Figments of my imagination

Everyone (or almost everyone, some people could've just been really hardcore little kids I suppose) can remember spending sleepless nights after watching a scary movie when they were young. I also remember asking my mom either before or after such an episode why this never seemed to happen to grown-ups. She replied because adults had much more pressing and scary things to worry about that were real. I didn't totally believe it at the time, what could be scarier than the fears I could make real in my head? Reality was at least bound by some limits, my imagination was boundless.

But it turned out to be totally true, of course. All the worries and responsibilities that come with growing up soon far overshadowed the imaginary fears of childhood. I wondered is that what maturity is--the acceptance of the real over the imagined? Yet the imagined is sometimes more real than reality, I don't want to let go of that completely. 

A verse I came across recently while reading something else struck me and I think it's an important expression of something I try to keep in mind related to this: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18. We all worry about these things in our lives but ultimately, should these worries trump the intangibles of our selves?

I don't regret that I no longer lose sleep over scary movies and I even catch myself thinking exactly what my mother told me all those years ago, 'How can those things be scary when there's so many immediately real things I have to worry about everyday already?' Thinking this way is necessary, even. But I'm also glad there are still times when it's hard to distinguish between dreams and reality. And I hope I'll always be a dreamer.

I'm a little frustrated at the imperfect expression of myself, and I think there's more I want to say. Maybe I'll work on it a bit more when I don't have the frightening prospect of having to do journal staring me in the face. That's ironic.