Journal Theme: Imagination vs. Reality

From the journal of Madeline Sisson:

“Given time his dreams might have come true, and he might have found himself with the woman he loved, but the road was too long and it brought him nowhere.”

-My Love by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Appearances can be very misleading. Most of the time the facades that we are presented do not accurately represent what lies beyond the surface. As a teenager, specifically in high school, this is especially true. High school is a cesspool of labels, and archetypes that force us to rely on preconceived thoughts and ideas of who a person is before we even meet them.

In high school I was head over heels for a boy that I barely knew. We were in a theatre class together and these are the things that I knew about him: 1. His name was Jordan Wommack. And 2. He was the most attractive person that I had ever met. A few months into my freshman year I learned through a friend that Jordan was in a relationship with a girl named Jenna, and I was devastated, heart-broken, angry, and hurt. Reflecting upon this event now, I realize how far I had let my imagination run with Jordan. My reaction and feelings towards the event were utterly ridiculous, but I understand why they occurred. The reasoning behind the emotions that I exhibited were caused by my imagination and fantasy world that I allowed myself to create in regards to Jordan. I took one aspect of him that I perceived as perfect, his appearance and applied this sense of perfectness to all of his being.

The feelings that I encountered during my freshman year were very similar to those that the main character of “My Love” experiences towards the woman whose picture is above his desk. In his eyes she is perfect, but there are nearly no examples given to prove the fact that the woman is as perfect as he believes that she is. Because of this, I think that what is actually happening in this story is that the main character is unhappy with his life, and could imagine a life with this beautiful woman so much more perfect than his own.

I think that this occurrence of perceiving and imagining that a person is perfect simply because of how you view the surface of who they are takes place so very often in our lives. This strange happening is a representation of the parts of ourselves that can create a fantasy life for either themselves or someone else through our imagination.