April 30, 2013
Vorstellen. This is probably one of my favorite words in
German. Why? Because it means to introduce yourself to someone and also to
imagine. Imagination is a crazy ability. As children we are all gifted with it,
but for some as we get older that capability becomes smaller and smaller. For me,
I have been blessed with a groß Vorstellung.
Growing up I occasionally wished that I had an older sister
to help me with my fashion sense, or to get cool hand-me downs. But in the end,
I’m glad that I was the only girl. I could entertain myself for hours and days
on end. Just my imagination and me. My imagination took all sorts of forms. I
could spend hours playing house or school with my little brother. Occasionally
I would let him join in my story with Barbie and Ken. He would bring his GI
Joes, but that arrangement would only last a few hours as he would not play
along “correctly” with the story.
See here’s how my imagination works (a little glimpse into
the vast expanse I call a brain)… I would come up with a story, usually one
that focused on a girl who surprisingly looked like me. Then I would spend my
days playing with some sort of medium to carry out that story, whether it was
with my dolls, dress-up clothes, or gel pens. And that story would continue to
evolve in my every waking moment. I would daydream about this story, think
about it when I was taking a shower, all the way to thinking about it before I
fell asleep. With the amount of time and details that I would put into each
story, I wish some could be turned into movies or books. Even when I did chores
around the house, I would come up with a story. Some times I would be a modern
Cinderella. Other times I would be the owner of a hotel.
However, this ability to imagine myself in a different life
or situation didn’t die as I got older. I did see it start to change though. No
longer could a story of Ken and Barbie entertain me for days on end. Instead I
was imagining what life would look like if I lived in an exotic place…say
Germany for example. However, I would imagine all of these elaborate stories
and although most I knew never would come true, some of my stories were things
that I wish would happen. Like how I wished someone would ask me to prom, or
how I wanted a situation to work out with a friend. However, when life didn’t
go as I imagined it, it was disappointing. I know that I should have known
better, but my idyllic, fantasy mindset on life would overrule my rational
thinking.
I know that because of my imagination I sometimes have an
unrealistic view of life. I believe in the ideal and life doesn’t work like
that. Even when I listen to certain songs, a little bit of me believes that my
life could be like that.
Before I came to Germany, I made sure not to imagine
anything about it, because I knew that I would be disappointed when what I
imagined didn’t come true. Unlike Mountain Lake, I knew that I couldn’t go with
an intention of falling in love with a prince or the equivalent. However, my
experience here has been even better than what I could have imagined. Since
I’ve been here, I have let my imagination run wild in some situations,
especially since I had all day at my internship staring at a computer. What I
have imagined has not come true, like usual, but what has come to be has been
amazing. It’s not what I would have imagined for myself, but it has been an
experience that was well worth living.
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