Imaginary Friend

We have a card deck of conversation starters for kids that we sometimes use when we sit down to dinner. Last night, one of the questions was about having an imaginary friend. It was something I hadn’t thought about in a while.

Yes, I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid. No, they weren’t like a wise talking animal or cool creature I made up with my mind that popped up occasionally. As I explained to my kids last night that having an imaginary friend was a pretty normal thing, I also had to think that my particular imaginary friend was not normal.

You see, my imaginary friend was me. Not like a cute thing where I was just really good at working things out with myself. I imagined a literal, tiny version of myself that lived inside my head. When I needed to talk to them, I would tilt my head and catch them out of my ear in my hand. We’d have a little chat and then I’d gently bring them back up to my ear so they could go back into my brain.

Occasionally, I would even just let little tiny me take over and dissociate from my own life. It was our little secret. Normally when I did “take them out” of my head, I would do it in the bathroom because that way I wouldn’t get caught. I didn’t know why getting caught was bad, but it definitely seemed like something that I didn’t want to happen.

Now I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I had this friend. Probably older than most kids with imaginary friends, somewhere between 6 and 10. But I CAN tell you that it was definitely well before the movie Being John Malkovich came out. When I saw that movie, I felt oddly seen.

So yeah, now you know about my imaginary friend… me.