Dear whoever may read this:

Ever since I was a kid, there was one word that everyone would use to describe me, the word that made me beam with joy and pride every time I heard it. Imaginative. It was understandable that it was used to describe me, seeing that for as long as I can remember I would spend hours letting my mind go wherever it wanted, from big castles in faraway hills to a small house that realistically could’ve been right next door. But realism didn’t matter. 

The limit was quite literally as far as my mind could go, and I just wouldn’t stop

Dreaming. 

My nightly routine:

-Brush teeth

-Say goodnight to parents (and siblings if they’re in a particularly good mood)

-Lay in bed for as long as it takes to go to sleep

-Give up on sleep and get out of bed

One night in particular, however, I broke the schedule. I had changed into different clothes, ones that I could imagine the character I was playing as in. Then, I started talking aloud to myself, acting out half a scene. The character I played was extravagant and moved as such, putting my hands on my hips as I muttered an insult to the air before moving to sit on the small pink chair in the center and pretending to be writing something in the small notepad my mom had given me with a neon pink highlighter. As soon as I had ended that character’s scene, I rushed to switch clothes, this time posing as a meek kid who hunched their shoulders and spoke softly. This continued, repetitive changing and talking, sometimes making the outfits so similar all I had to do was pull a coat over my shoulders. This on its own was not abnormal, but my brother slowly opening the door behind me was. I jump from the pink seat when the door creaks the last few inches to the wall and spin around. My brother stood in the doorway with an arrogant grin plastered on his face. I felt my face go red with embarrassment and anger, and I stormed over and slammed the door shut, cutting off whatever snarky comment was on the tip of his tongue. Although I know he would never upset me for no reason, he tended to speak without thinking, and I wouldn’t put it past him to poke fun at me for talking to myself. 

From then on, I would always wait until I was sure everyone was asleep to avoid

Embarrassment.

I set my head down on the cold desk, cursing the hard surface before I adjusted to use my arm as a pillow. In front of me was a worksheet, meant to organize my jumbled thoughts to make it easier to write. In protest of the constraint of thought, my mind had only let me work out a few words, maybe a sentence maximum for each section. As soon as the bare minimum was filled out, I knew that the teacher would refuse to accept it, and say “I could do better if I tried harder.” Unfortunately,  I don’t think she understood that we did something identical last year, the year before that, and as many years back as I could remember, and I had started running out of stories to tell. Sure I could’ve reused the same topics, but that would go against my mind, and I’ve come to learn there is no way to fight against it. I didn’t blame her, though, and I still don’t. She was just trying to do her job. 

Again my mind drifted from the lesson, so I grabbed my pencil and drew a line, a scribble at first, although I kept on adding and adding until I had something my mind could work with. It was simple, just a fluffy ball with lidded eyes, jagged teeth of all different lengths poking out from beneath his lips, two stick feet out of the bottom, and two short horns poking up from his fuzzy head, but despite the simplicity of this character, my mind started creating a story. Name, family, history, present, favorites, personality, temper. New facts about the creature pop up, not spending more than a few seconds on each. I had just been getting to his friends when a loud “BANG!” on my desk made me jump. The teacher glared down at me, her blonde bun sitting messily on the back of her head.

“Wake up,” she said in a high, squeaky voice that was meant to be funny (and sometimes could be.) I heard clothes rustle as kids turn to look, and the giggles of kids who appreciated her joke much more than I did. 

“But I was awake.” I narrowed my eyes slightly to accentuate my point. I had been trying to clarify, but my voice had been too loud, my tone too rough, which only fueled the growing argument.

“Well, you can’t be doodling either.” She retorted. More laughter forced the corners of my mouth to twitch up, even though I didn’t find it at all funny. I hate it when that happens.

“I'm already finished.” 

“Well, this isn’t enough. When it comes time to write you’ll be confused.” The jokey tone was gone. 

“No, I won’t.” I cross my arms on my desk. 

“Okay, well I still need you to do more.” 

This time I stayed quiet. I’ll do what she says alright, I thought, I’ll add a whole two words. We stared each other down until she remembered she was a teacher to more kids than just me. With a loud, exasperated sigh she marches to the front of the room and continues her lesson so similar to last year’s that they use the same video, the only difference being the questions were slightly more wordy. I copy the teacher’s sigh and put my head back down on my desk. 

If only she had

Understood.

I had been lying awake in my bed again, although this time it was a good thing since it was the afternoon. A thought had been pushing at me these last few weeks no matter how much I ignored it. Normally I wouldn’t even try to push my ideas away, but this idea in particular kept on pulling me away from reality at the worst of times. Dinner with family, movies, class, and any other time I couldn’t let it marinate until it was ready to be improved. Finally, I had time, so I let my eyes slide shut as quiet music buzzed in the background. My mind is like sludge at first, hard to navigate and slow, but it slowly gets thinner and easier until the ideas all come together, some out of place and garbled, but clear enough to come up with my character. 

I finally decided it was good enough, and I started picking the rough ideas to put down like I had some sort of conspiracy board in the notes app on my phone. The only pauses I took in my thoughts were to look further into them, using Google to find answers and clarification. It could’ve been hours or fifteen minutes, but it felt the same to me. The disoriented thoughts clouded my mind as I solidified the details of my characters. Tag, curly light brown hair, somewhat tan skin, green eyes. Oscar, orange hair, pale freckled skin, gray eyes. I typed as quickly as I could, different characters' distinctive features clear in my head. Soon, all of my characters had a face to put to their name, and I felt giddy with the completion. Then I took it a step further. Usually, I wait before writing anything to get used to the character’s personalities, but this time I didn’t need to. All I needed was to get this out, have it somewhere I can’t forget, somewhere it is easily accessible and set, so I don’t need to redo the work I’ve already done because I lost my progress to another story my mind jumped to prematurely. I try to keep my focus on the words as they flow through me, gently mimicking my character's motions, scrunching up my nose, or tilting my head. I begin to struggle to come up with the words I need. I push through, the ending on the tips of my fingers, a warm feeling building up in my chest, prideful and happy, not quite complete though.

The second I typed the last word, I was finally

Satisfied.

If I had to pick one thing from my years of learning and growing from when I was a little kid babbling to no one and acting out imaginary shows, it would be this: Your imagination cannot grow if you constantly suffocate it with rules and restrictions. It grows through challenge and chaos. As Donald M. MacKinnon said, “The creative person prefers the richness of the disordered to the stark barrenness of the simple.” If you never let your mind make things on its own, it will never know how to.

From, My Mind.