The Struggle: Living In The Fantastical Land of Make Believe

I live in a constant state of make-believe and daydreams, repelling the “real world” ideas and conformations, constantly fighting to be true to myself… this makes me an eternal optimist.

That being said, being optimistic and rejecting reality can be really hard, especially in a dysfunctional society with a constant wave of disappointments.

I have a theory that optimists face depression and disappointments much more frequently than realists, and especially pessimists. Because if you’re always hopeful, always looking for the silver lining, then when things don’t work out, it crushes you more, making bright sides harder to find in an environment of dark, persistent, ominous clouds.

My best friend is a pessimist, and she’s constantly telling me to let things go, to get my head out of the proverbial clouds and see the reality in the situation. I, in turn, encourage her to always have hope that things will work out as they’re supposed to, that having no hope puts you in a negative mindset, and one where good things repel. Whereas I brood and wish about things long past, she’s good at letting things roll, and I envy that in her. We balance each other out, the dark and the light sides of life and perspective. We reign each other in when the other gets too emo or too fantasmical.

I enjoy my utter dysfunction, however, and fight to stay in that fantastical world of my childhood, when Wendy Darling wasn’t just a character but a persona, Peter Pan not a fairy tale but an escapist mechanism from the monotonous life of adulthood.

Realities of Make-Believe

She stares at the world through

empty eyes

Dandelions blowing in the wind

scattering dreams long forgotten

Dean Martin crooning in her ears

wishing her own Prince Charming

would sweep her off her feet,

taking her to a place of castles and fairies,
Neverland with Peter Pan

and pirate ships

days filled with imaginary adventures

long-buried in the recesses of her jaded mind

away from the mundane realities of adult life

in a broken world

She grew up with old Southern morals

passed down from the ages of the Confederacy

lost in the fast and easy life of the future.

she remains an anachronism;

a Southern Belle in California

Her childhood was spent in the
Land of Make-Believe

Peter whisking her away through the open window

to tell stories to the other Lost Boys

Clutching a Nutcracker, pirouetting through the

halls of holly leaves

Giant rats fought to defend her honor

Crawling on the floor, running from

Cruella DeVille and shiny red cars

Harsh realities of parents fighting in the pantry

separating

divorcing

sending her deeper into the safety of her mind

Two decades of counting pennies

of un-realized dreams and disappointments

pulling her into the black realities

afraid to dream

for fear of falling

apart

So she sits, jaded

tired eyes filled with unshed tears and ancient wisdom

her twenty-one years should never know.