Imagination Rules

My earliest childhood memories are filled with playing imagination games. We lived out in the country and since I was the youngest child, my older brother and sister were in school and I was home with my mom a lot. She was always busy with cleaning, cooking, sewing, quilting, running errands, helping with the farm animals, etc.

So I filled my days with imaginary friends. I would play with my baby dolls and I would be the mama in the pretend family. I took my dolls to school where I became the teacher, to the doctor where I became the nurse or doctor, to the store where I was the sales clerk or grocery checker, and to church where I became the song leader and then the preacher. I would act out each part and transition from character to character playing all the parts. You know that's not so much different than reality. As adults we have many roles to play. Sometimes I am the mom, sometimes the wife, sometimes the child, sometimes the student, sometimes the teacher, sometimes the health care provider, and the list goes on.

Some days I would use the tinker toys to build a pretend ranch and then play with the farm animal figurines. I would move them from place to place and talk for them. I would fill the hours of the day in my imaginary world where I called all the shots. I was the writer, director, puppeteer, stage crew, and actors in my fairly tale stories. My stories always had happy ending just like on TV.