Its a very, very mad world

When I was little I was told I had too active an imagination. One of my earliest school report cards read, L.J. will do extremely well in the real world the day she decides to live in it. I didnt have many toys and I didnt have many friends. Instead, I had the tiniest hole in the bathroom wall and hours of limitless adventures just begging for me to discover them. Night after night Id curl up on the bathroom floor, wincing as the cold tiles chilled my body. Id stare into the tiny gap in the wall and imagine myself far inside it, in the magical world I was convinced existed within the darkness. For months, that seemingly insignificant crack just above the skirting board was my entire world a world probably left there as an accident by an over-zealous plumber. At least, thats what my dad told me at the time. I refused to believe him of course, knowing in my heart that hole was special. In my world, the hole was a cave guarded by dragons - a cave which served as the very portal into childhood itself.

As I said, I didnt have many friends when I was young. I just didnt need or want them. Even then, real life and real people seemed bland and limiting. I wanted adventure and I wanted magic, qualities I somehow didnt see myself locating in the little girl from the next street who would force herself upon me during playgroup. From the age of one until about four, my best friend in the world was the lamp post around the corner from our house. Id spend hours out there in the street with my arms wrapped around it, smiling as I replayed everything that had happened to me that day and knowing in my heart that it understood. His name was Bob, and he was the best friend I could ever have asked for. The family photo albums at my parents house are littered with pictures of me, inevitably in a little red dress, arms wrapped tightly around Bob as I clutched him with all my might. I vaguely remember one Christmas morning when I went missing - my parents found me round the corner, tying a red ribbon around Bob and wishing him Merry Christmas.

My point in all of this is that my imagination is my escapism. The reason Im regaling all this to you now probably has a lot to do with how Im feeling at the moment. In the past, when life got too much or reality threatened to overwhelm me, I havent called up my friends and spent hours lamenting over the phone. I havent turned to alcohol and I havent blown my entire months rent resorting to retail therapy to cheer myself up. Ive gone home, locked the door, and instantly been transported back to that world I thrived in as a kid. Automatically, my mind takes me there. Its escapism and its relief and it magically transforms all the negative elements of my life into glorious fantasy. Its exactly like that school report said: Im simply incapable of living, or believing, in the real world.

Which is all fine and lovely. As long as you have your imagination youre invincible, right? No one can touch you and nothing can harm you. You can take yourself halfway round the world simply by closing your eyes and concentrating. Well, so I thought.

I recently signed up to a new writing course beginning in October this one is entitled Writing for Children and Young People. To me, it sounded ideal. In my last writing course, my tutor told me I should consider writing childrens literature as I captured their world so perfectly ironic, given my innate loathing of the little darlings. I followed her advice, which is how I came to sign up to the new course. A year ago Id have been so excited at the prospect of taking on a childrens literature course. Id have revelled in the challenge and embraced the opportunity to prove my worth to what it sounds like is going to be a room full of professional authors.

Yet now, I just feel deflated and scared. I dont feel up to it. Ive always known my limitations in life and writing is no exception Im perfectly aware of what Im capable of and just how far I can take it. Im aware of the exact point at which it becomes too much and the exact moment in which my brain will switch off in stubborn refusal. My writing abilities are not what Im worried about - Im just terrified Ive forgotten how to pretend.

Recently, life seems to be laughing at me. It seems to be following me wherever I hide and waiting for my most vulnerable moments to well and truly kick me in the nuts. The last few weeks have been strange and theyve been awful. Ive felt miserable, defeated, exhausted and hopeless. Its been one thing after another and night after night I find myself locked in my apartment, calling up my friends and spending hours lamenting over the phone. Ive been turning to alcohol and Ive blown my entire months rent resorting to retail therapy to cheer myself up. Ive resorted to the most basic measures as a way of escaping the path my life is taking at the moment measures Ive never, ever needed in the past.

Im worried my imagination, my ability to dream, has died. That terrifies me more than the reality of life itself without it, I cease being me. I no longer retain whatever it was that made me unique and kept me alive and I become everything Ive been avoiding for my entire life.

This fear has become increasingly prevalent over the last few weeks. I was never supposed to feel like this I was never supposed to become this person. I was supposed to live in my bubble forever and smile out at all the confusion I was floating in. Cynicism, depression, pessimism; those were alien concepts to me. I could never understand how so many people could look at the world and not feel an overwhelming sense of belonging and hope. I was in no doubt that the adventures Id carved out in those bathroom walls were also waiting to be discovered in reality by all the people who chose to live in it. Yet recently, that sense of optimism, of adventure, has gone. Im left with doubts, fears and emptiness in place of the library of adventure which once thrived in my own imagination. The prize volumes of fantasy which once rested so proudly in the recesses of my mind have all been cleared out, leaving behind only the dust which once graced their leather-bound covers.

According to Hello! magazine, Michael is selling off his Neverland animals to local animal shelters and has apparently already sold his elephant to a local circus. Now, my automatic predilection to give Michael the benefit of the doubt has been crafted expertly over the years. It reached the point where I could instantly defend him coherently and convincingly, even if I hadnt a clue what I was defending him over. It became almost a reflex someone criticised him and I valiantly leapt to his proverbial side. I didnt even have to believe in the case I was arguing, yet I could sound as if I did at a moments notice. Yet when I read the article about Neverland, tears formed in my eyes. There was no defence I could find, no comforting anger, no automatic assumption of misrepresentation. There was only sadness, coupled with extreme anger over Michaels seemingly effortless ability to sell off his precious menagerie to a circus, of all places. Im sure the elephant always dreamed of jumping through hoops and standing on its hind legs with a whip cracking somewhere behind it.

Yes, that was the anger. That lasted a good ten minutes. I sat longing for the days when I saw the best in everything he did. When I believed in him despite everything and when I could have read an article like that and found some excuse for it, no matter now far-fetched. After the anger came the sadness at the realisation we are being forced to endure the demise of Neverland and everything it represents. Despite Michaels denials that nothing is changing, its becoming increasingly obvious Neverland is slowly being left behind. Piece by piece, its gradually being chipped away before our very eyes until pretty soon itll be reduced to dust; the dreams its captured and the secrets its kept buried forever in the rubble.

When I was a child, Neverland was everything to me. It wasnt merely Michael Jacksons home, it was fantasy itself. Magic danced along its flower beds and hope sang between its trees. It was escape and it was safety and it was heaven. And now, I need those qualities more than ever. I need something to believe in, something to cling to, something to convince me I still retain my once so comforting sense of hope. Yet all around me, all I can see is everything I once clung to so desperately being demolished right in front of my eyes.

I wish I could reach deep inside myself and find the defence for him which has always been so prevalent in the past. I wish the imagination I once held so dearly would come back and I wish my new-found pessimism didnt tell me Michael's closing down Neverland is a sign that Im not the only one whos lost their hope in the world.