A Bitter Discovery

Childhood is precarious, nebulous, like fog. Only in hindsight can we really recognize it, it's boundaries, it's successes and failures, it's defining moments. As a kid you have no idea what experiences will turn out to be informative, what incidents will turn out to shape you, what events you'll carry with you.

One late fall/early winter evening when I was seven my dad and I went to my grandma's to visit. We stayed a bit later than I was use to and got tired. I went to go sleep in the back of our van as my dad was finishing up his conversation with his mother. For a long time I thought what happened next was an accident. But as I reflect on it now I'm not so sure.

I was drowsing in the way way back and my dad thought I was asleep. My grandma asked him what he'd gotten me for Christmas, presumably not wanting to overlap any gifts, and he replied "LEGO Dungeon Master's Castle". Wow, I thought, that was a very large lego castle from their medieval line, totally awesome and exactly what I had wanted. So cool! But. a couple weeks later when Christmas came around I opened all my family presents and the Dungeon Master's Castle was no where to be found. I was confused. Had my dad lied to my grandma? Where was my Dungeon Master's Castle? I was disappointed but I knew enough not to say anything.

The next morning Santa came and low and behold he brought me the fabled Dungeon Master's Castle. I had enough presents of mine to be excited and fawn all over everything Santa brought me but later in the day when I had some time to puzzle it out I knew the truth. It made me sad and in that moment I decided I wouldn't believe it, I would continue to act as if and maybe if I did it hard enough, convincing enough, I would be able to believe again.

But I may not have been drowsy. I may have been deliberately feigning sleep specifically to overhear potential Christmas presents. I was deceitful and I got burned. This little bit of magic was snuffed out because I couldn't leave it alone, because I was being a self involved brat, because I had to spoil the surprise, I couldn't wait I had to know. And the premmature knowledge I received lead to a painful shattering of belief and perhaps that was just. Fair punishment for a child's crime.

Whether it was deliberate or accidental(I can't remember, both seem plausible) I learned a lesson. As much as people pound the drum of truth, sometimes it's better simply not to know. Sometimes belief is easier in the absence of cold inert fact.