To Transcend Reality By Imagination

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. 

Anais Nin

I have a wild and vivid imagination.  When I was a child, I had for the longest time, an imaginary friend called Edward.  Edward was green, he had horns of sort and generally hailed from another planet.  I'm sure the planet had a name but I don't remember it.  What I do remember was how vivid and real Edward was to me.  I drew pictures of Edward (which remarkably stayed the same through the years), I talked out loud to Edward, I played with Edward and for a long time, he was my best friend.  Yes my parents were very concerned but I didn't have a truckload of friends as a kid.  My brother was 6 years older than me, and wouldn't caught dead playing with his dorky little sister.  I was terribly shy and quite small and all that meant I didn't make friends very easily.  So Edward became that best friend I needed.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm reminded of Anais Nin's famous quote on imagination.  I don't tell a lot people this in case they think I'm crazy, but I sometimes, in fact quite often, still talk to myself.  I imagine myself in situations I want to be in and just let my mind wander - how I would react, what I would say, how I would feel and for that brief few minutes, to really live in reality of that imagined moment.  Crazy as it sounds, sometimes in the midst of feeling everything is going wrong around you, those few minutes bring with it joy, contentment and sometimes, even a renewed sense of optimism.  To indeed, as Anais Nin so eloquently said, transcend reality by imagination.

I wait for news and in my deepest heart, pray imagination does turn into reality.