My Imaginary Friend



Baboon Beanie Baby from my sister Sheryl



There is no dancing around it.  Those family members who know me closest already know my secret. I will tell you but please do not judge. I have no idea why I picked this to be my imaginary friend but I did. When I was three or four, my imaginary friend ... was a baboon. You can tell I was just the beacon of creativity as I named him ... Baboon. For a period of my young life, Baboon was my best friend.

Baboon would play games with me when my brother would not. He was VERY good at hide and seek. I always found him, although my family members never did. I used to leave Baboon gifts. I would make him cards and leave them for him in obvious places so my family would no they were not the only ones in my life! I had another friend and although he was a primate, he meant the world to me.

Baboon would also leave me gifts. Usually it was just a card with a banana drawn on the inside and signed Love, Baboon. I also gave him gifts. I would leave Baboon bananas in the piano, under the couch, and under my bed.  Baboon must have been on a diet as he never got around to eating them.  My mother would scream at the top of her lungs at the moldy bananas under the furniture.  She eventually would hide the bananas from me.

My sister Sheryl had Boo Boo, a bear, possible named after Yogi Bear's best friend. Boo Boo would play with my sister and often sit next to her. She stated that when Adam and I were infants, she, my Mom, my brother Adam, and I drove to the South Jersey Pine Barrens to release Boo Boo into the woods because it was time to move on from her imaginary friend. 

My sister and I wondered if my brother Adam ever had an imaginary friend. I know he had a stuffed frog. We don't think my brother had an imaginary friend though. For you see, at the young age of 3 to 5, Adam was already the epitome of confidence and a winner with the preschool/kindergarten ladies. My sister and I laughingly suffered from insecurities and a lack of self confidence during our childhood which forced us to seek solace in our imaginary friends.

So if your kids have imaginary friends, embrace them and allow them to play with your son or daughter. One day, the Boo Boo's or Baboon's of the imaginary world will get the hint and take off themselves, or be dropped off deep in the Pine Barrens in the middle of nowhere by well meaning parents.