Imaginary Friends

Let's talk about imaginary friends. Did you have any growing up? Were they humanoid? I should really ask more of the people I see on a daily basis. Anecdotally, most of the children I've taken care of over the years have not. Or at least, if they did, it didn't come up in the 40 hours a week I saw them. 

S says he had one named Dr. Hill but that he didn't perceive him as "real". One kid had an imaginary friend who was tiny and slightly older  than them. Sometimes he'd come to school with the kid and sometimes not. The imaginary friend had a little sister and a dog, I think. This particular kid had a moderate amount of separation anxiety but by far not the most significant amount I've ever seen.

Another kid had an imaginary friend that was a dog, but they were very aware that the dog wasn't real.

I had a pair of imaginary friends when I was toddler-to-preschool age and I think they were adult men named Jerry and Riley. Although I can't quite trust my memory...ever. My mom says when we moved from California to Texas Jerry stayed behind. Maybe Riley did too. When I was younger and more into the occult I wondered if they were house ghosts that just didn't mind hanging out with a little kid.

Point being: I've almost always had imaginary friends. Or voices in my head? Or parts of self that just shunted off far enough to be able to look back at me and offer feedback? 

In one of the books I'm reading, The Leaving Season, the author talks about a situation that resonates with the one I had with T. She has a quasi-romantic correspondence with a man whom she terms her imaginary friend - Heathcliff.  She says he is a real person and someone with whom she had a real relationship but thinks of him now as having been an imaginary friend. Their correspondence ended in much the same way mine did. No resolution no warning. Not to downplay that there are lots of differences too. They dated for about three years. Had a different course generally. But there are enough similarities to warrant the kinship I feel for the situation.

So, did I treat T like an imaginary friend? Was I one for him? I think about the ways in which selves are curated in letters and phone calls. The daily mess of self doesn't have to spill out into the room and torture the correspondents with slaps of inadequacy. 

T didn't have to deal with my chronic messiness, lateness, numb spells, executive dysfunction, impulsiveness, fatigue, meltdowns. At least, not for very long. I didn't have to feel his hurt and anger. At least, not for very long.

The things I thought I was opting out of are still with me. My partner who...well. You know if you've read.

The fucked-up-ness of the power dynamic at play In My Life Today. What was I thinking? How shitty was I for choosing a partner who I thought could never judge me because I...judged them first. 

Girl, I know it fucking hurts you when you feel judged/rejected/inadequate but that's no reason to be the disrespectful to another individual. It's horrifying to me because I don't like to think of myself as someone who looks down on others. But isn't that what I'm doing? What I was doing? 

"I thought this was the one who was supposed to just let you be you." - my mom, helpfully, in a Scottish forest, 2015. 

Me too. But he had other ideas. Best to communicate and get everyone on-board before committing.

But then, commitments happen by default sometimes when you just...don't do anything. Take care of the minutes and the days take care of themselves? Is that a saying?

When I was a teenager and hormones were ganging up on me, my life felt like a c-clamp, my disordered eating was running the show and I remember trying to motivate myself to do something. I don't remember what - just something. And crying in my room. Overwhelmed. Feeling crushed. And a part of self borrowed its skin from a character in I, Claudius: "My name is Scylla and I'm a whore. Everybody's heard about me." For whatever reason, this was calming.

It was kind of a mantra I didn't say aloud. It worked. Until it didn't. 

A small imaginary friend.

I should go. I just wanted to tell you.