It would be fair to say that I tend to be a little over dramatic. (Mom, I know you just spit tea on your computer) Ok, maybe a little more than just a little. But I don’t really see it as being dramatic, I just feel like I am a very passionate person and care really deeply when things don’t happen how I want them too. And I just need to react when those things don’t happen my way.
Ok, fine. Hi, my name is Jen and I am a drama queen.
But I need to get something straight. I don’t like dealing with other people’s drama just my own. Like I said, I am passionate, I can’t help it.
I have been this way for as long as I can remember. Like when I was about 7 or 8, I took piano lessons. I liked the lesson part and playing the piano but I didn’t like practicing and I especially didn’t like practice with the metronome. My mom, like any mom, made me practice and use the metronome.
I hated this so one day, I decided to through a fit and my mom told me to go to my room which I did but while in my room, I ripped my lesson book, bit the metronome so it would no longer work and then proceeded to bite the insides of my cheeks till blood was pouring out of my mouth.
Then I went out of my room and told my mom that I was going to go to the cops and tell them that she hit me till I bled. This was child abuse and I would be taken from her. She would no longer be able to control me and make me practice.
Yup, this was all over practicing piano. See, I told you I had a thing for drama.
But I didn’t always use my flare for drama for evil. When I was growing up my favorite thing to do was make up stories and then act/play them out. I loved playing pretend.
Growing up, I lived on a cul-de-sac. And on our cul-de-sac were neighbors, most of whom had children my age. These kids were my ‘players’ in all my stories. I remember spending hours all summer playing out these elaborate stories that I came up with.
We would pretend our street was a highway and all of us on our bikes were traffic. Each driveway was a store or a bank or a house. Some of us were police men and others were bad people that the police had to chase down and put in jail. We had to make sure to use our turn signals aka hands as we turned out on the highway and obey the speed limit.
We would pretend that our yard and a neighbor’s yard was the ocean and we were all mermaids and our princes were captured by an evil sea witch (can you tell ‘The Little Mermaid’ was my favorite movie?). We would run all around ‘battling’ evil creatures to save the princes. And of course, we wore our bathing suit tops to do this.
We would pretend to be dancers. We would turn my parents garage into a dance studio by pulling every mirror we could get out and lining them up along the wall. We would play songs on the two CD’s I owned over and over again and make up routines to them.
We would pretend that we were going to be the richest kids on the block. We set up a Kool Aid stand, yes on our cul-de-sac, and were going to sell enough Kool Aid to be able to send all of us to college and then some. We had a name for our company and a slogan. “BJS: The Koolest and the Best!”
We would pretend to be teachers. We were going to teach our younger siblings so well that they wouldn’t need to go to real school, ever. We set up desks and made handouts. Our siblings were going to be the smartest ever.
I am not going to even start on all the stories that I made up with my Barbies but let’s just say that I paid attention to my mom’s soap opera’s when I was suppose to be coloring and used them for my inspiration in my Barbie stories.
Even though, I have all but quit my pretend play these stories still run around in my head. And someday, I hope to be able to bring my stories to life and pretend play again but this time my ‘players’ will be my kids.
But I think that I am going to skip all the soap opera stuff.
This post is part of Writer’s Workshop hosted by Mama Kat.
Related posts:
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
You are so creative. I remember when you were telling Hayden about his toy playing outside and when it was winter he’d be ready to come back in. This is why you are such a great Mom. You are using your creativity to help your kids. How awesome is that!
[Reply]
That’s a whole lot of imagination. Very cool. I think the best kids had the best made up games.
[Reply]
I can totally relate. I’m considered the dramatic one in my family but I always say that I’m just passionate!!
[Reply]
I grew up in the midst of so much drama – that I avoided it, didn’t like it. I kind of felt that the people ratcheting up the drama missed out on the realness of life, the beauty in the simplicity – Not in your case, but in my life. Drama does have a place that can be so inspiring – but it’s the foundation of your spirit that makes drama into something like that:)
[Reply]
Ha ha ha!! You and I would have gotten along GREAT as kids. I also had a pretend school for my little brother. At first I named it the “Do It Right School”, but then I figured out he couldn’t always do everything right so I renamed it the “Do It Now School.” Hee hee!
And oh my word, your poor mother. Hopefully your little ones have less of a flair for the dramatic!
[Reply]
I can be quite dramatic myself. And I have a huuuge imagination.
My daughter is definately dramatic. I don’t remember being as dramatic as she is but my Mom was all, “Oh, you were.” Oh.
