My Imagination

The most vivid memory I could recall from my childhood was that I was very imaginative. It was a problem, and a big one. In fact, it never really stopped.

I remembered how I could “see things” as my parents said. But it was not really my imagination that was the problem. It was more of how long it stretched out. I remember when I was a kid I would pretend, I was a princess for a week or pretend that I was a character from a book. I would sometimes pretend that something sad had happened to me, and that would really worry my parents.

Er-parent… It was just my mom really. My dad was very distant, and I don’t think that helped me in the long run. Any who, I remember that my mom would always take things way too seriously, so when I pretend too much, she would break down. Think she did something wrong. And just letting you know, it made me feel so god damn bad. I also don’t think my mother’s way of handling things helped me either, cause now when I think about it, I’m a terrible mix between the two. I feel like I walked-walk- the line of too much and too little.

I swirl my drink in my hands, where were we? Oh, yes, my childhood. It was okay, not much really happened. It was more in high school things got bad. I think it started when my father divorced my mother. Ah, yes. God, it was bad. That’s when I-it-got bad. I know, I know, I overreacted. A lot. I would cry in my room-wait… rooms- and I would imagine different things. My interactive imagination acted up a lot in high school, but that’s not because of my parent’s divorce. I mean, maybe a little, but that’s not the point. I remember back when I was in high school, I was stressed and worried all of the time.

I had been insanely self-conscious which was surprising because I talked to myself in class and wore absurd tee-shirts. But it was more off of who I was, and I don’t even think people even cared. I had no friends back in high school because of this, so most of the time I sat in my bedroom, drawing on my skin and staring at my ceiling.

I had no siblings, and I felt as if I had no parents- or so what I imagined. I remember the rough carpet on my skin as I lay on my floor after falling and not wanted to get back up. I was lonely, I’m sure that’s obvious, but it was more of an empty feeling really. Maybe that was loneliness feels like. You never know.

Anyways, I would lay on my floor and sigh and listen to sad music. When I was a little older (around 16) I started to write. I would write and write. In class, I would write and not pay attention, which did not get me far. But the writing, this would cause me to think I was one of my characters. Wither they were witches from 1692, or rock stars, or knights saving pretty princesses. So, after I had closed my laptop, I would shut my eyes and dream of stories-in which I would live in directly. I remember that when I would wake up-or I thought I did- I could still feel pink grass under my bare feet. I swore I could still feel the lacy dress hugging my body. I swore-swear- that I could feel everything that was going on in the dream. Like the silver hilt of my sword, or the hand of somebody I had no clue existed.

And I never forgot them either. In fact, I could recite them for you-in vivid detail too. I would still walk into the musty high school and believe that it was a magical castle with wisteria and vines hanging from the walls and ceiling. When I would walk into one of the dark houses, I believed that they could be places of crime, or a dungeon with cobwebs and big ass spiders in which formed them. When I would walk outside, I would see a bright red moon, or a marron sky. This still happens to me now, but it turns into more bits and pieces from my life more than places of fantasy.

This did not help anything. In fact, having this happen to me gave me and taught me to run away from everything. When anything got serious I would laugh and change the subject. When I felt uncomfortable, I would leave the room. When my mother died, I would leave the house and walk anywhere. Not walk-I would run. When I got declined from collage, when I they would make fun of me at school, etc. I would run-run run- away, and I simply let no one else talk to me. It really was my own little world. When I was 18 my dad tried to get me back to reality but it did not work. When he kicked me out of the house I had nowhere to go.

When I found someone, and they told me I was too much, and left. And so, after all of this, I created my own little world, and I have not found the courage to jump out of it. It’s almost like I locked myself in a room with the key and lost it. And then I never tried to find it. I never even tried to. Not once. And I don’t plan to either.

And so, I sit here alone at the bar, pretending no one else is there, and writing all of this down into my little notebook that I found from back when I was 16. I would sit there in a public bar just crying my heart out, because it was my fault that I was on the verge of insane now. Or so I thought. So, I believed in. So, I imagined.

-Harper Williams-1/1/26- Entry number 159