make-believe

I used to believe…

When I was younger, I always saw pictures of Santa Claus coming down people's chimneys. But, since we didn't have a fireplace or an open chimney, I never understood how Santa got into our house. So my Mom told me he came in through the dryer vent outside.

I used to believe…

when I was around 5 or 6 I had an imaginary elementary school class...they all had distinct personalities and went everywhere with me. (Ruby was the bad one, Penelope was the good one, Tommy and Toby were twins, Annika and Clarence were in wheelchairs, etc.) There were approximately 15 in all. I would write up lesson plans, administer severe discipline, and carry on full conversations with them in public places. I was a weird kid. Oh, and, of course, their music teacher was John Lennon. :)

I used to believe…

when i was littler, i believed in the tooth fairy.My brother always told me to go to sleep the tooth fairy will come and give you a big surprise! he said i had to be asleep though or she wont come. One time i lost my tooth, the tooth fairy didnt come to give me my surprise, i told my mom..she was very surprised ..i knew she was up to something. then 3 years ago, i was looking through some things around my mothers room and i found all my teeth i had ever lost , including all the little notes i used to write her!

I used to believe…

There was a vent on the roof of our house that was kind of shaped like a house. This is where the Easter Bunny lived, AT MY HOUSE!!! I would look up at this little house and talk with the easter bunny.

I used to believe…

When I was very small, I conjured myself an imaginary friend whom I named Rufus (though I've no idea why). I never told ANYONE about him, he would always ask me not to, I always thought he seemed really frightened at the prospect of anyone other than me knowing of him. Rufus was always changing his age, he was the same guy all the time, just at different stages of his life. He would be a tiny kid, same age as me wanting to play in the dirt and tell me silly stories about horrid things that REALLY lived in wombat holes, or a teenage kid who knew all about cricket and always watched me play, or this kind of 20-30 something scrawny adult, scruffy, unshaven, dishevelled - but who knew EVERYTHING and looked after me whenever I was scared of something. Very occasionally he would appear as an extremely old guy who had lived so long that any questions I had about dragons were adequately answered due to his first hand knowledge of this 'ancient species'.

I did have a sister so I can't really claim him as a sibling substitute, and really have no idea what part of my mind decided I needed an imaginary friend, but I loved Rufus dearly and even once I knew he really didn't exist I kept on pretending, just to cling on so he wouldn't be a complete non-entity (as I assumed he would be if I let him slip into obscurity.) I'm nearly 19 now and I still bring him out and dust him off every now and then just to make sure he still lives (And, I think because it has become psychologically reassuring)

I used to believe…

When I was growing up, my dad would tell me there was a Boogie Man in our hallway and that if I didn't hurry up and get out of the hallway, that he would get me. So, for years I'd run down the hall as fast as I could.

I used to believe…

when i was little i used to be afraid of walking in the night barefooted, i thought that "little creatures" would be lying on the floor and i would accidentally step on someone's. the worst is that actually i'm 17 and i don't like walking barefooted in the night!

I used to have 3 imaginary friends- 1 girl(Ashley) and 2 boys(Peter and Jon).
The girl didn't like me, because they were girls and I didn't think girl liked girls (catty-factory I guess) So we always got into fights.
Peter didn't like me because Ashley was prettier and Jon was always talking to me about liking Peter. Then, one day Ashley and I got in a fist fight and I actually came out of it with bruises (god knows how...)
After that, they all left.

I was born in 1947, and for the first seven years of my life had an outside toilet, which really frightened me.It was dark, cold & lonely so I invented three friends who could come with me, David, Dennis & Helen. I kept these friends for many years & mother was so worried she actually went to the Doctors about me. He said it was because at that time I was an "only" child.

I used to believe…

until the age of about 4 years, i believed that little peope (elves) lived at the bottom of my bed. Only i could see them, and they only came out after dark. They had a world world on the bottom of my bed, with farms and schools and houses. They had special hats wich allowed them to fly up to me. some world tiggle my toes and feet while they worked on the farm. Others would sit on my knee and tell me things about every thing. they were always friends and i was never scared.

I used to believe…

As a child my world was filled with horror movies and Discovery channel shows, but i very muchly believed in monsters, i thought the lights in the woods were crazed satanists who were going to steal me from my bed and sacrifice me to bring some monster into the world (they later turned out to be a nearby house on the other side of the trees). Now, in my 20s... I believe in faeries. it is they who make my socks vanish when i do laundry, who strategically relocate car keys, term papers, my driver's license, and anything that they know i'll be loking for soon. Sometimes they intentionally remind me of something they've moved just to watch me spend a half hour tearing the room apart to find it. There are baseball-bat wielding Inspiration Fairies, metallic golden Desk Avalanche Gnomes carefully testing the strata of books, papers, toys, bubble wrap, and the like for instablities while making sure the stuff I actually need is on the top, sock-filchers and mysterious-undergarment-stain painters, and many more besides, and I don't want them to ever go away.

I used to believe…

When my sis and I were younger, we would play make-believe mermaids. One day one of our mermaids was having a baby, so we had a lengthy discussion on mermaid reproduction. Obviously they couldn't have a baby the "normal" way, pooping one out (lol- I don't know why so many people believed this), because they had no legs. (Of course we had fish and had seen them poo, but...) So it would have to come out their mouths, as that's the only other way to get something out of their stomach. I said they must have vomited them up, and she agreed, but we decided that was way too disgusting. They didn't lay eggs like fish because they were half-people, so because they were magic they could burp up a bubble with the baby inside (it would grow in the bubble, after it came out of her mouth). Never looked at bubbles in the same way again. We really elaborated on this, and decided that after it started to grow she could sing a magic song and decide how it would look and what age it would be when the bubble popped, if she just wanted to skip it being a baby altogether and have an 8-year-old.

I used to believe…

When you sleep, and everything is silent you can sometimes hear your blood pumping round you, as your head is on the pillow. I had this hate of werewolves and used to believe that as the blood was pumping faster-the werewolve (that was trying to kill me) was gaining on me, and it was going to eat me. To prevent this I had to breathe heavily so that I couldn't hear the blood pumping

I used to believe…

My son used to think that the Tooth Fairy was a magic, flying ferry boat and when he was grown he told me he always wondered how it could get through his bedroom door because it was so huge.

I used to believe…

When me and my sisters were younger and afraid of the dark, my mum told us that imaginary creatures called 'biddies' would line up at the end of our beds to look after us in the nite. They were triangular in shape with little faces. They got me thru the nite for years!!! I also used to draw them all the time and ask my mum if that is what they looked like, to which she would say yes. Thanx mum!!!

I used to believe that everybody around me were aliens in human guise and that they were conspiring to take me with them, and "alienate" (in that other sense) me. I also thought they could read my mind, so I tried to blank my mind whenever I saw anyone staring at me suspiciously. And yeah, that included my parents and my big brother.

I used to believe…

At 4, I believed that dice worked by changing the number of dots when you throw them on the table, by some kind of internal mechanical magic. When I first tried my hands on one, I couldn’t make it shift, and assumed I simply wasn’t old enough to produce the force needed.