make-believe

I used to believe…

When I was a little girl, my dad would always tell me to leave a little bit of food on my plate at dinner for Miss Manners. I thought that Miss Manners was a tiny lady like the tooth fairy who came by after dinner to eat our leftovers.

I used to believe…

As early as I can remember and up until the age of five, I had an imaginary friend whose name was Nanik. I don't know whether it was a girl of a boy, I don't know how old it was, I don't know what it looked like, I don't know were its name came from (it's definitly not a regular name in France!) I just know it lived in the bathroom inside a big driyer closet we used to have. Its voice was the echo of my voice in the closet. I used to talk with Nanik for hours (or what seemed to be hours) telling stories, telling my life. In my family, everyone knew who was Nanik, it was like a family member. My parent would say: "So, how's Nanik today", and I would smile back...

This message is just a tribute to my good friend Nanik.

I used to believe…

Whenever I watched a TV show, film or read a book, if it was about little talking animals, i'd pick 1-2 of my favourite characters and they'd follow me around for a few weeks. The most memorable is that once i was followed around for a month by Beatrix Potter's character, Samuel Whiskers, and his wife, Anna Maria.

I used to believe…

My wonderful Mother taught me to believe...she is amazing! On car trips we would imagine their homes in the gardens we would pass. There was always a fairy peeking at me from behind trees. I used to run around and around trees trying to catch them...now my own daughter gets secret letters and presents. Always believe!

I came from a poor family but, nonetheless, my parents always made sure I got a toy for Christmas. My father would bring me to see Santa and tell me that Santa didn't like it when you asked for too many things because if he gives you all those things there wouldn't be enough toys left to give to the other kids.
When I sat on Santa's lap, he would ask me what I wanted and I would say only one thing. I had to think really hard about the one thing I wanted. No matter how many times Santa would ask me, "and what else, little girl, would you like Santa to bring?" I would only tell him one thing.

I used to believe…

When i was a kid, I used to believe that the rhyme- Night Night don't let the bed bugs bite, meant that in he night, if you didnt go to sleep, then giant bugs made of beds would come and bite you!!! it used to scare the C**P outta me!!

I used to believe that all the characters in the cereal commercials were real and that some day they would come off of the box and talk to me like they did on t.v.

I used to believe…

When i was a kid we used to go on holiday to Wales and my parents would tell me that dog's footprints (on the beach) were Welsh dragon's claw prints. I believed this for a long time...

I used to believe Santa stopped his sleigh on the roof, and then came through the sliding door (2nd level) that we left open for him because we didn't have a chimney. Then when I was six, some of my mates and I were talking in class and one of them said that Santa didn't exist. Straight away everything clicked. I never told my parents, realising that they had as much fun pretending to believe in Santa as I did. I'm now 18 and although my older sister has admitted to being a non-believer, my parents and I have a silent agreement to keep him going... At least until I move out for good.

Anyway, the older I get the more I want to believe...

I used to believe…

One Easter years ago, my parents left a small amount of cotton stuck in the doorway to our house. They then told my sister and I that the Easter Bunny must have gotten his tail caught in the door as he was leaving our house and lost some fur. My mind was blown: Not only did the Easter Bunny Exist, but I had concrete proof!

I used to believe that when my parents were angry with me that it was a sure indication that they had been bodysnatched by aliens. I would try and sneek up on them late at night while they were watching television. I was sure that if I was quite enough I would catch them with their masks off!

i used to belive that if you left the fire burning in the fireplace santa come in through the doggy door, when my parents got seprated i didn't have either so i cut a hole in the screen outside my window, needless to say we didn't get our"'tenant insurance"

I used to believe…

When I was in fourth grade, I was reading a series of books called Animorphs. I was obsessed with them at the time, and one of my friends had started to read them too. She didn't know about them as much as me, since she had just begun, and I (of course) was an expert... soon we knew most things there were to know about them, and started making up that the characters in the book, which have the power to withdraw DNA from another living creature and become it, wanted to be our friends. It started out small, that we had seen them sneaking around looking "suspicious" and kind of watching us... then we talked to them.. and it progressed that they wanted us to become part of the group. Then we had the powers (we had totally convinced ourselves that it was real by then and that we had the powers) that they had, then stronger, then we were the most powerful beings in the universe, and we had to keep it secret. we were aliens, and we had our code because evil aliens called the "yeerks" were always after them... it went on for a couple of years.. then I was away for a year, and when i came back we had forgotten about it and didn't talk about it. Really funny to think of now.

I used to believe that the packing peanuts you would use when sending a package to someone was, in reality, ghost poop. We are always a little disconcerted by the red ghost poop.

I used to believe…

Being an only kid, I used to have a few imaginary friends. When I was 2, I used to have an imaginary friend named Beano (long before the popular gas relief medicene of the same name premiered) I used to tell ppl he was invisible to everyone except me because he saw me from his invisable world and wanted to be my best friend, so he made himself visable just to me. When I was around 7 I had one named Courtney, named after Barbie's little sister's best friend, and she looked exactly like her. She and i would pretend to be everything from angels to witches. And if someone I saw on the news had died, we would go to heaven and see them, and make them our friend, and visit everyone in heaven, like God,Mary, Joseph, etc... and our family members who had died. I also imagined I had 7 little brothers and sisters, and used look through catalogs to pick out beds and clothes that they could have. I probably needed medication.

I used to believe…

When I was 6 years old, I used to watch old reruns of shows like BeWitched and I dream Of Jeannie. I came to the belief that anybody could develop powers, as long as you put your mind to it.
One morning, my belief was "confirmed" when the sun shone in me throug hmy window, waking me up. Disgruntled, I thought really hard about making the sun move, and with a wave of my hand, attempted to make the sun move. Well, it worked. The sunlight dissappered. Amazed, I kept waving my hand back and forth, making the sunlight come back in the room and go out. Apparently, my dreams were dashed when I learned there's such a thing called clouds. Funny.