my bubble
alt title; unchanged
At seven years old, I’d scream and sob whenever my parents left the house. If I could not see one of my parents or my sister, I was confident they were dead. Car accident, heart attack, mass shooter, in my mind, my family died hundreds of times. I’d sit crying in the driveway, waiting for mom to return from the grocery store in the evening. If I was awake before dad left for work, I’d tug on his dress shirt, begging him to stay home with us. One night, I had a nightmare my toddler sister died, and I went to her room and sat by her bed watching her sleep until the morning. Before being pulled out of school, I’d cry every morning from being separated from my mom, who was a classroom aid only two doors down. Object permanence plagued my mind, my family being picked off like chess pieces each time they disappeared from my sight.
It wasn’t just my parents and sister, although they were the ones I cried about most. My grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles and neighbors, childhood best friends and classmates and my kindergarten teacher. My imagination circled the worst scenario like a hawk overhead, unable to break free from the obsessive thoughts that everyone I loved was crying or dying or dead.
In my mind, I created a fantasy, a solution to all of my anxieties. I had a bubble. Like Glinda the Good Witch, my bubble was pink and glittered with the magic of holding us safely inside. Inside my bubble, in a castle and garden, lived all of my family and loved ones. Each household had a wing, and each person had a room. In the bubble, no one got sick or got older, no one could die. We didn’t need medicine or doctors, (thankfully, because I didn’t know any doctors and my bubble wouldn’t allow strangers). We cooked meals together and gardened together and had a playground and library to spend our time in. My kindergarten teacher would teach us in the garden so we could still learn. We ate all our favorite foods. Outside dangers of bad guys couldn’t get us. There were no cars. Every day would be the same. No one had to go to work or school. No one had to leave. No one could leave. It was my personal heaven in a pink glittery hue through the light from the bubble.
One day, in a stream of tears and sobs, as my grandma and grandpa dropped me off back at home after going to the park together, I confessed my fantasy to my mom. I told her about the pink glittery bubble and the castle and how we could all live together. How all of the people I loved and cared about would be in one place, accounted for and safe, forever. Maybe, it would sound like a good idea to her, too. Maybe, my fantasy could come true.
“But what about their loved ones?”
What?
“Well, your kindergarten teacher has her own family and loved ones too, shouldn’t we invite them?”
Okay, I guess, there might be room.
“And your cousins have other cousins too, cousins you haven’t met before. Will there be room for them?”
But I don’t know them. What if they are too loud?
“Shouldn’t we invite grandma’s sister’s family from Indiana?”
That’s a lot of people I don’t know-
“Come to think of it, in a way, everyone is connected, everyone in the whole world. It’s almost as if the whole world should be in the bubble, don’t you think?”
No, because then it’s not safe!
“We are safe, Charley. We don’t need to go in a bubble.”
Yes, we do!
“Charley, just pretend the whole world is already in the bubble! That might make you feel better.”
It did not. If the whole world was my bubble then there would be cars. And sickness. And people I don’t know.
The fantasy fell apart.
I still think about my pink bubble, the logistics, and holes poked into the magical surface, popping the glittering safety over our castle. I’d be lying if I said that I never escaped there still, to the castle library and garden where no one can hurt or touch the things and people I love, where everything is predictable and clear and accounted for. When change outside of me threatens to pop the safety of my fantasy, I find myself falling deeper into it, escaping into the worlds between pages, hoping that when I return outside my pink haven, everything will be unchanged.
the glossary is a free publication. If you would like to support my writing and are in a position to do so, please consider a paid monthly subscription or a one-time contribution to the little tip jar. All interactions with my work are deeply appreciated; thank you for reading!