[Reply]
Oh! I totally remember playing like that, esp the part about playing in the garage with mirrors on the wall and dancing… although I am CLEARLY older than you because we were playing RECORDS in my friend’s garage
[Reply]
I’m not really the drama queen in the family. My sister, now, that girl has a flair for histrionics. I do love making up stories, though, and we did the little performances when I was a kid. Of the shows we forced our parents to sit and watch. I hope my daughter does that kind of stuff.
[Reply]
I crack up listening to my twins acting out the craziest things. They are especially great these days at the death scenes. They are practically obsessed!
I can’t get over you biting your cheeks over piano practice! All in the name of art! Now that’s dedication!
[Reply]
I guess creative people are really passionate. I was very much a drama queen when I grew up, and yes, there were times when my parents weren’t too happy with me. Somehow they grew to understand that I needed some space for my creativity, and that when left to flourish, I can be the best me! lol. But you really beat me with biting your cheeks and threatening to call the cops.
[Reply]
Bloody hell, biting your cheeks until they bled and then threatening to go to the police is a really creative idea! I’ve never heard of that technique being used to get out of piano practice before.
[Reply]
Could’ve used some of those tricks growing up! Haha! The cop thing, creative in a Blair Waldorf sort of way! I love it!
[Reply]
We had a neighbourhood game, too. It was called “Family Farm Exercise Races and Doctors Too”.
Once we’d finished fighting over whether or not the title really needed the word “Too” on the end, and then we’d invented and sung the theme song for our game, it was usually time to go home.
[Reply]
Oh what bliss it is to be a child, I just hope our kids learn to have as much fun as we did back in the day…lol
[Reply]
LOVE the imagination and I remember doing this as a child. I had an imaginary friend and made up CRAZY stories about him, lol.
[Reply]
I’m a drama queen, too. I have been my entire life. BUT you have me beat with the bloody fit over piano practice. Apparently, I’m only a drama princess, and you’re the drama QUEEN!
[Reply]
when i started reading, i thought, “this is just like kate.” and then i continued and thought, “if kate ever pulls a stunt like that, she’d got another thing coming!”
i do remembering playing on the bikes like that, though.
[Reply]
Yeah, you were a wee bit dramatic but that makes life more interesting sometimes, doesn’t it?
Stopping by from Mama Kat’s.
[Reply]
This sounds like my childhood! I had th whole neighborhood organized:-)
[Reply]
HA! Loved this post!
[Reply]
Wow. Were you me as a child?
I have that dramatic flair too…and I”m pretty sure I’ve passed it on to Melody.
[Reply]
Visiting from Mama Kat’s…
I love this post. I love how you reel your reader in with your first couple of sentences. I love your stories. I love the great images you create.
So much fun!
[Reply]
Ha! So much imagination!! I felt like I was there because you were so descriptive!
[Reply]
Imagination over-floweth! Way to go mom. Your kids will have some of the best pretend play. I think it is great that you are excited to do that with your kids. Just thinking about having to come up with those kinds of stories and situations for my girls makes me kind of queasy!
[Reply]
Wow.. What an imagination you had – I bet you tell awesome stories for your kids.
Stopped in from Mama Kat’s.
[Reply]
Your story about the tantrum over the piano reminds me of my daughter. I have hope that she will grow up and hopefully use her drama for good as well as evil!! You had such a great imagination. I bet the neighbor kids had a great time playing with you!
[Reply]
Having an imagination is a great plus. You can use that to create wonderful stories as well.
Thanks for sharing,
[Reply]
We didn’t do much pretend play in our neighborhood…we just got into as much trouble as humanly possible before the sun went down
But I can so see my drama queen daughter doing stuff like this! Imagination is a wonderful thing.
[Reply]
Ooohhh.. I love this . You’re not “dramatic”, you’re “passionate”. Can I use this? Also, I loathe when someone dates me and makes me feel old… The Little Mermaid came out when I was in high school. It’s okay… I’ll forgive you, because I like your blog.
[Reply]
I love this. Your beginning made me think of my daughter, who is 100% drama queen. I remember playing “Charlie’s Angels” except we were always in the office. I remember making up adventures that led us down into the valley of death and desperation (a gulley) and into the Forest of Friendly Fire (the woods). Haha. Ah, childhood….
[Reply]
hmmm…all I did was pretend that the neighbor boys were my husbands and make them lay on me in the yard.
[Reply]
Oh my gosh, my sister was always the drama queen and would do these same things! What memories that brings back and we actually still talk about her antics to this day. I tended to be much quieter but boy did I envy her creativity sometimes!
[Reply]