I’ve written before about how we’re all born into other peoples’ stories.
My own story is more complicated than most.
Some of this complexity comes from the fact that my birth family chose to live a fiction for most of my life growing up in Cratersville.
By the time I returned to the Creators Realm, I was pretty aware of the things that had been hiding in plain sight.
The reason for my seeming obtuseness in my Cratersville years was that I never got caught up in the goings on in other peoples’ lives—even if those people were my parents and extended relations.
Sure, there were a lot of unspoken things going on around me that I didn’t quite get, yet I never felt the desire to dig and discover secrets like my sister Poppy did.
I was more worried about figuring out me—and why, despite my best efforts, I never seemed to be what society—especially Cratersville society—expected of me.
Cratersville didn’t have the worst of historical American society, but it didn’t have a lot of variety either.
Everything was scripted from the holidays we celebrated to the appliances used in our retro-futuristic homes. Boys wore jeans and worked on cars. Girls dressed like girls and were told to act ladylike.
The problem was—I didn’t really know what “ladylike” was.
I didn’t feel like the other girls I knew. I saw how Poppy reveled in her fiery goddess. I saw how Rowan was a tomboy through and through. Bluesy was solid steel with a girl’s girl veneer. Mrs. Fields was a decorum-approved, civic-minded lady with a big heart for the little creatures.
They were all “girls” but none of them were me.
I was different. I looked like a girl, but I didn’t feel like a girl. I didn’t dream of getting married or having kids of my own. I didn’t want to hang out with the girls and do whatever things girls seemed to do.
To this day, I still don’t know what girls do together!
When I create, I’m not a mother or a father, but both.
This both-ness and neither-ness has led me to living my own very interesting and complicated life here in the Creators Realm.
Fortunately, my Kin Clan doesn’t have as many secrets between us as my birth family chose to have in Cratersville.
And, when Creators Day rolls around, I expect both a silly tie and a bouquet of wildflowers. That’s just the way I am.
—Jellybean Reds, Creator of Little Creatures
