mycalicocat

I ran across a website about mistaken beliefs of our childhood, and remembered this one of mine. I lost it at some point - whether through enlightenment or maturity, I don't know -- but it's still there in my head.

I was afraid of the dark -- and I thought of "the dark" and "the night" as the same thing, and that the reason closets and the places under the bed were dark during the day was that pieces of the night were stuck there. (i.e. couldn't get out to leave with the rest of the night) I don't remember thinking this out. It was just an assumption from a very early age.

Also, and I lay the blame squarely on the whole Santa Claus deal, I got the idea very early that there were some completely imaginary things that good children were supposed to believe in, and as long as you believed in them, or said you did, you were nice . (I wanted to be nice) This included Santa, the Easter Bunny, and, unfortunately, Jesus and everything in the Bible. I don't mean I was a little atheist or that I thought anybody was lying or being hypocritical. I just thought it was part of being NICE PEOPLE to believe all of the above, and that the closer a person got to apparent total belief, the nicer they were. Or maybe there was some big boinnnggg! in your head at some point, and you absolutely believed everything from that point on. I didn't know until I went to Mercer that Jesus was an historical person -- and it was like WOW! Who knew?
p.s. I just realized that I used the term Nice several times there. Nice didn't mean kind or sweet or anything like that in my mind. It meant, sort of, socially acceptable and approved-of.
Also I remain surprised that children ask questions I never asked anybody anything after a certain age because I figured I'd get laughed at (problem with being a third kid) or that -- if it was something serious, they probably didn't know the answer or they would have mentioned it already.

Maybe I was a weird kid? Or does this ring any bells?