When one is young they develop great plans for themselves. Dreams and visions of what one will be are not limited by practicality and reality. A little boy can imagine himself as a famous baseball player or the next super hero. A little girl might want to become a prima ballerina or a fairy tale princess. They are dreams that come out of one’s imagination. I love imagination. I am still not convinced that make believe worlds where wizards exist or where time travel is possible are indeed not real. I believe though that the average person eventually makes their way to reality. They stop living in foolish folly and realize that they are going to be an accountant or pharmacist in order to make a living. I tried for a brief while to create the pretense as though I too had returned to reality. I planned to be a nurse and then graduated with a business degree. However, I don’t actually believe that I ever stopped living in a world of fantasy. At any given time there will be a romantic story of adventure and excitement occurring inside my day dreams. Honestly, I refuse to accept the fact that I have to enter the working world and become boring.
Thus as the time to find a job has approached, I have taken to thinking about what it is I would like to do. It took me a long time, but I have finally realized that I want to continue living in a fantasy land. Therefore, I want to be a teacher where day after day I am surrounded by the innocent and imaginative minds of children. I want to read them stories of children who find a world inside of a wardrobe or of an elephant who discovers a tiny little village within a speck of dust! So for now, I realize that I want to be a nanny. Yes, a nanny. I want to take care of children who are still hopeful that there are mermaids in the sea or that believe rats really can cook! I want to spend my day playing dress up and exploring the back yard. I want to go to the zoo and be there to witness the excitement as they see the lions roar and the rhinos roll around in the mud. Though the animals don’t actually talk and the penguins aren’t really dancing, within the imagination, the world we live in is not limited by anything.
So here I begin to not grow up, but to keep on living in make believe.
“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.”
Before I could drive I attributed my inability to know directions to the fact that I was just merely a bit scatter brained and never paid enough attention. Now that I can drive, I can’t make that excuse anymore. Simply put, I am shit with directions. I don’t know north from south and sometimes I can’t remember whether the sun sets in the east or in the west (sadly I am serious).
Usually my complete inability to ever know where I am going doesn’t impact me too much. But the other day I found myself alone on a bike ride. A trip that should have taken a mere 15 minutes to return from a friend’s house took over 2 hours. Somehow I knew how to get myself there, but rather than just merely back tracking, my incompetent mind decided to go down a different street (in the wrong direction). Where should I end up? Skokie. And thus, an hour in the wrong direction took another hour and a half to rectify.
With pride and determination I continued to ride my bike without any clue of whether my direction was semi accurate. On top of this, I was inconveniently wearing shoes with no grip on the bottom and carrying a target bag with a towel rack and shower curtain in it. And then to even make this situation worse, I had not really ridden a bike since maybe the 4th grade. So, there you have it, me directionally clueless and athletically challenged lost on a bike on Howard St.
Everything progressed fine. Never for a minute did I freak out or think I was effed. But when my front wheel hit the curb the wrong way and sent me skidding across the pavement the situation got a little bloody. Left with crooked handle bars and bleeding knees I finally knew it was time to stop riding and figure out where the hell I was going. So my break took me to a walgreens where I purchased a diet coke and bandaids and then to a gas station to insure that the road I thought would lead back home indeed would. I chugged my diet coke on a bench next to a library, made dinner plans, and continued on my way. Fortunately by the miracle of God I made it home only to mount my bike with my soar ass 10 minutes later in order to head back to the North Park area for dinner.
The plan was to keep the whole adventure to myself, but eventually it leaked that I got lost in Skokie. I probably will never live it down. And why should I? Only someone really imbecilic could forget how to get back from Foster Ave to Rockwell St. But I did. I would like to say that I learned from the experience, but who am I kidding, the next time I would probably make the same mistake. Because even as I was lost never did I pay attention to how I wound up home. However eventually I did make it there, back to my place safe and sound.
