Fresh Air
When I was a little girl, my best friend and I used to pretend that we lived in a make-believe world where we were elves. We lived in the forest and hunted for our food. We drank from rivers and had way more drama in our little lives than anyone could ever hope for. Someone was always being kidnapped or dying or running away, sometimes all in one day. We lived for that stuff. It was quite fun, actually. I think what I liked most about our little game, though was the fact that almost all of it had to be played outside. During the daytime that meant we swam in the “lake” all day in her backyard pool and at night we prowled around the neighborhood having all kinds of adventures. We would scale block walls to escape our captors or run through the park dodging this way and that as to avoid the arrows being fired our way. Poisoned arrows, mind you.
We played that game for a long long time. And even now, when I’m outside on a night like tonight I can remember how it felt to let my imagination run away with me. It was so freeing and giddy. I loved creating my character, deciding what she looked like and peppering her life story with little bits of mystery and scandal. You know, it’s strange because I look at the character that I created for myself when I was 8 years old and she’s almost exactly opposite who I’ve become as an adult. I’m sure my therapist could go on for hours on that one. Oh well, I suppose that alter ego is still somewhere inside me. I chose her for very specific reasons, some part of my subconscious was clued in even at age 8 to know what kind of person I was at my core and so she created this alternate view of who I was to allow me to venture out a little bit. I was more daring while playing make-believe that I ever was in real life. I suppose that’s something to think about even now.
P.S. Oh and if Heather is reading this, yes, that is what I’m talking about. 
