The Real and the Unreal

Four years ago I was someone else.  I had a different name.  A different life. The grief over my divorce was a black sky that loomed over everything.
The new me felt like a fraud at first. A pretender. Now it seems like the married me, the wife, was the illusion--a cardboard cutout with a cardboard husband.  The new reality feels so much brighter.

Ontological Boy

I visited my grandchildren this past weekend, and the youngest, a boy of four, seems to be a budding philosopher. "Hello Jake Skywalker," I said as we sat at the kitchen table with a box full of Star Wars toys. I had Obi-Wan  Kenobi in my hand, and I wiggled the plastic figure  around and made him talk with a deep voice. My grandson laughed and told me his full name. "Not Skywalker," he said. And then he went on. "Luke Skywalker is fake. I'm real. Obi-Wan Kenobi is fake. You're real."
Later on in life he may find out that some "real" people are actually fake. But for now nobody's pulling the wool over this boy's eyes.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia