fbhjr

hindustar’s question of the day was about imaginary friends.
As I’ve got a fair bit to say on the subject I thought I’d make it a post
and cross link it. Hope that’s OK…

For about two years I was my brother’s imaginary friend.
He had trouble dealing with me as his brother, but had no problem dealing
with me as one of the monsters from monster island in the Godzilla films.
Much like how the boy in one of those films makes friends with Godzilla’s
son, I pretended to me one of the monsters that he played with.

This worked out great for us. I wasn’t his older brother anymore I was a
monster. Granted a friendly monster, but still not his brother. He didn’t
worry about being in my shadow or my setting goals he couldn’t meet as I
was a monster living in a cave on monster island.

My mother hated, hated, hated us doing this.
Why was never clear to me. We could pretend to be cowboys and Indians,
cops and robbers, Starfleet and Klingons and all was fine.
I pretended to be a monster that was friends with my brother and she would
get crazy mad. Physical punishment mad. (Not when all is said and done
that was difficult to achieve.)

We didn’t stop. We had fun. I got to be a fire breathing monster. Can’t
beat that. The fact said fire was only in our imagination was irrelevant.
And, it can be very difficult to stop people from pretending.

She eventually won by bribery. My brother and I both very much wanted a
dog. My mother got us a dog on the condition we would stop the game of my
being a monster. She gave the dog the same name I had used as the monster
and was very clear that the name belonged to the dog not me.
And, that worked. Having a dog was more fun.
(Yes, the same dog that my father took for a walk one day and the dog “ran
off” and never came back. My father hated that dog and it was the only
time he ever took him for a walk…)

After the loss of my dog I did invent an imaginary friend.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Harvey you will know how I picked the name.
It was a name that no one I knew had. Therefore he could be whatever I
wanted.
In my imagination he was an android I build in my father’s electronic
workshop in the basement.
As such, he was stronger, faster and smarter than I was. But, we were good
friends just the same.
That didn’t last too long. A few months or so.

Eight years after that I met the person who is the father of my
godchildren. He is stronger, faster and smarter than me. And, he has the
same name as my imaginary friend from when I was 10.
He and I have been good friends for more than 30 years now…