FIVE Alter Egos on a Friday

I'm a tad late today with my Friday's Fave Five.  I guess I could claim the excuse that there has been a change in pressure in the weather and I've been flirting with a migraine all day long.  In an effort to avoid the dreaded "aura" starting, I've been trying to avoid looking at a bright computer screen as much as possible but since we are in the late afternoon, I'm going to try and chance it and see what happens.  I thought today that, instead of writing about 5 highlights to my week, I'd share with you five "alter egos" that I've known and loved growing up.  Keep in mind that I grew up in a reading family, surrounded by books so I had a very wide group of characters to latch onto.

1.  Peter Pan/Wendy - Well technically, that's two but it's hard to separate one from the other in my mind.  I could probably sing the lyrics to the songs from the musical "Peter Pan" by the time I was in early Elementary school.  I LOVED listening to that LP record and Mary Martin's wonderful voice.  Of course, at that age, the imp on the cover of the album WAS Peter Pan in my mind.  I decided that surely I must be Wendy or at least one of the Lost Boys, if not Peter himself.  I could crow with the best of them and I sure didn't want to grow up anytime soon.  And I often left my window unlatched on summer evenings so that I could fly off to Never Never Land, should the opportunity present itself.

 2.  National Velvet - When Peter failed to materialize on my window sill, I grew older and decided that I was destined to win the Grand National Steeplechase.  I cut out horses from magazines and pasted them to cardboard and then made little thread bridles for them.  I ran around the house, "jumping" the downspouts as I imagined myself guiding my horse over the jumps at Aintree.  I wrote away for AND received (bless their kind souls) an entry form from that venerable old racecourse to enter a horse in the Grand National.  Eventually I did own a horse or two but none of them were jumpers and I had to be content with watching young Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney in the movie again and again.

3.  Hawkeye - By the time I was in late junior high school, I had decided that I was destined to be a modern-day Hawkeye from The Last of the Mohicans.  I could imagine myself gliding through the forest, long rifle in hand.  In fact, I practiced walking as noiselessly as I could through the woods whenever I had the chance.  I could see myself sticking my head in the doorway of a sod cabin, assuring the folks within that all was well because I, Hawkeye, was keeping watch outside.  I took to wearing beaded Native American jewelry and moccasins which went over about as well as you would imagine in southern Michigan.  I was just ahead of the times.  Five years later, I would have been right in style amongst the Hippies.

4.  Scottish Highlander - I outgrew horses and realized that I didn't much care for scrounging around in the woods because of the bugs but these last two alter egos have stood me in good stead right up to the present time.  The highlander was particularly helpful when I was going through chemotherapy for cancer.  My oncologist suggested that I visualize the drugs going through my body and "killing" cancer cells.  I took it a step further.  I enlisted the aid of my inner Highlander.  Each day he'd grab his claymore in both hands and run around inside my body gleefully slaying cancer cells left and right.  I can't tell you how wonderful it felt slicing through those things....smashing them into oblivion.  To this very day, I get a wonderful rush of adrenalin just thinking about it.

5.  Viking Beserker - According to family lore, my dad's side of the family are descended from Viking warriors known as "beserkers."  That might explain my temper.  It's never been much of a stretch for me to feel like there is a pretty fierce, aggressive personality lurking inside me.  That would probably come as quite a surprise to most of my friends.  It's something that I try to keep a pretty tight handle on because you don't want to be around a beserker when they've gone beserk.  Just read a few of the old sagas and you'll see what I'm talking about.  I DO have this great desire to spend some time at the Viking Inn out in Minnesota some day with the Commander.  And there are days when I am just itching to tear into my food with my bare hands and to sling those meat bones on the floor.  One of these days!

If you'd like to add your two-cents' worth to this Friday's Fave Five meme, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.