Maybe Willy Wonka had the right idea: “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.” I hear of people who are lost in a world of loneliness and despair because of the Covid-19 restrictions. Just maybe Willy had the solution. Create your own paradise in your imagination. There are no limits inside your head. Just go there!
In my head, I can find true love, adventure, excitement, and maybe even a chocolate factory. In my life I have imagined myself in many places doing many things. I have traveled to the moon as an astronaut, been the wife of a South American dictator, a 1990’s rock star, a ballet dancer, best friends with Queen Elizabeth, on an African safari with Bear Grylls, on a boat that circumnavigated Antarctica, and at dinner with Neil deGrasse Tyson. You get the idea.
I have imagined situations, delicious meals, epic champagne, euphoric conversations, heroic deeds and heroic rescues. Maybe Walter Mitty is a better analogy.
This has been a pattern for my entire life. I remember imagining being a telephone operator when I was just five or six and talking to Captain Kangaroo on the phone. I remember being a Monkee’s fan when I was barely a teenager who was found absolutely fascinating by Peter Tork. I remember being Mr. Spock’s best girl… the one who finally broke through his stoic exterior when I was a little bit older teen ager. I imagined our local mall being the shopping area of a city-sized space station orbiting earth. When I am driving, I am in the car with the Top Gear guys, showing them the sights in my fair city.
As I have gotten older, I still live in these worlds created in my head. Many have become stories that I will never get published, but will likely surprise my children after I am gone if they take the time to read through my google drive. “Mom did THAT????”
Because of my imagination, I have lived through some of the most traumatic events in my life: losing 3 babies in infancy, house being foreclosed on, divorced from a man who was worthless, divorce proceedings where I got the shit beat out of me in a courtroom, 3 evictions, getting fired from jobs twice, losing my best friend/younger brother to HIV, traumatic car wreck, tragic love affair with another worthless man, and now, confined to my home by the threat of a deadly virus. Home is my haven when I can create yet another world. A coping mechanism.
Don’t worry about me. I have a firm foot in reality. Life doesn’t slip by me because I can’t see what is really in front of me. I get things done that must be done and when I am finished with the necessary responsibilities of adulthood, I can slip into the latest world I have created, which is, I must say, far better than anything I see on TV.
Today, I have a backstage pass to a BTS concert.
Karen Writes More Than Karen Crochets 
Imagination can be a great coping strategy. Life is messy, and you have been through a lot. You are a very strong person. God bless you going forward!
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