It's probably just all in my head

A few weeks ago, older sister Susan Renee asked me about my imaginary friend. SR had read a  novel about a young woman who found herself warming to an imaginary friend who had "come to live" with her nephew. Remembering that I had had an imaginary playmate when I was small, SR lent me the book and asked what I remembered about my experience.

The main thing I remember, of course, was that his name was Nicrolas. ("We" pronounced it rather like "nick-rah-lus.") I don't remember whether I "met" Nicrolas before or after I discovered that my cousin Nicky's "real" name was Nicholas, but I do remember thinking it odd that "my" Nick had such a similar name. (I never adjusted to calling my cousin "Nick" instead of "Nicky," and I don't think I ever dreamed of calling my friend anything but "Nicrolas." Nicky and I didn't see each other much after we reached teenage, and I suppose that my imaginary friend's more formal name may have mirrored the double name I always used.) Other than some possible tie to Nicky's name, I don't have a clue where his odd name came from.

I have only vague memories of my friendship with Nicrolas. The house where I grew up had a long front walk that ended in a small "bridge" across the front ditch. (I don't recall the sidewalk ever being "whole"; it appeared to me as if it had once been a solid strip of concrete that had been broken into erratic "tiles."  The odd shapes of the concrete bits with grass growing between them made the little bridge—which was maybe 2 ft x 3 ft—seem big and solid to a 4-year-old.) My clearest memory of Nicrolas is the two of us standing on the side of the bridge, "fishing" in the ditch after one of the city's visits to dredge it out. Why I spent so many hours fishing with Nicrolas is beyond me unless I thought he was a lot of fun; I don't remember ever being fond of fishing since then.

I remember playing with him on the walk, hopping from tile to tile so we wouldn't step on the cracks. We used to ride my tricycle together (he always made me pedal) on the old gravel drive—we weren't allowed on the street. I remember building castles in the sandbox. In short, I remember doing with him the same things I did on my own or with my brothers and sisters or with my cousins on their weekend visits. Having Nicrolas meant I got to do them with my friend.

And Nicrolas might not have been my first imaginary friend. I'm pretty sure that any "memory" I might have of the incident is really a false memory built on what my mother said, but she told me more than once about my sitting on the floor near her sewing machine, talking into a box. When she asked me what I was doing, I explained to her that I was talking to Jesus, who was in the box. I never really knew why she liked to tell that story except that I think she thought it meant I had already developed a relationship with Jesus that made her proud; in retrospect, I may have developed an imaginary friend but just didn't have enough imagination to come up with an original name for him. (Or her. In retrospect, I wonder why my imaginary friends would have been boys.) Or maybe I sensed that mother would be more comfortable with me talking with Jesus than with me talking to, well, a box...

SR suggested that maybe having an imaginary friend indicated a level of creativity, but I don't see that as happening. The entries in my blog are probably enough testimony that I'm willing to write about things I know but not too big on fiction; I think that's why I turned to journalism and technical writing for a career instead of attempting the great American novel. In journalism school, my profs referred to journalistic writing as "an art and a craft," and while I've thought for a long time that I'm okay with the "craft" of it, I leave a lot to be desired in the "art." So I don't think in my case an imaginary friend says much about creativity.

As I read the novel, I occasionally ran across thoughts that resonated with me about the kind of people who had imaginary friends. (Naturally, normally when I found them, I didn't have the resources at hand to record them.) A couple of them stuck with me: one was that kids with imaginary friends might feel "trapped inside their own heads"; another was that they might feel a need for affirmation or attention that they're not getting.

Both of those have some possibility in my case, at least. I read once that our earliest memories start to stick with us about the time we learn to read, so my memories of Nicrolas are really pretty vague; SR recalls that I was maybe 4 or 5, which would have been about the time I was learning to read, and it would also have been around the time my younger brother was born. Joe Duck's birth made me the fourth of five children, and the potential that I might have felt lonely and underappreciated is probably pretty good.The neighborhood we lived in was relatively isolated, and there were seldom children my age around, so having a friend at all mostly meant that I had to make them up. My older siblings were approaching teenage and involved in "big kid" activities and my younger one was the new baby, so I'm sure they all seemed to need more attention than me.

I also have pretty solid memories of asking my mother why I didn't get attention I thought I deserved; I was pretty good at the Younger Child's Complaint: "Why does [older child] always get everything?" to which the reply was typically, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." I guess I just never developed the talent for being the squeaky wheel.

But I've also come to believe that that may have been less a reality than I recall. I do remember asking at various times why she wouldn't volunteer to help out with my Girl Scout troop, be my class room mother, or do any of those other "parenting" activities, to which she replied that she had already done them with the older kids and she didn't need to do them for me. In retrospect, that's probably reasonable; she saw it as having served her share of the time to scouts and schools, although I saw it as having given her time for the older kids and mostly ignoring me.

That, of course, comes at least partly from the other side of the equation: that sense of feeling "trapped inside my own head." The older siblings left the nest about the time I reached teenage, leaving only JD and me. Like SR, JD was gregarious and bright and always involved in something, so mother and daddy proudly indulged his every activity—mostly to his chagrin. While I was "trapped inside my head" and feeling sorry for myself for not getting more attention, JD was grateful for the relative lack of interference in his life and maybe even a bit stifled by the attention he did get.

I've seen a suggestion that children who have imaginary friends might develop language skills earlier or faster than children who don't, but I rather doubt that. In a family of six or seven, I had plenty of exposure to language to mean that I would have developed language skills whether I had an imaginary friend or not. If anything, I'd think it was my language skills that allowed me to give my imaginary friend words. Besides, I've studied Spanish off and on over the years, and I'm pretty sure my attempts to practice my Spanish on my own have been mostly counterproductive; I can't imagine that practicing language with my imaginary friend would have done much more than exacerbate any language weaknesses I might have had.

I've also seen a suggestion that imaginary friends might help children develop social skills, but that's not so likely in my case, either—witness the fact that I've never had more than a handful of friends, I was unsuccessful at marriage, and I typically have to be dragged out of my house to keep from holing up like a mole. I may be trapped inside my own head, but I've sort of grown accustomed to it and it doesn't eat on me anymore. Alone doesn't have to mean lonely; I've just figured out how to feel less trapped by living in my head.