Ten years — 22.2% of my life of forty-five years — was spent trying to figure my life out after the first time I had psychosis. These ten years have been grueling. Nothing seemed to go well, at least according to my mind. Even though I know there were many things that went well, many things I was happy about. But my mind digresses: you are still complaining about work, it says, you still have no interest in work. There are also all those self-help books, all that spirituality I’ve read, and none of it has helped me solve anything. Happiness is still far away. Contentment is still far away. Enjoyment from work is still far away.

So let’s ask the question directly: if I weren’t doing the work I’m doing now, what would I do — according to a mind that loves novel, rich, new things? A mind that keeps telling me happiness is over there, in cross-stitching, or singing, dancing, painting, drawing, learning an instrument, writing. I have everything I need for these so-called activities of happiness, and I hardly make an effort to do them.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, right? So, god damn it, why not take the single step. Something as simple as taking my ukulele out of its case. I don’t have to play it — just open the case. Every. Day. Something miraculous might happen. Or it might not. Have I even tried?

I’ve labeled myself as someone without much imagination. Even when I write, it’s all whining — I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that. Never a story about romance, or mystery, or something creative. I used to write well, had a wild imagination, when I was thirteen. Surely I must still possess that talent at forty-five. Right?

No. Everything needs to be nurtured, honed. Some amount of effort still has to go in. Everything I write is for an audience, never for my own enjoyment. You must enjoy what you want to do — another piece of bullshit. No — you may like it or you may not, and after that it’s habit and effort.

The medication. The other things — the flowing tao of life, the yin-yang movement of a person through midlife. Is all of it adding up to a self without imagination?

Where did the spirit of imagination go? Do we become so jaded as adults that it loses its magic? As adults, we judge ourselves harshly. Accepting that this is simply the process of life means seeing the disappointment head-on.

What brings imagination back, if it can be brought back? I don’t agree with reliving childhood memories, or rereading the things I already saw a thousand times as a kid. Maybe it’s a bug in me — a defect, self-imposed, that doesn’t need fixing because it works as expected. Can you see the QA background?

So I came up with a short story.

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Tim was an imaginative kid. He meets his disgruntled, middle-aged uncle. Tim’s Uncle Walter — every time he saw Tim’s enthusiasm about becoming an astronaut, or a pilot, or an animation artist — would falter a little. Oh, how nice it must be to be a kid again. Walter would remember how he, too, was once a bright and imaginative kid, certain he’d grow up to be a dancer, or sing ballads and pop songs in a band. But jaded as he was, Walter never wanted to ruin Tim’s enthusiasm, so he never tried to put down Tim’s inquisitive mind.

Instead, Walter tried to learn from Tim. He listened to Tim’s tales of adventure, paid attention, and answered Tim’s questions with as much imagination as he, at forty-five, could still summon. But he began noticing the limiting thoughts creep in — you’re forty-five, why are you daydreaming, making up answers for a child? You can’t possibly imagine the way Tim does. Stop daydreaming, Walter. You have work tomorrow. There’s a project coming up. Bills to pay. A house to keep in order.

Walter started noticing these thoughts — and noticing that they were limiting thoughts. A cause of his own low mood, because he had believed them. He’d thought life was simply this way. But answering Tim’s questions made him feel enthusiastic again.

So Walter decided to visit Tim every Sunday, for an hour, to answer his questions each week. He knew Tim would eventually grow up and move on to other things — but while Tim was still imagining, Walter wanted to imagine too.

Walter pictured himself a pop singer, like Bruno Mars, collaborating with other artists — writing his own music, learning guitar, learning piano. Every time he visited Tim, or drifted into his own world of imagination, Walter began to feel lively again.

Imagination doesn’t need to stop when you’re no longer a kid. Imagination keeps you wondering.

So I tell myself, as I write this story after a Sunday evening of whining before work: congratulations on a topic — and a story — that is near and dear to you, Mayumi.