What Could the World Be Like?

I am regularly amazed at the memories that just pop into my head at random times for random reasons. This morning, as I listened to the rain outside and filled the dishwasher after Randy had left for work, Bricks ( a restaurant in Sulphur, OK that I used to visit annually before it closed) on a rainy 4th of July materialized in my mind.  For those familiar with the once a year meeting, you might know what I'm talking about. In an instant I was taken back 10 years (more or less) to that sleepy, euphoric feeling that always came upon me as the vacation came to a close.

For me, many significant points of my adolescence and young adulthood were lived in a dream-like state.  My imagination ran so much higher than all other parts of my brain that a simple outing or chance meeting held enormous possibilities for me.  The best way to describe is an Anne of Green Gables type of approach.  Loved the movie and never actually read the entire book before so the past month I've been trying to finish it. Anne was a hopeless romantic and not in the boy crazy kind of way.  The adventure and fanciful ways that she saw in the world made it an entirely new experience for her.  I know now that I did some of that, and though it wasn't all good or bad, there are many lessons from that.

Imagination can cause all kinds of problems if it isn't grounded in fact and reality.  On the other hand, facts and rationality can suck the very fiber of life out of you if you're not careful.  This would suggest my options are childish Anne, who though sincere, got into a host of trouble for keeping her heads in the clouds or a Sheldon-type existence (Sheldon from the sitcom, The Big Bang Theory), literal to the core with no sympathy for the human condition.  Surely neither are ideal.

In living with a very rationally motivated man, my daydreams have ceased to fly quite as high and this morning I was nostalgic for the feeling again.  Though my dreams of talking to a boy or getting included in the slumber party are clearly irrelevant now, there is a need to see the world as it COULD be and dreaming of ways to see it through.  A friend posted a conversation with her son on her facebook that I'd like to share with you that illustrates the abounding imagination we can't completely let go of as adults.

"Mom, do we get to pick what we are in heaven?". Me, "No, I think God takes care of that but that's good because He knows everything and He'll make a good choice". (long pause) "hmmmm..... I REALLY want to be a squirrel".