WHERE’S MY MAGIC 8 BALL NOW?
Chenise Sinclaire photographed by Celeste Shiels
I would have been around seven or eight years old when I first saw a Magic 8 Ball.
I went to a ‘before-school care’ that would charter a minibus to drop kids off to school because our parents had to work earlier than the school hours started.
I hated it.
But one morning as I was sitting in this tiny white charter bus, a small group of the older boys sat a few seats in front of me and one of them began playing with a retro Magic 8 Ball that he said he got for his birthday over the weekend. I overheard him explaining to his friends what it was. “It’s like a fortune teller, you ask a yes or no question then you shake it and then you get your answer.”
He passed it around to the boys and they fought over it, asking whether or not their crushes liked them back and will they win the school race - the typical stuff you can expect young boys to ask.
As we turned into the entrance of their school, one of the boys dropped it and it rolled down to my little black shoes that were one size too big. I quickly picked it up, gave it a good shake and asked my question silently in my head, “Will I have big boobs?”... “It is certain.”
Again, what do you expect a little girl to ask? I was obsessed with the beauty of women and wanted to look like them.
I knew it was just some toy, there’s no way a plastic ball with some blue dye and a written dice on the inside could possibly know my future or the answers to all of our burning questions. But I liked the novelty of it, and, maybe naively I believed in the hope the answer would one day ring true.
Spoiler alert, it did.
I got a boob job in December 2017 so it turns out the Magic 8 Ball was right. However, I wish my life questions now at 27 were as simple and materialistic as they were 20 years ago.
The questions I have now are far heavier. What am I doing with my life? Where am I supposed to go next? What do I need to learn? How do I get to my goals without sacrificing any more of the things I have now?
Where is my Magic 8 Ball now?
There is something about life that terrifies me while simultaneously excites me and that is, you don’t know all of the answers and you can’t.
When things start to feel a little overwhelming and scary, like I’m treading water out in the middle of the rough ocean where any deep sea predator can snatch me up, I close my eyes and go back to thinking about my higher self. I envision an older version of myself who has all the knowledge and experience readily available to current-me and I find a lot of comfort in that. I think, “What would she do in this situation?”, “What would the ideal version of me do here?” and I try to act in alignment with that. Maybe she’s my grown up version of that Magic 8 Ball.
And when life feels chaotic and out of control and really uncomfortable, I just keep reminding myself that nothing is permanent, good and bad, and that the best place for exponential growth always comes from this place right here. And how exciting is that?
So far things have always worked out better than my initial fear-based thoughts. So I will continue to believe, Magic 8 Ball or not, that I am the creator of my own reality and the journey is worth all the unanswered questions.
Most Ardently,
Chenise Sinclaire.
