Imaginative or Crazy?

Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash

I was an odd kid, I didn’t know I was odd, but looking back, I probably would be considered odd. To be fair, I’m probably considered odd now. The difference is, now I am not trying to be normal, now I don’t want to fit in, I’m quite happy being a bit odd.

So why do I say I was odd? Well, for a start I lived inside my head a lot. I created worlds to escape to and crafted them in intricate detail. I had a whole host of imaginary friends and they weren’t just your run of them mill ones. I had princes, princesses, dragons and witches, I had a fairy godmother and I had regular friends too. Basically, I would create who ever I felt like spending a day with and happily go off and play.

Imaginary friends are not really so unusual, lots of children have them. It is also not a sign of a child that is really lonely contrary to popular belief, it is simply a child that needs to fulfil a void. That void could be real friends, or it could be that the kid just wants to fight dragons for a day, so needs a knight as a buddy to help them along. What I am saying is, don’t go calling the shrink on your kid just because they talk to imaginary friends, they are ok, it’s called imagination.

I also used to sing my life. I’m not kidding, I would make up songs and sing everything I was doing. Even when I was walking my dog, I would sing about walking down the road towards the field and the horses that were in there. Basically, I was living in a musical in my head. Now that might be a little odd to some, but I was just expressing my emotions the only way I knew how, through the medium of song. OK, granted, that one is a little bizarre.

My imaginary friends were very real to me though. So the songs and the conversations that I had got spoken as if I was talking to someone in the room with me. To the outside eye I may have looked like a crazy kid talking and singing to herself, but I knew I had someone listening to me and responding to me. So who is the crazy one, the one who can see the world beyond the realms of normal existence or the one who can’t ?

As it turns out, I actually was quite a lonely kid. I had friends, I had family, but I never felt like I belonged. I didn’t fit in, I was always at odds with my surroundings. So I created these worlds where I did belong, places I could feel happy and comfortable…