Wondering And Wandering In Make-Believe

Nights like this make me wonder. Not for any significant reason. Not because something interesting or extraordinary happened today. There’s just something about the rustle of the leaves as the night winds move in beneath the overcast sky. There’s something about the way there’s no sound except for that. There’s something about the way it felt to swim alone in the silence while the fireflies swam together through the darkened outlines of the trees. There’s something about tonight that makes me wonder.

I’m house-sitting this week in a quiet suburban neighborhood. It’s lovely to have a house all to myself, and to have it be in a place that allows me to feel like I have the whole world all to myself. It’s wonderful to sit out on the back deck and hear and see nothing but the dogs pattering about inside. It’s so fun to play make believe this way.

I feel so grown up being here, but in that pretend way, in the way it felt as a little girl to put on my mother’s make-up and prance about the house in her high-heeled shoes. It’s the way we used to play house by the old chestnut tree during recess at school. It’s the way I would make feasts out of sand and sticks, and babies out of dolls, and adults out of all of my friends. It’s that kind of make believe, that kind of magic.

And I wonder if that has ever stopped, or if it will ever stop. I wonder when reality sinks in. Slowly I feel it creeping it’s way into my life as I get consumed by the responsibilities of the every day, and yet, here I am, playing house. Here I am still dreaming of being the mommy, of having tucked my children in for the night, and snuck outside for a little “me” time. Maybe I’m catching up on some report due in the office tomorrow, or perhaps I’m working on the novel in progress, or maybe I’m just writing away knowing that my children will grow all too quickly and I have to cherish every moment that I can.

Because already I’m twenty-one years old, and I know how rapidly that time passes by. Yesterday, stopped at a red light, I noticed a boy who couldn’t have been more than twelve walking his dog. In shorts and a T-shirt he strutted down the street as though he knew everything there is to be known. I thought about how that was once us, how certain we were, how much we had yet to understand. It’s unfair to say that life was simpler then, because life is never simple in the moment, but in retrospect, it almost always seems sublime. I find myself longing for that version of myself, that version of me, that little girl who knew everything there was to be known.

The children in my life that once brought me so much happiness have become a representation of the childhood gone from me. The joy they bring is now intertwined with a kind of saddened longing. I want to hold each of them close and tell them to cherish it, although I know they’ll never understand until it’s fading, as though my holding them would somehow hold time for both of us. I find myself clinging to my innocence with a kind of desperation I never knew I had.

And yet, still I get lost in these dreams of the future. Still, I find myself playing pretend, walking around in grown up clothes, worrying about work and money, living in my own home with two dogs to look after. Still I find myself watching the fireflies twinkle in the black abyss like fairies in some enchanted forest. Still I carry with me that little girl I used to be, and still am, and will always be. Still I wonder what the future holds.

And I wonder when it will stop, or if it will ever stop. And I hope, with all my heart, that I will never be finished playing make believe.