What is my city?

I've talked about it before, though it was a vague showing of what it is.

Is it real?  Imaginary?  Metaphorical?  Has it always been there?  Did I just make it up to explain myself?

...I honestly don't know.

I only first thought of a city back in 7th or 8th grade.  People would talk about putting up walls, and, being me, I put it literally.

My city.

Yet, when I first thought of it, it seemed to be already made.

Walls, buildings like houses and hospitals and restaurants and shops, gates, guard posts (seriously), nearly the whole nine yards.

Only one thing was missing.

Life.

Sure, there was grass and trees and plants and such, but the city was void of what I would consider sentient life.

No animal even existed there.  No bird sang their morning song, no squirrel would chatter and collect acorns, no rabbit would hop through the grass, no mouse would dig their little home at the base of a tree.

It was barren, yet it seemed like it had been well kept up.

And when I first entered my city....

Well...it was painful.  Well and truly painful.

The boundaries of the city turn all of my emotional pain into physical wounds.  Granted, I couldn't feel the physical pain, but the emotional...was so much worst.

Gashes, bruises, limps, concussions, cracked bones, ruptured organs....  I felt like I was dying.

But why?

Why in 7th and 8th grade?

Because I opened.

I had been closed for so long that I was delaying the inevitable that I never knew about.

It took a year, but eventually, I healed within the city to look human again.

Not that it really mattered.

Despite the city's large size, nearly 7 football fields by 6 football fields, I was almost always alone.

Not that I cared.  Being the introvert I am, it was helpful.

As time passed, I left my city more and more often, gaining new friends, seeing things in a new light.

Yet, as time passed, I rarely ever came back to the city without some kind of wound forming to represent the emotional.

Why did I ever leave the city?

Why would I resign myself to be hurt nearly day in and day out?

Friendship.

Happiness.

Care.

Joy like I've never experienced.

While I am a natural pessimist, even I couldn't bring myself to avoid the pain by also avoiding those wonderful things.

If it hadn't been for that lone black girl in 7th grade who actually talked to me like I had feelings, I would never have found the city, nor experienced all those joyful things.

...or those painful things.

Opening up is one of the biggest double-edged swords.

Joy, happiness, friendship, care, love, compassion, trust.

Hatred, neglect, harassment, terror, depression, outcast, agony.

You can't have one without the other.

You can't have a city to protect yourself with if you don't have an outside world.

My city is very real, yet not.  Imaginary, yet not.  Made up, yet there since the beginning.

I only had to search for it to make it real.

Imagination is as much a part of our lives as reality is.

My city is now as much a part of me as my heart, my lungs, my brain.

Without my city, I would die.

Maybe not instantaneously, but painfully over time.

There you have it.

My city.