"Imaginary Friend"

I had an imaginary friend named Sally.  She was all sorts of wonderful.  She was the kind of girl to hold hands with while skipping and singing, pausing only to jump in mud puddles or to look at bugs.  She played nice in the sandbox, never thinking to hit me in the head with a metal truck.

I wonder what happened to Sally?  Did she grow up and marry Prince Charming and have 2 perfectly wonderful children?  Did she become an neurobiologist or a world famous musician?  Perhaps all of the above?  I hope she had a perfectly spectacular life.  I miss her.  I wish we'd kept in touch.

I felt pressured to give Sally up back then.  Mom wouldn't let Sally have a plate at the table.  Dad didn't want to take Sally fishing with us and I had to leave her at home.  My sister was more straightforward.  She made fun of me for indulging in fantasy while my parents exchanged looks with each other making it clear they agreed.  Stick with the real world.  Fantasy is next to crazy.

Sally went underground for a while.  I talked to her in my head instead of out loud.  I showed her the bugs I found.  I made her parts of our sandcastles.  I knew she was fantasy, but I was lonely.  The Glen where I grew up was filled with natural beauty, but it had very few children my age.  Sally brightened my days until I got a tiny, green turtle.  Then all those bugs became turtle food, and nobody seemed to care when I talked to him.

I think we give up too many things to count as we get older, so much so that we can't even remember what we used to have.  We forget to play and imagine.  We learn to fit in, but we're ghosts of our original selves and we spend too much of our adult lives trying to get some of ourselves back again.

I felt cursed by loneliness when I was a child.  Sometimes I look at it now as a gift.  With only myself to talk with, I decided for myself what I thought and felt.  When I got older, I was comfortable challenging societal norms when I experienced peer pressure.  Of course I had that sister who made fun of me, but I mostly didn't care what she thought.  After all, I didn't approve of everything she said and did.  Live your own life and leave me alone.

While I didn't have many kids to play with, I did have quite a few old people, some of them as lonely as I was.  They were a gift in a different way.  One old lady was charmed to have tea with my imaginary friend and hospitably put out a plate of cookies for Sally (which I helpfully assisted Sally in eating).  I had serious conversations with my old people and discussed issues I was hot and bothered with, issues I'm pretty sure I haven't even considered since.  Maybe they'll matter again when I'm old?

Sometimes the challenges we face turn out to be part of what makes us special.  Sometimes they cause us to look in different places than we would if everything was the way we wish it would be.  Everyone has something unique about their experience, and that uniqueness is what makes each of us important in the world.  Each person's story is its own piece of art.