It Started with Playing Make Believe

Unlike Peter Pan, we all have to grow up.

Things that used to sustain us like imagination, magic, and curiosity are systematically stripped away. Traded in for more socially acceptable interests like STEM, software engineering, and healthcare degrees.

I have always been perfectly content to vanish into my own world or one someone else wrote or filmed, or animated for me. My first love was The Little Mermaid, no matter how much my mom thought Ursla was too scary for baby me. Being a mermaid was my life mission. And playing make believe alone was my passion.

Other people were the bane of my existence.

They never played "right" like I wanted their imaginary persona to. I wanted actors on the stage of my mind, not other kids who messed up my storyline. It was always easier to be alone.

When I got old enough to get strange looks for playing make believe I turned to writing those games down instead.

It turns out that characters on a page and other kids playing make believe are annoyingly similar. Neither of them like to stick to my script.

Still, other people called me weird and thought I was a nerd.

Even if it was technically true, kids are viciously cruel about things like that. No one saw magic like I did in the every day. The cinematic masterpieces that rose off the pages of books and flashed in action packed adventures across a screen in Japanese.

I was used to rejection and judgement.

So nothing prepared me for praise. For shame when I started yet another story and had to tell them. Braced for another round of, "Why can't you just finish writing a book already?"

In secret, I finally did.

Chapter by chapter uploaded to Wattpad I finally finised writing a whole book. But I never let anyone I knew actually read it. It exposed too much of me that friends and family had rejected and mocked all my life.

And then I stopped.

Adult life began, finances were more important. Prioritizing my toxic relationship was a deamand that drained me of everything that was me. Repairing myself for years afterward from it killed my ability to dream. A job that took everything out of me but paid the bills replaced my ex.

Slowly, I've begun to dream again.

Read, and watch movies. Sit in the grass and feel the sun and wind with my dog who was equally traumatized by our life from years ago.

I have windows full of sun catchers and plants covering the top of my dogs wide open kennel while he snoozes below. Pink has thrown up all over my belongings in a way I absolutely never thought it would. But it feels good, and light, and finally like me again.

DVD sets of fantastical worlds are packed into my fourth bookcase like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Merlin, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Road to El Dorado, How to Train Your Dragon, and so many more. I hope I can keep collecting more. It's been a breath of fresh air compared to streaming services.

It's been slow, but I've started to write again. Both in worlds I shelved ten years ago and new ones inspired by my favorite stories.

It took nearly five years and moving three-hundred miles away from home before I found my way back to myself. And no one gets to take that from me every again.

I'm still full of magic and imagination.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm finally safe enough to let that magic shine again.

~Ezrina

P.S.

I hope you come along and find your magic, too.