sense of wonder

When you feel a sense of wonder in the world around you, you are seeing the good, the magical.  You see potential. It is something children do well, because they are naive about life.  They haven't seen a lot of negatives.  They don't see the bigger picture clouded by disappointments, trauma.  Being able to hold onto this sense of wonder throughout ones life would be a precious gift. It would require a person to move past the negatives that they have experienced and be able to have hope that things can be better.   It would be a wonderful gift.  I think it doesn't have to be something one can only wish for.  While I don't think it's possible or even wise to negate life experiences, I think it IS possible and even wise to give oneself a break from all of the hurts in life to experience something beautiful and wonderous. 
I like taking walks with my little daughter.  She marvels over mushrooms growing outside her bedroom window. She says they look like beach umbrellas for barbies.  We have a little frog that hangs out near a water spout by our front door.  We have named him Fred the Frog.  He seems to like us.  We take our time finding the smoothest rock out of the pile down by the lake.  We wonder how they got so soft.  She is amazed that rocks can write like chalk on the sidewalk.  She asks safe questions.  She asks hard questions. She wants to know if "Mr. Paul" can see us from heaven.
Despite my early abuse, I feel that I was able to still maintain the innocense of childhood that goes along with such experiences that my own child is lucky enough to enjoy. I think that despite my abuse, and everything that was going on at the time, and all of the confusion, I was young enough to feel that the world could still be good, as a whole. 
It wasn't until I became older and began to see how this abuse affected many areas of my life that my world became jaded.  When my eating disorder started as a young teen, I was depressed and stressed over myself and who I was, but I didn't view the whole world as bad at that time.  I only viewd myself as bad.  When I became an adult I started viewing the world as bad, feeling that I was owed something for everything I had been through. That all men were bad, that everyone was out to get me, that my parents didn't "save" me from the monster of my grandfather.
I have started trying to rework this sense of wonder into my life.  I have been working on ways to lighten my work load and spend more time with my children ~ the very people who are able to remind me what it's like to use imagination.  What it's like to have dreams and wishes that you truly believe are possible.