How I Met The Pony of My Dreams
Everything that happens, real or not, starts with an initial event. From that event comes thoughts, which develop into feelings, which influence actions.
This is something my therapist used to tell me. It has a whole different meaning when regarding wishes though. You see, when you're talking about feelings and depression, things are pretty much static; they're always the same. But when its wishes, things change back and forth and up and down all the time.
I know this first hand, as I not only make a lot of wishes, but I also had my biggest, most unlikely-to-come-true wish come true.
You see, I spend most of my time day dreaming. My mind is the only place where I can get away from all the stress and sadness that envelope my life. Unfortunately I cannot spend all of my time stuck in some made-up scenario in which I have finally found happiness and nothing is wrong anymore.
Fortunately I can spend my time not spent in my head watching My Little Pony. It probably seems weird to you; a seventeen-year-old guy watching a show aimed at little girls. But it makes me feel some semblance of happiness, so I watch. And I enjoy myself.
Anyways, between MLP, music, and day dreaming, my time is pretty much spent, other than school.
School is okay, I don't really get bullied or anything, so for the most part it's just a waste of time spent feeling sorry for myself instead of feeling happy. My parents of course don't see eye-to-eye with me on that point, but thats to be expected. They think that if I just got out more and made more friends that I would be happier. That, however, is not how depression works. Yes, I was diagnosed with Major Depression last year.
I can only explain my feelings as a black hole that sucks the energy, happiness, and will to live straight out of me. The only thing that keeps me going is making wishes, as childish as that seems.
Making wishes is something my first therapist suggested. She said that it would help me focus on the positive and look towards the future more. I was definitely skeptical at first, but after trying it out a few times, I found that it helped a lot. So I made a wish a day, and soon enough I started feeling less and less depressed, even though none of the wishes ever came true, unless it was something dumb and small.
Over the course of the year I started to realize that it wasn't the act of making the wish that helped me, it was imagining the scenario in which the wish came true. Traveling there in my mind, and actually living out the fulfillment of said wish.
So for the majority of a year I lived in my head. And in the magical lands of Equestria.
My favorite pony had always been Applejack. I felt like she had the greatest backstory, I mean, I did make up backstories for all of the named ponies on the show, but the cannon backstory was also my favorite. She was also a strong independent mare with what seemed to me to be a troubled past. Just like me.
I like to think that AJ and I have a lot in common, we both have parents that are out of the picture, we're both the middle child, and we both LOVE physical actives. I myself am an avid runner. I won't lie, I've pictured myself as a pony living in Ponyville numerous times, and every time I have, Applejack and I end up together somehow. It seems like fate brings us together, even if there is a bias.
Another thing I forgot to mention, my One Wish; to be a pony living in Equestria. It may be every brony's wish for the show to be real, but not every brony truly believes that Equestria is a real place, and that it is possible to get there. I'm not the person who thinks that the show is real, or rather, could be a real place. After all, in an universe where bipedal beings speak and create other, fictional talking beings simply for entertainment purposes, there must be another universe somewhere where quadrupedal beings speak.
And so I wished, every night I wished for something that would somehow give me serenity, and I would wish for my One Wish. I truly planned to continue wishing for my One Wish until the day I died. Fortunately, I didn't have to.
As I said, it all started with a wish, but that's not all. I did a lot of research into the multiverse theory. I knew that if it was true, there was a one hundred percent chance that the universe I was wishing for was real. It would just be a matter of finding a way to actually get there. Something that I knew would not be possible in my generation.
So, in my mind, I put it up to them, the ponies, that is, to get me there. I had read countless fan fictions where either Celestia or Twilight had decided to bring a human to Equestria, or just messed up a spell and brought them there by accident. I kinda hoped for the former, I wouldn't want to upset the population by just popping up out of nowhere.
The night that it happened I was writing in my wish journal, I always wrote at night, always by candlelight. I was writing down the usual; one wish that could bring me serenity if it came true, and my One Wish. I started to dream again, drifting off slowly to the lands of Equestria. I imagined myself roaming freely through Sweet Apple Acres. I often thought about what it would be like to live on an apple orchard, and not just because of Applejack, but also because I lived in a very urban city. I always wanted to live on a farm.
My parents, however, had different plans for me. They said that a nice inner-city school would do me good, bring my head down from the clouds. To make a long story short, it didn't.
While I was finishing up my second wish I started feeling very warm. Not uncomfortably warm, mind you. Like the feeling of drinking hot cocoa after being out in freezing weather. It felt comforting. Familiar. Welcoming.
I looked up from my journal and saw a light under my door that wasn't there earlier. It was getting brighter, almost like a flashlight pointed at the ground that was moving closer and closer to my room. For a minute I thought that maybe the power had gone out and my father or mother were coming to check on me. So I checked my lights and they turned on. At this point I decided to dismiss the light and continue writing.
But then came the humming.
It was the same as the light, low at first, sounding far away, but slowly coming closer and closer. I jumped out of bed and headed for my door, extremely curious as to what was going on. But as soon as my feet hit the floor my door flew open, and a ball of purple light shone in my doorframe. It was so familiar, so... friendly. I didn't recognize it at first, but after a moment I heard muffled voices coming from it. I closed my eyes, partially because the light was so bright, and partially to concentrate on the voice. I knew that I'd heard it somewhere before. Somewhere...
But where?
Then everything went dark. My candles blew out, the orb disappeared, even the humming stopped. Everything was back to normal.
I cautiously walked over to my door in the darkness. My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness that enveloped me. I felt my way around the circumference of my room. As I came closer to the door, I heard my Grandma talking, which freaked me out, mainly because I didn't live with my Grandma.
But as I listened closer to her voice I began to realize that it wasn't my Grandma speaking. It was Applejack's. Suddenly everything came together in my head.
"GRANNY SMITH!" I screamed.