When I was younger I spent the bulk of my time lost in daydreams. There was a steady stream of stories and scenarios swirling-around inside of me. These thoughts did not feel detached from me, as I lived through every one with full emotion and feeling.I would have numerous conversations and encounters with crushes as well as heated debates (which I always won) with adversaries on important topics such as LBTQ rights or the plight of small/family-run farms.

I have lost some of this, which I suppose is a good thing since I’m not sure how I would have been able to make it in the world as an adult if I continued to spend all my time lost in my imagination. But, I miss the feelings that these reveries brought with them. My life held so much magic to it back then.

I have been attempting to try and regain some of this magic while keeping a foot solidly in the land of adult responsibilities and duties.

I am trying to be intentional about stopping to soak-in some moments in time. Today, as my son was using the toilet, I stood at the bathroom window while the breeze caused the soft white curtains to dance around me, and stared at the backyard. I tried to memorize each tree, how they looked, how they responded to the wind and took a deep breath to try and memorize the smell of the moment.

The things that are missing from these moments, however, are the questions of who I will be, what I will be doing, who I might be with, and what of my hopes and dreams might I have already fulfilled. Many of these questions have now been answered. The excitement of the unknown, mostly when it comes to the romantic things, has passed.

Truthfully, most of my daydreams were about romance. I liked to imagine a million scenarios that could happen between me and whichever person I had feelings for at the time. It was a fun world in which to live, but one that doesn’t really exist as a married person anymore.

The truth is, I love to imagine and I love to pretend. I do, sometimes, play-out imaginary scenarios of what life might be like if I were married to another person. I will picture us in a house, doing married-life things, just as my husband and I do now, and see how it plays itself out. But, these daydreams are difficult to maintain as I always have to, inevitably, face the question about what the imaginings mean for my husband and child. The old carefree dreams of this romantic are now hopelessly real and complicated.

I miss the nervous thrill of never knowing ‘if it will ever happen’.

It happened.

That’s done.

As a result, I have been starting to dig into my mind and try to find other unknowns, other questions and things that make me feel a similar kind of enjoyable anxiety towards. I want to make some more space for daydreaming again and living here gives me the perfect opportunity to do so.

Now, I just have to find some new daydreams.