Skipping Through the Daffodils

Something is singing through my soul, without music and without words. It's not quite a to crescendo yet, but the message is clear. It is love, it is tolerance, it is joy, it is acceptance and it is infinite. It's that simple.

Darn this limited human mind of mine. Everything gets so tangled when I try to reason things out. It turns everything into a wrestling match. And it's not that hard. It should flow, like a brisk but gentle spring breeze, but my mind imagines every difficulty and question into a hurricane.

Life just isn't that serious.

When my entire 5th grade class treated me like a pariah, at first I was puzzled. I could not imagine why they were treating me that way. Sure, I was chubby, and I was independent, happy with my own company, but I knew I'd never been mean or rude to any of them. So why were they being so mean to me? I never found an answer.

They were relentless and intense. On one level, especially at the beginning, I decided they were somehow insane. But, as time passed and their torment never let up, it started getting to me. Sometimes I hid in the cloakroom and cried, just to let some of the hurt out, so I could go back to the classroom and face their insanity again.

I found relief in my imagination. As my classmates became more aggressive, I went more deeply into my own world. I daydreamed my way through school and, when the day was over, I hopped onto my bike and made school and my tormentors cease to exist. I was in a world of my own making and was happy there.

Nobody seemed to notice that I was making all zeros on my schoolwork. I never did any. When I was outside the school, I completely forgot about it. Why do homework for an impossible place full of ogres and evil-spirited trolls? Obviously, homework didn't exist, either.

To outsiders, especially grown-ups, if they had noticed anything strange was going on with me, my behavior would probably have caused to them to believe something was wrong with me and that I needed to be changed into what they considered a normal child. They would have worked on me so I would live in the "real" world where I did normal things, like my homework. And they would have tried with all their might to suppress, even destroy, my refuge world that kept me safe and sane.

Nothing worse could have happened to me than that. I've tried to imagine how I would have turned out if I hadn't had my fantasy world to escape into and had, instead, been forced to endure all the cruelty, intolerance, and pain that was being heaped upon me day after day. As it was, I learned many important lessons that made me a better person.

Without my escape world, I imagine I would have become more and more angry, feeling helpless to do anything to make them stop. I don't know what would have happened when I finally reached my breaking point, but I do know it would have been dark and possibly very violent.

So I am grateful for the years I had to play alone, back when I was a preschooler, because it built up my ability to use my imagination and I learned how to be independent. And those qualities eventually helped me cope and be a survivor when I needed to be. I cannot find words eloquent enough to describe how vital imagination has been in the development of my soul.

My spirit is, I know, without limits and I've come to realize that my imagination, as an important part of my soul, is infinite as well. Now, for example, I am not a paraplegic lying endlessly, day after day, in half of a room in a nursing home. Instead, I am in the Lake District of England, strolling and skipping through endless fields of daffodils, ecstatic in the knowledge that I can visit here whenever I want, through the infinite possibilities of my magic imagination.

I imagine all my friends and family, serene, sitting in gentle sunshine in any lovely place of their choosing, all feeling infinite joy, love, and contentment. Smiles to you all. ❤️