Do You Remember Your Imaginary Friend?

It's 2023. Do you know where your imaginary friend is?

As strange as it sounds, at the ripe old age of 50, I remember my imaginary friends well. I had 2, unlike my siblings, who all had one.

My sisters actually shared their IF (imaginary friend), which I'm finding is more common than one may think. We'll come back to that later.

The friend I saw the most was Angel. She was my size and age and probably looked just like me.

She was my playmate, confidant, and comforter when I was scared or lonely. We explored my world together back then.

Guardy was the watcher.

His appearance frequently changed, which always cracked me up.

Today, we'd probably call him a shape-shifter. I'd catch him sitting on the roof or up in a tree. Sometimes, I thought he was mad that I caught him, but that was the game.

I remember seeing him as a soldier sitting on my roof, a Brave with his face painted and a giant headdress on his head, a crazy-looking woodland creature that scared me, or just a shadow of a figure.

I used to blame him for things I'd get accused of. I'm still trying to figure out why I used to throw Guardy under the bus like that. I recall giving him the credit for some of my more outlandish schemes that got me in trouble. The phrase, "but Guardy did it," used to really annoy my mother!

I had plenty of friends my age in my neighborhood, so I'm unsure why I needed two imaginary friends. My siblings and I were blessed to live in a beautiful community with big backyards and hardly any fences. Most of the houses had multiple children of all ages living in them. There was always someone around to hang out with. Our mothers spoke to each other on the phone, so nobody got away with anything. When the streetlights came on at dusk, it was time to come in for dinner.

With all the activity on my street, it's a wonder I had time for imaginary friends, but I remember talking about my Guardy and Angel throughout elementary school.

As I mentioned, I was not the only one in my family with friends that no one else could see. My aunt was fascinated by this phenomenon, so she interviewed us all as children and wrote about us. I'm happy that she did. Otherwise, many details of my sibling's IFs may need to be remembered.

My Oldest sister Jane's IF's name was Camallie, and the second oldest seemed to share her friend because her IF's name was Camallie-Camallie. Recently, my oldest sister and I were at a church retreat at a convent. A woman also attending felt the burning need to tell my sister that she sensed that Jane had mighty angels guarding and guiding her. She said there was also an association of a fist holding up a sword with this angelic vision. Kind of woo-woo, I know. But so is my topic.

Out of curiosity, I googled angels with swords and found the archangel Camael! No way! As in Camille? My sister has a Guardian Angel, too!

My brother's IF's name was Engine Joe. I believe he was a Brave but could have been a train conductor. As far as I know, he always looked the same to my brother. As the youngest, with five years of distance between me and my 'Irish triplet' siblings, I'm at a disadvantage since I wasn't around for their adventures with IFs.

However, I'm told my brother loved Western things as a wee one. I heard he'd go out in his cowboy boots... and only his cowboy boots, until my mother got the calls from the other neighborhood moms! It makes sense to me that Joe was a Native American.

It is interesting how the children in some families tend to have IFs while others don't. I don't remember other kids in my neighborhood having them (but I'm old and forgetful, so I could be wrong). I did meet other kids in school who had them.

I never thought the IFs that the kids in my family had were similar in any way until very recently. Since then, I have started having some fun hypotheses for a novel.

So, I jumped down a rabbit hole that seemed somewhat picturesque at the time.

See, that's the thing about rabbit holes. They are never what you think they're going to be. They are undoubtedly surprising. But boy, are they fun!

So my burning question to you, dear reader, is this: Did you have an imaginary friend? What do you remember about them? Did any other kids in your family have one? My advice is to let yourself remember, peel back a few decades, and feel young again.

Leave me a comment about your imaginary friend! I really want to know what you remember.