Timewarp: Fantasy and Imagination

Remember when we talked about killing my fantasies?

And remember how I'm still trying to do that?

Randomly last night I logged into my old WordPress account and rediscovered my blog from three years ago. There were only a few posts on there, and I think I'll share one of them with you soon, but what I have today was something in the depths of my draft folder.

It made me sad, a little. And happy. Happy sad.

I was newly twenty two when I wrote this, dating a boy who wasn't good for me, happy in life but unhappy in my body. Just a month after I wrote this, I would move to LA, and break up with the boyfriend, and things would start to change for me. Slowly. Gradually. They'd get worse before they'd get better, but they would.

But the imagination I talk about in this little essay, the fantasies I write about little Taylor having as she fell asleep at night...I've let those go now. Sure, there are others in their place, but...

Well.

Just read.

I'll be back.

(slightly edited for grammar)

I've been offered a job.

A really good job. A job working for a company that treats its employees well, working with people who seem to like me, for bosses who see potential in me and a future in the department. A job with benefits and good pay, in the town my parents live in, a cinematic picturesque beach town. A place where I have a boyfriend, a new puppy, a life and a home.

Yeah, so...I'm not taking it.

In theory, it's everything I want. Everything a person should want. Except that it's not.

My whole life, I've dreamed about how my life could be. Imagination is the one thing I have plenty of and I use it every night as I fall asleep, and I've imagined the paths my life could take. All these fantasies began the same way, with me moving to L.A., Hollywood, City of Angels, silicone-enhanced CokeTown, whatever you want to call it, it's the dream I've had since I was ten, maybe eleven, maybe nine.

There were a million things that could happen to me in L.A. in these daydreams, these fantasies, and really, there still are. I could do anything, be anything, try anything.

If I stay here, I'm giving up all those options.

And in all of these fantasies, I was thin.

First, can we say a collective "awww" for younger Taylor and her insecurities? Thanks.

It's so strange, reading something you wrote a few years ago. It seems like something separate from you, yet still familiar at the same time. And it makes me happy to know that I did give this girl what she wanted, I moved to LA for her and tried a few things.

But really, I've given up on the rest.

I used to have these really grand ideas about what I wanted my place in the world to be. Famous, important, artistic, powerful. Do all kids have that, or just ones like me? Regardless, not all of them carry it through to near-adulthood, willfully ignoring their limitations, my body and brain the only stopgaps on a path to world domination via screen or stage. 

There are certain things I will not, can not, and do not wish to ever be. Not anymore. But there is an entire universe full of other things I can imagine for myself. I am not limited to the bright lights of LA and the idea of fortune and fame. I can see a whole different world of happiness now, and that used to be my problem. I was limited in my thinking, my imagination only took me to one place when I let my mind wander. I couldn't see a happy future if I wasn't special in some way.

But you know, there are different ways to be special.

And my imagination is opening up that whole new world of possibilities to me.