What a day for a daydream

According to the job application I filled out earlier today, I would say that I daydream "about the same as an average person."

I think I lied a little bit.

I daydream a lot, actually. I daydream about my future. About what it'll be like to fall in love. I daydream about upcoming events, rewinding and revising all possible outcomes until I decide on either the most probable, if I'm feeling logical, or the one I'd prefer to occur, if I'm feeling more romantic and whimsical. I daydream about past events. In those daydreams, I say what I wish I had said or don't say what I wish I hadn't. I "fix" my mistakes and I alter the unfit actions of those around me. I allow my past to be a little more perfect than it actually is.

I never said it was healthy, ok?

It wasn't until recently that I actually considered this daydreaming. Mostly because, ironically enough, my imagination usually is most active at night. These fantastic tales were originally written in my head late at night when I couldn't sleep. Those nights when my brain was moving a mile a minute and I couldn't for even one second slow it to a stop so that I could just be. Not think. Not stress. Not worry. But be. Since I couldn't stop my brain from moving, I found ways for it to be thinking less chaotic thoughts. Ones that I had complete control over because I was the one writing the story, so to speak. I found it calming and relaxing. A way to decompress and squash the panicky feeling that often arose in my throat when I felt out of control or scared or confused.

And then they began to spill over into my daytime thoughts. They found their way into boring classes or slow shifts at work. I began to use daydreams to slow my brain when it sped to cut-time during the day, just as I did at night. I simultaneously accepted the fact that the elaborate tales woven on the immature, illogical, candy-sweet loom in my head wouldn't come to fruition and allowed the idealistic romantic in me to cross her fingers. And so the daydreams continued to silently creep into my waking thoughts. They were an army of ants marching single file--successful when there was no resistance, but easily squished when I had other things on my mind. But even after I'd squirted them with metaphorical Raid, a few crusty, weathered stragglers always remained, ready to march again.

And then, before I knew it, I was a daydreamer.