#bagow

(Floofs wobbles back onto the writing train. Whoo whoo!! Have a small silly thing I was typing while I was waiting for dinner to be done cooking. A cute siren lady, and a mutual crush ⛦◜▿◝ )

The children's corner of your local library had a new reader. One that could soothe even the most rambunctious of children. She was short and squat, with flyaway hair that made her look as if she had been caught in a hurricane on her way to the library. Past the wild mess of peppery hair she had a face that knew laughter like an old friend. A heart shaped face with a round nose and black almond eyes that sparkled.

She came in wearing shawls with tassels, a multitude of scarfs, clothes with wild colors that contrasted the browns and greys of her hair and feathers. 

The children adored her, and you did too. When she bustled in, you just about dropped your armload of books to try and help her set up for her reading days. Talking about books and listening to her chatter about her favorite picks for the week. You tried not to smile too widely, or have your heart melt too much while she was around.

“What’s on your schedule for this week, Rina?” You asked casually, feeling both sly and caught red handed at the same time. 

“A little bit of this and that!” She chirruped as the both of you busied yourselves with cleaning up the children’s corner. Her flock had come and gone, leaving toys and blocks scattered in their wake. While she was reading they were angels, however the little scamps still found enough time to make a royal mess in their wake. 

You dug out a flat wooden dinosaur from the cushion of the sofa. Turning the chunky puzzle piece over in your hands as you thought of what to say next. You had gotten farther than you had expected, and you now stood on the edge of uncharted territory. You studied the green smiling caricature on the puzzle. As if it’s plain beady eyes could give you direction of what to say next.

“Would you–”

“Oh hey!” Sabrina cut you off, and you look up startled.

“I know this is sudden,” She huffs, her voice turning into a breathless jumble. “But last week you mentioned there was a movie playing in theaters thatyouwantedtosee. Would you– Wouldyoupossiblymaybebefreethisweekend?”

You stare outright before feeling your mouth stretch into a wide smile. Your cheeks aching from trying to contain your joy.

“YES!” You cheered before turning meek. Looking around to see a number of patrons glaring at you from the loud proclamation. 

I think today I'm finally able to articulate why I feel so much different than I did when I was a child, and why I enjoyed childhood so much more. I mean, I'm happy now, I enjoy a roof over my head and good friends—but my moment-to-moment joyfulness has been sucked dry. At least compared to my childhood.

People have said to me that it is just a part of growing up, but I don't think it needs to be. I think it has to do with imagination. Imagination is the ability to think in terms not bound by reality. As a kid, I was all imagination. I didn't play sports at recess. I played make-believe games. Sometimes we fought against aliens, other times we explored ancient tombs, and if we wanted to play a sport, we made up our own game! It took all of two minutes to invent a new game, and we could make as many new rules as we wanted as we played.

But now I'm obsessed with the truth and with being correct. I think a lot of it has to do with my schooling post-fifth grade. Everything became about how things are meant to be rather than about how I could make things be. It staunched my ability to see things that could be, and more and more I was delegated to see things that simply were. But more importantly than that it made me anxious. Because every time I had an idea, I became afraid of being wrong. Being wrong became the worst thing in the world to me. It became embarrassing to be wrong, and so my mouth closed tighter and tighter out of fear of ridicule. Considering I was a ridiculous child, this made me a very quiet person.

My frequency of dreams has plummeted. And when I do dream, I don't fly anymore. I don't explore fantastic realms. They take place on Earth, with people I know, and mostly predictable rules. Every day as a child used to take place in any number of alternate realities. My perception of the world was open to anything, and the world could be anything. My imagination made it so. But now the world is the same every day, because I know what it is supposed to be. And because of this, I limit myself to a very narrow understanding of the world, and I no longer dare to think outside that established system for fear of being wrong.

We all know why this happens: make-believe and fantasy are counterintuitive to the grown-up qualities of realism and pragmatism, right? We are taught that if we do things in the correct way, we will be rewarded, and if we do things the wrong way, we will end up worse off. And in the rarest of situations, being wrong could mean death. Well, no. I think that's bullshit. I think imagination can cooperate with a being self-reliant adult. In fact, it's probably loss of imagination that tethers a lot of adults. Imagination is what lets us solve problems, and to change the world as we see fit.