As I grew older, I kept imagining random things in my head, but my imagination shifted from dreaming about riding the backs of Pokemon to dreaming about riding certain... other... people. *ahem* Middle school was a time in which my shoulders broadened, my legs grew, and I began to re-prioritize certain things on my agenda. Previously loved toys would be swept to the side by girls who were awkwardly trying to become women. I noticed things that I didn't see before: legs, chests, curves. Like everyone else, that tiny flame of sexual attraction, my libido, was doused in gasoline and that single spark, that single girl, suddenly ignited an uncontrollable inferno that suffused across my body, changing me completely. I would be finding myself looking across the room at people that previously didn't even pique my interest, creating stories inside of my head of us engaging in exotic actions amidst covers drenched in moonlight and rooms that reeked of perfume and fornication. I imagined sex with every pretty girl that walked my way, and I would proceed to become the typical, horny, 13-year old, red-blooded American male.
Reaching the end of my teenage phase my libido dulled, and with it my imagination was no longer marred by sexual dalliances and escapades. Instead of looking out for what could possibly come my way in a matter of minutes, I looked outward towards the horizon. I began to imagine what my future could be, and I'd always draw blanks. Or if not blanks, unrealistic, delusional futures in which like the video games I'd play I would always end up the winner, overcoming every single hardship, challenge, and trial that came my way. I would become an AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, pen the NEXT GREAT AMERICAN CLASSIC, and fall in love with someone I would describe as STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL and AMAZINGLY INSIGHTFUL.
(And then I met you)
My imagination was a house of cards and you were the gust that knocked it down. Can you believe it? This whole time I was getting through life by using my imagination to prop myself up in my mind. In elementary school I would imagine having friends that would follow me to the end just because of my own self-wrought loneliness. Middle school I imagined myself in all of these sexual fantasies due to my own inability to connect with women I was lusting over. And in high school I imagined success in whatever interest I had merely because I had no idea what I wanted in my life. In that sense, my imagination was a pathetic fallback that I would use to reassure myself that I was doing alright, and I didn't even realize to what extent I had let my imagination control me until you made me realize just how pathetic I was.
When we met the theater in my head went into overtime, the movie-reel burning images across my mind of us together in a million different circumstances faster than I could even process them. I was so excited about us being together that I never took initiative, expecting us to just *click* like I thought we would and replicating the scenes playing out inside that stupid, overactive brain of mine. And so when it didn't work out like I thought it would, I was shaken. The reel stopped, the image froze on the canvas, and we had to step back and reexamine for technical difficulties. I was hoping that the scene in my head would substantiate itself and become the reality that I would live, and that was dumb.
I kept expecting you to come back to me. To clutch each other in some sort of dramatic way and embrace, closer than anyone else.
Fiction is simple. Fiction is meant to appease. Fiction is the thoughts and whimsies of a person's imagination playing out exactly as the author intended. Fiction is simple, and people are not. People are not the kinds of things that can be regulated to any one scenario or any which way, and to think that you can define someone in your own skewed interpretation of events is foolish and dumb and quite selfish, really. It's a crutch that we use to make us feel better, and that's exactly what happened when I was with you. Never have I been with someone that made me regret both taking no initiative and taking the initiative. I hated myself for not acting upon my own emotions, to attempt to make what I imagined into a reality. And I regretted taking the initiative and spilling out to you how I felt, and realizing that it wasn't going to play out as it had in my head. That you weren't about to come running to me after I exposed what it was about you that made me like you.
Again, that house of cards thing, concerning my imagination. It was something I built to try to protect me from being hurt by life, when in reality it was what ended up torturing me the most. I used it to cope with loneliness, when it actually accentuated it; I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I left no domain for anyone to enter. It's like a party, and everyone is so familiar with each other that when a new person comes in, no matter how well-intentioned or friendly they are, they're just out of place due to the sheer fact that they haven't known you as long as everyone else. And when you've been living with your imagination your whole life, how else is anyone supposed to compete with that?
It's funny, right.
The things we think help us the most end up hurting us the most.
My imagination was being used as a coping mechanism for life when in reality it was shielding me from it.
Whereas things that hurt us the most end up helping us the most.
When you said no I was left with an appalling feeling of self-loathing that made me want to become stronger.
When you said no I was left with a terrible disappointment that ended up making me strive for more.
When you said no I was left with a crippling sense of self-doubt that made me unafraid of other failures in life.
When you said no I was left with a crushing loneliness. But exposing myself to you gave me a friend that I could depend upon forever.
When you said no I had no idea that this would be one of the best answers I would receive in my life.
Imagine that.
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