fantasyland

Everyone has fantasies. Maybe when you were small it was the fantasy of the purple bike with the flowered banana seat. Perhaps you even went so far as to imagine it with a basket.

Later, it was the fantasy of blue eyes when you had brown, or curly hair if you had straight. Fantasizing about being taller, thinner, prettier, smarter... We've all had some of those.

The college years, and maybe into your mid-twenties, we fantasized about the perfect job or perfect career. We obsessed about a guy or several guys, imagining what it would be like to be with them. Of course, the fantasy of taller, thinner, prettier and smarter still existed, it's just that the list of fantasies grew longer.

Then, when you found the right guy, it was fantasies with him -- your life together, what that life would be like, the imaginary kids you'd have in that fantastic fantasy life...

And now, having actually gotten a taste of some of the fantasies that you wished for, one finds themselves fantasizing about the life you had before it all. Not forever, mind you, just for a day or so, or maybe every now and then.

You know, where you fantasize about a guy you aren't going home to, in a life where there are no consequences or kids or laundry. A life where you go to the spa and the gym whenever you want and look fabulous, so that, even at your age, some guy might still fantasize about you.

But, as I wait to pick up my beloved real life smalls, who are no longer a fantasy, I wouldn't mind a couple of days of the other. A car's horn brings me back to reality, and perhaps, the torture of middle age...

Yet there is one constant : I still long to be taller, thinner, prettier and smarter.