Imagination vs reality

My love for stories began before I could read, back when I relied on my parents to tell me bedtime stories, which they’ve since confessed they hated doing. They’re not the biggest fans of books or reading (which is good for me, because it means they’ll never read the 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ in my books) and to make matters worse, I was very quick to point out when they got something in the story wrong. I knew The Very Hungry Caterpillar off by heart (quick apology to all the literate relatives I approached at family parties and bullied into reading it to me. Repeatedly. And thank you to all who indulged me – I know I was a brat). If you told me the caterpillar ate through one pickle and then one slice of salami, I would immediately tell you in my angry toddler voice that you were wrong, and that the caterpillar ate through one slice of ‘sniff’ cheese after the pickle. Looking back, I now understand that adults did this to me on purpose because they found it hilarious that I couldn’t pronounce Swiss.

So, yeah, my parents were absolutely hanging out for me to learn how to read. And when I did, I was rarely seen without a book in my hand. And then, when I learned how to write, I realised I could make up my own stories, and I was rarely seen without a pencil and a sparkly notebook.

My characters were often the Bratz dolls and Beanie Kids my sister and I collected. I would write the most batshit crazy stuff (for inanimate objects, they had very adventurous and magical lives) and then my sister and I would bring the story to life with the toys themselves. From script to screen in a few hours. Not bad.

As I got older and learned new words, I started writing short stories starring characters I’d made up in my mind during the many hours I spent daydreaming. I also wrote stories using characters in TV shows and books I liked (as an eight-year-old, I didn’t know that this was called fanfiction. Or what Wattpad was, which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing).

By the time I reached twelve, I had a whole fantasy series going. Granted, it was in many ways a rip-off of Harry Potter (only dreadfully written), but I could sit there for hours typing away on my bulky Toshiba laptop, lost in my imagination where I could control every word, every feeling, and every outcome for every character.

Which is probably why it was a kick in the guts to reach adolescence and adulthood and realise that I cannot control every word, every feeling, and every outcome for every character in my life the way I could in my imagination. People said and did what they wanted, and they said different things and did different things depending on who they were with. It was very confusing to my poor pubescent mind that already had so much to deal with anatomically.

The LIE: Life is a perfectly crafted personal narrative. You’re the main character and all your loved ones are reliable side characters who are always there for you when you need them, and the plot of your personal narrative progresses linearly towards the exact outcome you want.

Between the LIEnes: Outside the pages of your personal narrative, your side characters exist in parallel in their own narratives as main characters. We will never know every thought, hear every word, see every action or feel every emotion of the people around us, no matter how hard we try. So, we fill in the gaps and set expectations of them to fit our personal narrative, and then are continually upset when other people think, speak, behave, and feel in ways that are out of accordance with the story we wrote for them.

Unfortunately, people can’t always be there for us in the exact ways that we need, when we need it. And it’s unfair to expect them to be. This is something I’ve contended with for a long time and constantly have to remind myself of when my texts go unanswered, or plans fall through – completely normal occurrences that I’m quick to take to heart even though I know it’s not personal, and that it doesn’t mean they don’t care about me.

It just means that they’re busy doing main character stuff in their own story. And when they’re ready to make an appearance in mine, I’ll have some blank pages waiting for them.

So, can one have both a wild imagination AND a strong grip on harsh realities?

My life rarely lives up to my wild imagination. And while this does make me sad in some cases (like when I think about how I’ll never ride bareback on a rainbow unicorn into outer space thanks to the laws of physics), it’s reassuring in those cases when my imagination takes an unsavoury route (like when I’m having an existential crisis).

Because the thing is, imagination is infinite. Now that I’m thinking about it, do we ever actually imagine the exact same thing in the exact same way more than once? I don’t think we do.

So statistically, the odds of reality aligning EXACTLY with our imagination are almost non-existent, whether we’re imagining good or bad things.

So, my approach is to treat imagination like the infinite sky of uncharted territory it is and navigate it with a parachute, trusting that I can freefall to my heart’s content until it’s time to pull the ripcord and glide calmly back down to reality. Even if I land with a pratfall (I only just learned this word btw), I don’t let it stop me from taking to the skies again to soar from even higher altitudes and discover new terrains.