When I was a child, Saturdays were special. They were the days when I could escape from the world inside my little head and enter the expansive one beyond our front porch. It was always on Saturdays that Samuel came to visit—this wonderful friend who seemed to know more about everything than even the adults around me.
I remember how my mother would smile and nod when I spoke of my adventures with him. She would pat my head, softening the boundaries of reality for me, perhaps understanding more than I gave her credit for. For years, I assumed Samuel existed only for me, a secret shared between my imagination and the daydreams of childhood.
It wasn’t until later, when I was older, when those Saturdays ceased to exist in a puff of reason, that I started questioning. Friends at school laughed at the stories I shared, gently dismissing them as the fantasies of an overactive mind. My teachers would encourage my flights of fancy but always grounded them back to what they called “reality.” But what did they know? They never met Samuel.
Years passed, and the weight of adolescence settled heavily on my shoulders. Realities of high school, responsibilities, and the need for social belonging crowded out the vast spaces where Samuel and I once spent our days. People called it growing up. I found the phrase bitter, its edges cutting into the simplicity I once knew.
Samuel faded into the recesses of my mind, like echoes in an empty room. It was only when I’d lie awake at night, staring at shadows on the ceiling, that I’d sense his quiet presence. A whisper of who I used to be, perhaps. But during the day, I strutted about with all the false confidence youth affords.
It wasn’t until I was at university, sitting among peers who all seemed so brilliantly confident and sure, that I felt that familiar emptiness return—a hollow feeling carved out by loss, but loss of what I did not know. I missed the days when my world was both complicated and simple, shaped by pretend heroes and imagined escapes.
One cold winter night, while walking back from class, the moon hung low like a soliloquy, and a light snow fell, blanketing every edge, turning the world monochrome. It was then that I felt something shift within. I stopped in the quiet street, drawn by a sudden wave of memory so vivid it was almost tangible. A laughter, bouncing off building walls, soft enough to be missed but loud enough for me to wonder.
Back in the warmth of my small apartment, I stared at the steam rising from my mug of tea, trying to reconcile why I felt this pull towards days long gone. In the silence, I allowed the memories to come, inviting the company I had shut out for far too long. Maybe, it was loneliness. Maybe, it was my mind seeking comfort in the familiar when reality seemed too daunting.
The next morning, driven by an impulse I hadn’t felt in years, I called my mother. We talked about everything and nothing, skirting the edges of what I truly wanted to ask. Before ending the call, I heard my voice, uneven and raw, asking if she remembered Samuel—the boy who filled my Saturdays so many years ago. There was a pause, a shuffle of sound like the crinkle of pages, before her voice came back, warm and steady.
She told me she remembered those days fondly, how she saw me light up with stories and happiness each time Samuel was around. But then, she shared a truth so quietly spoken that it took a moment to absorb. Samuel never existed outside my imaginings, she said, speaking gently but plainly.
The words crashed over me, not as a revelation, for deep down I always knew, but as a confirmation of a thing I had feared acknowledging. Samuel was never real, yet he was the most substantial part of my childhood world. I thanked my mother, her presence a balm even through the phone, and we hung up, leaving me with a silence that felt different, lighter somehow.
As I sat there, mind unravelling years of intertwined fantasy and fact, I realized the profound gift an imaginary friend had given me. Samuel was a part of my life, a companion who filled the voids others couldn’t see, who made loneliness less sharp and the world a little more magical. And although he may have existed only within the spaces of my mind, what he taught me about friendship, creativity, and acceptance were more real than anything else.
I learned that reality doesn’t always conform to the tangible. Sometimes, the things we hold closest are those we cannot touch or measure. This realization, though simple, carried with it a depth that grounded me in a way nothing else had. I found peace in the acknowledgment of my past imaginary world, not as something to outgrow or forget, but as a cornerstone of who I became.
As I moved forward, leaving the comforts of university for the unpredictable paths beyond, I took with me the lessons those years taught me. The acceptance that my imagination fueled not only my childhood but continued to guide my creativity and resilience as an adult. Samuel was never real; they were right. But the impact of having had him in my life was unmistakably true.
Those Saturdays have long since slipped into stories I tell myself when I yearn for simpler times. I’ve come to see that sometimes the greatest escapes aren’t ones we take alone, but those crafted by love and imagination, transcending what we call real. I cherish them still, an endless field I can visit whenever the world feels too heavy, knowing that what I carry from those moments shapes the reality I live in today.
