Jubilee Ranara

Greetings! Join the discussion to read about my story titled, The Dragon’s Lair. If you have some tips or advice on what I might have done better, feel free to share in the comments; I’m really curious about this because as a kid, there were always times when I wanted to be just like Javi, but I was even more excited about seeing his face and playing with him. Always full of wonder, I used to keep one item in my lunch every day, a fake dragon mask that made me think I was being featured as the princess from that fantastic book- making another doll wouldn’t be nearly as fun. I often kept my excitement for the unknown low since it could be so interesting to be only an illusion and it could drive a huge amount of enthusiasm. But, I would somehow always end up experiencing a profound change in myself. The mask got cut out and was replaced by the real thing, which I didn’t know was a real thing and never knew that there was something other than actual imagination at work. The shadow was gone completely and I moved from imagination to reality. Here’s where everything began to change for me. I knew that the moment I went back to having things set in perspective and thinking about it rather than feeling overwhelmed by it. The shadow was gone, I had found an invisible friend who became my biggest ally. I started to stop worrying about overthinking things and relax and let go of the way I had been spending my energy trying to make things “smart”. For the first time in my life, I was okay with what I saw and felt. When I walked out of the house for the first time in many years, I took my imaginary mask with me knowing that it would be the best thing that ever happened to me. I returned to the busyness of daily living, but instead of staring ahead blankly, I tried to figure out how I could be more productive and effective.

The only thing I had to look forward to coming into my new reality was social media. To make sure that I was still entertaining, I no longer watched TV, but instead, picked up Internet-related books and magazines to discover the interests of my very own world. Occasionally, I would put my real mask under my desk to get out the newspaper and see what was on the internet.