When I was a kid, my best friend and I spent half our time pretending—we were lock smiths who moonlighted as thieves, we were pioneers on the Oregon Trail, we were jockeys riding in the Kentucky Derby, we were witches making potions, and we were a thousand other things I can’t even remember.

It’s easy to play when you’re a kid. Pretending comes easier to children, who don’t feel the same limiting attachment to the so-called real world. Sure, maybe you had to clean your room or pick up sticks in the yard to earn your allowance, but responsibility was only something you knew for a spelling test.

As an adult, playing is hard. We’re attached to the notion of ourselves as our ideas and our pesky responsibilities. We are our jobs or our relationships, and we very often like those identities. It’s hard to let them go without feeling…