As a child, my super-sized imagination and i had some fun times.
I believed that the old drain pipe that ran alongside the house of a family friend belonged to the fairies. I used to skip along it's length, looking at the flowers that grew on the walls (for it had no cover), never brave enough to follow it as far as i could. I used to leave little letters in the gaps, and when i came back there would always be replies, and sometimes little flowers. Ok, so i knew they'd been left by Anna, our family friend a few years older than me, but i was perfectly content to believe otherwise. I was always so jealous, that she got to live next door to the fairies all the time!!
I believed that if, when i went to bed, any part of me was hanging over the edge of the mattress, spiders would crawl up and scuttle over my face while i slept. It was my biggest fear that i'd wake up and have to somehow get out from under the spiders without being paralyzed in fear. I had all sorts of contingency plans... and even now, when i'm fully aware that the spiders would be able to climb up the bed posts without help from my dangling arms, i'm still wary and sleep all tucked up.
I used to believe that i was like Dr. Dolittle and had a special affinity with animals. I think this was because i never really knew any animals that hated me. Maybe it wasn't that i had some kind of animal magnetism, but rather that the animals i knew were just really nice. Even now, i think that the reason one of our cats is scared of me is because it's nuts, rather than throw doubt onto my magical animal-affinity.
I believed that everyone has a happy ending and that we would pretty much all grow up to be whatever we wanted to be. I lived in a world where i wasn't taught to entertain any notion of not doing something special with my life. I thought that whatever i wanted to do, i'd somehow be able to do it. Even now, i can't bring myself to totally abandon this ideal; i still think that, surely, one day i'll be an editor or an author and have a loving family and my life will be great. Even though i know that ideals like that are rarely recognised.
I believed that i could breathe underwater. I'm not exactly sure how i thought this. But i used to swim along the bottom for ages, not focused, and all of a sudden i'd come to my senses and think 'hey, i just took a breath, and i'm still underwater!'. I could never do it on command, but i've never been able to convince myself that it didn't happen.
I believed that if i walked along the logs on the side of our school playground and looked at the brick wall infront of me with semi-focused eyes, that the bricks would shift and i'd be able to walk through the wall. I convinced all of the girls that this was true, and we'd spent hours every lunchtime trying to keep just the right amount of focus to walk through the wall. We never managed. We blamed our lack of concentration, rather than believe it wasn't possible.
I was a little girl who lived in a world where her fantasies weren't impossible. I wrote little books with drawn on locks, creating my own little mysteries. I talked to all of my teddies, because i didn't want them to feel unloved. I made up stories and characters in my head every night before bed. I played gumnut babies everyday at recess and lunch with the girls, making tea from ochre in an old teapot. I pretended my cabbage patch doll was real, and made all sorts of plans to invent my own baby-sitters club. These weren't fantasies to me - they were my reality.
I think i'd rather come up with any ridiculous excuse to justify my funny little beliefs, rather than look at them logically and realise that they're not possible. I won't try to prove that i can't hold my breath under water, i'll never stop thinking that i'll get that ideal future somehow, i'll never rule out the possibility of their being faries in the garden and i'll keep looking for those alternate realities. What's life without a little fantasy anyway? I think it'd be pretty tame...
I believed that the old drain pipe that ran alongside the house of a family friend belonged to the fairies. I used to skip along it's length, looking at the flowers that grew on the walls (for it had no cover), never brave enough to follow it as far as i could. I used to leave little letters in the gaps, and when i came back there would always be replies, and sometimes little flowers. Ok, so i knew they'd been left by Anna, our family friend a few years older than me, but i was perfectly content to believe otherwise. I was always so jealous, that she got to live next door to the fairies all the time!!
I believed that if, when i went to bed, any part of me was hanging over the edge of the mattress, spiders would crawl up and scuttle over my face while i slept. It was my biggest fear that i'd wake up and have to somehow get out from under the spiders without being paralyzed in fear. I had all sorts of contingency plans... and even now, when i'm fully aware that the spiders would be able to climb up the bed posts without help from my dangling arms, i'm still wary and sleep all tucked up.
I used to believe that i was like Dr. Dolittle and had a special affinity with animals. I think this was because i never really knew any animals that hated me. Maybe it wasn't that i had some kind of animal magnetism, but rather that the animals i knew were just really nice. Even now, i think that the reason one of our cats is scared of me is because it's nuts, rather than throw doubt onto my magical animal-affinity.
I believed that everyone has a happy ending and that we would pretty much all grow up to be whatever we wanted to be. I lived in a world where i wasn't taught to entertain any notion of not doing something special with my life. I thought that whatever i wanted to do, i'd somehow be able to do it. Even now, i can't bring myself to totally abandon this ideal; i still think that, surely, one day i'll be an editor or an author and have a loving family and my life will be great. Even though i know that ideals like that are rarely recognised.
I believed that i could breathe underwater. I'm not exactly sure how i thought this. But i used to swim along the bottom for ages, not focused, and all of a sudden i'd come to my senses and think 'hey, i just took a breath, and i'm still underwater!'. I could never do it on command, but i've never been able to convince myself that it didn't happen.
I believed that if i walked along the logs on the side of our school playground and looked at the brick wall infront of me with semi-focused eyes, that the bricks would shift and i'd be able to walk through the wall. I convinced all of the girls that this was true, and we'd spent hours every lunchtime trying to keep just the right amount of focus to walk through the wall. We never managed. We blamed our lack of concentration, rather than believe it wasn't possible.
I was a little girl who lived in a world where her fantasies weren't impossible. I wrote little books with drawn on locks, creating my own little mysteries. I talked to all of my teddies, because i didn't want them to feel unloved. I made up stories and characters in my head every night before bed. I played gumnut babies everyday at recess and lunch with the girls, making tea from ochre in an old teapot. I pretended my cabbage patch doll was real, and made all sorts of plans to invent my own baby-sitters club. These weren't fantasies to me - they were my reality.
I think i'd rather come up with any ridiculous excuse to justify my funny little beliefs, rather than look at them logically and realise that they're not possible. I won't try to prove that i can't hold my breath under water, i'll never stop thinking that i'll get that ideal future somehow, i'll never rule out the possibility of their being faries in the garden and i'll keep looking for those alternate realities. What's life without a little fantasy anyway? I think it'd be pretty tame...
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