make believe

love is real-life magic. it is made of the same dreams and imagination that animates and personifies fictional characters in stories, or stuffed animals you talk to when you're young. it is the ability to communicate invisibly and share secrets no one else understands. but sometimes it can take on the appearance of being very lonely.

two long-distance lovers communicating via satellite from opposite sides of the world look the same to an outside observer as a child playing with a toy: as i slump over my laptop camera talking to my boyfriend, my face inches away from the screen, i completely forget that we are not actually in the same room, that we are not actually inches away from one another's faces, that we are not actually holding each other but using our laptops as proxies. i can immerse myself in conversation for hours like this, emerging only later to resume life in all its ordinary ways.

i think love is one of those neotenous traits overlooked by the majority of the population because of its mythification in popular culture. that is, we fail to see how the make-believe of child's play can bear any resemblance to true love because we see one as childhood whimsy, while the other is considered one of those sacred "truths" holding society together. really, we must learn to accept that they are mirrors of the same belief, that something beautiful and magical can, must, exist beyond this ordinary surface.