BlogSecret-THE SECRET IS HERE!

My lovely friend Holly over at The Adventures of Holly is hosting:

As a blogsecret participant, I e-mailed my secret to Holly and it will be appearing on another blog with no connection to me. I also get the honor of posting someone else's secret here on my blog. The quoted post is not my secret, but rather someone else's. I have no idea who's secret this is, but they do know their secret is appearing on my blog. In turn, I know where my secret is appearing as well. I can't share because it wouldn't be a secret anymore :)

"I used to have terrible insomnia as a child. It would literally take me hours to fall asleep. Some nights I would just sit in my bed and cry. It was pretty terrible. I counted sheep, I memorized the alphabet in reverse, the names of the seven dwarfs... I had a lot of boring nights.

Then my mom told me I should try making up stories. At first I thought it was a really stupid idea, but then I realized I already made up stories when I was awake. I had many imaginary friends, characters really, that I filmed imaginary TV shows with. I really wanted to be an actress. I always knew they weren't real though. My stuffed animals had feelings, but my imaginary friends were just to keep me company.

I was a witch with magical powers. I used to hang out with the gang from Saved By the Bell a lot. Oh did I have a crush on Mark Paul Gosselaar. I imagined we could communicate telepathically so I wouldn't look silly talking to myself. These fantasies became by bedtime stories.

As I grew up, Mark was replaced by my crush of the week and the stories became more sophisticated. This went on until I had my first boyfriend. After dating a real guy, I didn't want to go on imaginary dates with my imaginary boyfriends anymore. He became the subject of my bedtime stories, until we broke up. Then I was really confused. I didn't want an imaginary boyfriend, I wanted a real boyfriend. It made me depressed. I wasn't upset over losing this guy, I was upset over losing my friends. When the only thing you have to help you sleep is taken away like that, it's tough.

Eventually, I started making up stories again, but it wasn't quite the same. Soon after, I met my next boyfriend who has had a staring role in all of my adventures every since. Mostly Sci-Fi oriented. There are certain actors who make appearances every once in a while too ;)

I remember an episode of Growing Pains that freaked the hell out of me when I was a kid. The parents were talking about their kid's imaginary friend and then about the ones they had. The dad then turns and speaks to his imaginary friend, as a joke. The whole scene made me very uncomfortable. I'm not sure if it was the revealing of something very personal that made me upset or the realization that one day, I wouldn't have imaginary friends anymore. I was always afraid of growing up.

I don't have imaginary friends like I did when I was a child, but I still have my stories that put me to sleep every night.

Am I the only one?"