliophile; affectionate and cuddle-lover; "Daddy's Little Girl", dad's princess; extrovert and deliciously gregarious; well-behaved and docile; unquenchable megawatt grin of childhood innocence and mirth; lover of Karlovac's four rivers; lover of group soccer/elastics/dodgeball in front of the apartment building; lover of all good people; life-lover; fearless.

A lot of that five-year-old is still in me, thankfully.  Some of the things she had, though -- like the whole "fearless" part -- made the acquaintance of Adulthood who sized Fearless up and down, sniggered, then brusquely said, "Oh, riiiight, you. They've told me about you. Yeah, see, I got monopoly on all this and, well, you don't get to pass 'Go'. Run along now. I mean it, take a hike!"

Ah, life.

Occasionally, though, Fearless kicks down the door of Adulthood, kicks it in the shin for good measure, lights up a ciggie as it stands above Adulthood with a foot to its neck and sasses, "Yeah, I still got it, punk. Get outta here!  Beat it!"

Sometimes.  Somewhere.  But a lot of the time it cowers in the corner while Adulthood makes it hard for Fearless to come out guns blazing.  (Or to emerge, period.)

But when Fearless does come out guns blazing and ready to kick Adulthood's pragmatic and cynical ass, it's all Super Dooper Spaghetti Western Saloon Smackdown scene up in that joint.

You know it.