Bridge to Illusion
by
Kristen Peterson & JuliAnn Lukach

Adults often spend time reminiscing about their youth, remembering simpler times like weekends at grandma’s or waking up early to catch the Saturday morning cartoons. The carefree nature of one’s childhood seems to be a lifetime away when compared to the never-ending tasks that adults take on day after day. With little to no down time during the day, the very limited time one has to themselves is either late into the night or at the ass-crack of dawn. Whether that time is spent scrolling through social media or mindlessly watching shows off some streaming service, it brings one back to those simpler times.

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Days used to be consumed by movies and television as an escape into the fantasy world where most of one’s childhood was spent. Growing up with Disney-Pixar films and Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Show” made every day a daydream. The easy to watch plots told by mythical creatures took a child away into a different world. However as one grows up, you find yourself escaping with more morose media. Tim Burton’s playful yet melancholy stop-motion films, or foreign horror works like that of Junji Ito take you to places that would only appear in your nightmares. Nightmares, and dreams alike, are a way of escaping from reality.

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Everyone wants to escape from reality every once and a while just to have a break from the everyday. That want to be in another place or time does not diminish as one grows up. The wonder and imagination of childhood never really goes away, it just gets pushed to the back of your mind. The breaks from reality that shows and movies give us allow us to reminisce about the past and feel the emotions that we bottle up day after day. We’re allowed to be a kid again, for a while at least, before returning to our own reality.

 

- JuliAnn Lukach