06/03/00 - 07:01 AM

I was reading through Uberhamster�s archive when I came to an entry he wrote about being a kid. It made me nostalgic.

I miss being a kid!

I know that I have, over the years through my various diaries, contested that I was never a child. Or that my childhood promptly stopped when I was six years old and my mother fell ill. I guess sometimes I just don�t remember a lot of the things that I did when I was a young child. Too many sad memories.

Uber reminded me of my imagination. I remember that my imagination was so vivid. I would create worlds inside my head and escape to them all the time. One of my favorite things to do was to lie in bed on a Saturday morning and toy with my other lives. It was better than Saturday morning cartoons any day.

In my head, all of my crushes were mine.

I read a lot as a child, and after I would finish stories that I really liked, I rewrite them in my imagination, and put myself in them. I was always young, beautiful and loved. Popular to the extreme, and of course, smart, talented, funny�whatever I wanted to be.

Long car rides, doing chores, lying in bed, talking to my father, all of these things would send me into my dream worlds.

When did I stop dreaming such dreams?

Even now I sit and think about my past and I relive it, change the outcome, but times like that are rare. With my romantic interests, I will dabble with stories or scenarios that fill me with that soft, buttery feeling of romance.

But I stopped writing myself into stories. My imagination is hardly as vivid as it once was. I suppose it happens to everyone who grows older. But I really miss it.

I guess I should be thankful that I retained at least a part of my fascination with vivid imagery for my stories. I wish I could have taken full advantage of my beautiful imagination when it was at it�s prime. I feel guilty now for not nurturing it more as my age increased, but hindsight is always 20/20.

I still love my imagination, regardless of its rusty images due to neglect.

These days when I am driving, or about to sleep, I find myself having conversations in my head. Arguing over issues, trying to get to the bottom of me. Sometimes, I think of new plots for stories or I just overanalyze my latest relationship. I should trade some of the time I spend obsessing over reality lost inside my fantasies.

I think maybe everyone should. Just be like a kid, even if it�s only for twenty minutes.