"Get me a real dinosaur!! NOW!!" ~ From a nomad's diary

My son asked for a real dinosaur ~ From a Nomad’s diary

Me to my son: Complete your homework!

A: Com---ppppp—leeeete what??

Me: Home work!! (Losing sanity)

A: ummm…..what will I get if I comppp--llle---teee….homework?? (sly smile)

Me: Whatever!! Just do it, man!!

A: mom, I am a boy!!

Me: Arrghgghhh……please………

A: Ok……

---------------------------------------------(After completing Homework)-----------------------------------------

Me (with a diary milk hidden in my hands): So, what do you want?? (almost expecting him to say chocolate)

A:  (after some thought): I want a real dog, a real monkey, a real peacock and a real dinosaur!! NOW!!

Me: (Digesting the face palm moment)

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In my growing years, did I have weird imaginations? Did I have imaginary friends? Did I crave for company, owing to the fact that I am a single child? Was I a loner at some point of time in my childhood? Did I dream about fantasy worlds and spider-man? Well, suddenly many questions cross my mind after this incident happened between me and my son.

And so, this post, so that insanity returns, for good!!

Weird imaginations – Yes.

I do not know how many of us remember dreams. But I remember a few, because they were very vivid and very weird. In one of them I was a vigilante with a flying saucer who was on a mission to save the earth from a clownish demon!! The best part about the dream was, I was able to fly at will and was as agile and alert like Alice from Resident Evil Series!! It was only later, my mom had casually mentioned that I had kicked a few pillows here and there in sleep. But, that dream! Did it make me feel good, or what!!. I craved for something like that again and it never came until a few years back, when I again got an impressionable dream in which I was a wandering soul who could fly over the mountains and oceans. The beauty was breathtaking. But the dream was not entirely about the beauty of nature. In the dream, I also witnessed a lot of hopelessness and riots. Am not sure until date, what that dream meant or why I saw such a dream. Do dreams mean anything? The Internet has a bazillion articles asserting that they do. Anyways, I don’t remember most of my dreams and the few that I remember, I was always flying!! (Maybe I was a bird or something in my previous birth!!) 

Imaginary Friends and Fantasy world – Yes

How many of us admit to that? I had. In my school days, I had an imaginary friend from another planet (of course, you can imagine any freaking thing, if the reigns of your mind were to be let loose). It is not like, I talked to this friend. I never did. But, it was like my prized possession, a figment of my imagination that was safe with me and belonged to me alone. Maybe, I was never that open, a book!! In later years, I realized my imaginations may have manifested from my irrepressible craze for sci-fi books and movies. (I still love sci-fi). And, I hated He-Man and Bat Man those days and Spider Man was my eternal hero. However, now I don’t like Spider Man a bit and I adore Batman a lot (Christian Bale, you got me!!). Sometimes, I wonder if Alice in Wonderland was a story just made for me. That story has been following me ever since my failed interview at Tech Mahindra in 2006, when a snobbish interviewer had asked me, what would be Alice’s destiny had she not followed the rabbit!! That was the least of questions I would have expected in a technical round and at that precise moment, I could not even recollect any of the characters, tweedle dum, tweedle dee, the red queen or the mad hatter!! In later years, I somehow felt that, the story was a reflection of how my destiny was going to unfold. Maybe, I was never a realist!! Maybe, I am just an incurable optimist living in Alice’s world!!

Craving for company because I was a single child – No and then, Yes.

Every single person I know, has always advocated for two instead of one when it came to children. One is implicitly alone, stubborn and never cares to share stuff with anyone. As for two, they say, there is company. Now, I concur with the part that, there is company. But I do not agree at all with the statement that a single child is ‘alone, stubborn and does not learn the art of sharing’. Well, if you must understand my rage, you must know that I am a single child who arrived biologically late into my parents’ world after 10 odd years. And, my parents never let me feel the need for a sibling as they managed the art of parenting with finesse, considering I was a difficult child. But then, I would go on to agree with the question only to the point until my school and college days existed. It was post marriage and post having a baby, I started thinking differently. Maybe, when I look at my hyper active son who wants to pet every wild animal on earth, I feel, maybe the world is right this one time. But then, I am not sure. (Am not discussing more of this here).

Was I a loner, at some time in my childhood?

Well, the answer is not that easy. I wish I could answer this. I can say that there have been times in my childhood when I have felt strong about being betrayed or being hurt. I had remained a loner for a while and somehow, I never let those people know how hurt I was. As my father used to tell me in my school days, “Not a big deal!! These issues will be not be even worth remembering when life takes you to big places”. Those were the times, I felt even more lonely because I felt not being understood enough. However with time, the hurt feelings went away and my father was right. And over a period of time, I have built a chain of restraint around me unconsciously, that has always held me back when the urge to socialize was high. And, that chain has definitely saved me more often, leaving aside the few trivial ones with the regret of having not’s.

But then, today I am content and happy. Because, the insanity that comes from believing in the fantasy world, the tooth fairies, the sand man, Jack Frost and what not, is back because of this incident!! When my son asked for a real dino yesterday, I could not tell him how much I would have wanted to own one myself!! (Of course, I could not put this on FB). Well, when he grows up and reads this, he is totally going to disown me, I know!! But then, that is what childhood does to you. The Innocent is back and I am loving motherhood.

P.S: And, did I tell you that I have two best friends........ Ok….this is me!!