When I was a kid, I had imaginary parents. My real parents were neglectful and abusive, so I created parents in my head. I would daydream about having been adopted, and wondering if there was a mom and a dad who would really care out there looking for me. Although I knew that wasn't the case, I would imagine what they would be like, and how they would treat me. And I always wanted my own parents to treat me like that. So I would try to be as good as I could be and act like those parents would want me to act. But I was always making mistakes, and I couldn't make my own parents do what I imagined.

I would imagine that they found me and came and took me away. And that they would love me and pay attention to me, and would regret having given me up. I imagined that they would be upset about the people that I ended up with and they promised that they wouldn't ever have given me up if they had known. They thought they were doing something good for me, though, when they did.

I would imagine my conversations with them when I felt bored or lonely and didn't have anything to do. Or when something happened that I wanted to talk about, I would talk to them.

I didn't fully drop it as a fantasy until I was in college and had to get a copy of my birth certificate in order to get my drivers permit. I remember being a little scared of what it would say (since I know that adoptive birth certificates are different from non-adoptive ones), and yet knowing what it would say and trying not to let myself get too disappointed. I still remember being really disappointed that my fantasy was false.

I kind of wish I remembered more about them. I don't remember whether I had a mental picture of them or much about them. Once I knew for sure it wasn't real, I sort of killed them off (if that makes sense). They stopped existing because I couldn't pretend with that little shred of potential hope anymore. I guess by that time I didn't need them so much anymore, either.