SistaPITA: I'm the princess and I need saving.
Me: Seriously? You need me to save you? Again?
SistaPITA: Not you. I need someone else to save me. You're mean about it.
Me: I'm just trying to get you saved so we can pretend something else.
I love watching my daughters play pretend. They're so funny, you know, because in pretend, you can be whoever you want to be because if you do it all wrong and you mess up, then, Whoop! pretend's over and you're back to being you.
In our pretends, we did some pretty incredible things. I know I, personally, saved the world a couple hundred times. I even saved the universe once. I got to step my toe into what it felt like to be a really bad person. How else could I make the knowing decision that being a bad person wasn't right for me? And I put myself in the position to make the tough decisions, the kind that helped many, even if I had to sacrifice a little for a few or for myself. In real life, that made it a heck of a lot easier to make those decisions. I'm a better, well-rounded person thanks to my pretends as a kid - and my pretends as an adult, though my pretends as a kid were a heck of a lot more fun, I think.
So as an adult, in order to develop through my "pretends" in order to help with my own personal development, I use my characters. Each character is someone else who's life I'll learn through.
Ri is teaching me to forgive.
Kat is teaching me to love.
Cierra is teaching me to face my fears.
Paige is teaching to kick ass and take names.
Dexx is teaching me how to deal with wildly frustrating people.
If you're a writer, you're NEVER too old for pretend! *grin*
Don't we all play pretend every time we stare at a digital page? Where's the joy otherwise?
ReplyDeletePretending was just how me and my sister played as kids. We pretended we were skateboard stars when we didn't know how to ride skateboards. We played by riding pillows and swim innertubes down stairs. And we played a full story out where she was the princess running away and I was the street urchin teaching her reality and how to live on the streets (Yes we liked Aladdin). Such fun times. Tis why I always say "the greatest toy a child can have is an imagination." Same goes for adults too.
ReplyDeleteI loved playing pretend as a kid. I'd play for hours and never get sick of it.
ReplyDeleteAs an older child, I was always stuck in daydreams.
Now as an adult I get to play pretend on paper. :)