Without wishing to sound about a
hundred years old (I’m 33); my childhood was in the time before computers and
IPhones, before the X-Box and Nintendo DS.
My childhood was made up of story books and playing in the garden, of making up
stories and watching Peter Pan. I was
convinced that fairies were real and that if I believed hard enough, they would
magically appear.
I’m not sure if I ever really
believed in Father Christmas or anything along those lines (baby atheist in the
making?) but I wholehearted believed that magic was real, if I could only find
it.
You are allowed to think like
that when you are a young child. I wish
we still did. I miss that feeling of
absolute certainty in my heart that anything was possible, if you only believed
it, even fairies.
Something happened this weekend
that took me right back to my old five year old self, and it was nothing short
of magical. I went to the park this
weekend with my dogs and whilst walking along a leaf covered pathway, with
trees on each side of me I suddenly stopped.
Right in front of my eyes was a leaf, immobile in mid air, floating as
if by magic.
Although my logical brain soon explained
it as hanging from an unseen spider thread, for those fifteen seconds before I just
gazed upon that leaf in total wonderment and happiness. The five year old little girl that was once
me was shouting inside me “It’s real, it’s real!” and jumping up and down.
When I realised that it must be
hanging from a spider’s threat a small part of me was gutted. I didn’t want the logical explanation. That tiny part of me that believed in fairies
at five years old wanted it to be real.
But, of course, it wasn’t.
Now at 33 of course I don’t still
believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden or that leaves can
magically float in the air. I’m far too
cynical. But you know what? Part of me wishes I still did. Life was far less complicated then.
So, just this once, as a salute
to the five year old me,
There, that feels much better.
