Candy in My Pocket

I once read an article about the woman who played Anakin’s mother in the Star Wars movies. She said that being a part of the films was like carrying around a piece of candy in her pocket. On the hard days, she can take it out and enjoy it. To her, just the memory that she had been a part of something like Star Wars, was enough to lift her out of whatever depressing situation that came her way.

My “imaginary friend” has always been that way for me. He’s the bit of “candy” in my pocket. Even now as a grown woman, he’s still there. He was the playmate of a friendless little girl, and the man who formed my idea of what manhood should be. I don’t understand him. He’s just always been one of those miracles you just accept. But he’s always been a bit of comfort on a rainy day.

It’s rained a lot lately. Figuratively.

Most of you know by now, but our toilet decided to give up the ghost on December 26^th, leaking into the kitchen. Since then, our house has been in medias res. Christmas presents are where we left them… There is still a (presumably rotting) ham left in the fridge where we forgot to eat it… And the house has started to smell like 1932 again. It’s weird how old houses will revert to that dusty, bookish smell when they’re left vacant.

We’ve been living in a hotel room since then, and I’m just homesick. I want to go home. Of course, we do go to the house… but it’s not the same. If you have to use the bathroom, you have to drive down to Kroger…or you know…do it bucket-style. I’m not that good at roughing it.

Brentton and I have both been under a lot of stress since the plumbing issue. People keep asking us when we’ll be back in the house, and the truth is, we don’t know. All the red tape, all the insurance problems, all the times I’ve spent trying to trick our blockhead insurance adjuster into picking up our calls has just led us feeling lifeless and sad.

Just sad. There’s no other word for it.

Even work, one of my most favorite things has left me feeling useless. I adore my job and where I work, but somehow the lethargy of my outside life has seeped into my work life. I just feel unneeded some days. As displaced as I feel at home, it’s beginning to feel that way in other areas of my life too.

But then, God.

It’s always “but then God.” He’s the hope that lifts me out of the moorland where I’ve landed in some sort of bog. He’s got strange ways of picking me up, too. I’ve always believed the “imaginary friend” was one of his ways of picking me up. As a child, this friend had been my beautiful boy. But one day, in one of those amazingly-realistic dreams, I was told to choose between something imaginary, and something real. I chose the real, and that was where Brentton came in.

After that, the dreams changed a bit. My “friend” became just that: a friendly, familiar face in my dreams…and that’s where he stays.

A few nights ago, my imaginary friend and I went to a concert together. Of course, it was a dream, but it didn’t feel like one. They are always the most logical, realistic dreams I have ever had. If I didn’t know better, I could swear that they’re some sort of alternate reality. And even though I’m not too much of a concert-goer, it just felt so logical to be hitching a ride together, my friend and me, to a concert in some bustling city. We fought for parking and came to the concert late. It all just felt so… real.

Of course, it can’t be. I always wake up, and tell Brentton all about my excursions. He’s the best listener. I’m thankful for the real parts of my life—the concrete. But at the same time, there is something to be said for the imaginary, the magical, the little parts of life that make you hope, that make you believe in things just outside what might be for the moment, the rainy bog of reality.

I don’t need the imaginary all the time… just sometimes, when I need to carry a little piece of candy in my pocket.