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“I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child" ~ Beatrix Potter

  • Writer: Jack Nicole
    Jack Nicole
  • Jun 26, 2020
  • 3 min read

I didn't believe in magic as a child. Growing up in a world of strict rules, stern logic - other things as well which had interconnections with all of that - left no room for the childhood wonder of magic. I wasn't allowed any of it. No belief in faeries, Saint Nicholas at Christmas, flying rain deer, tooth faery, sandman, none of that.


Working in the daycare system for a while I was told this is perhaps a good thing. Raising a child without the belief in these fake beings, without being told these lies, is better for their development. Children will learn that these creatures never existed and feel betrayed by their parents. They will suffer in their mental growth and it will gender learning is what I was told. (This by people who viewed children the way scientists used to view lab rats. I hated every second of the daycare system.)


I didn't believe in magic until I was older. I went about it all backward. I didn't grow out of magic, I grew into it. I don't think freedom was intended to be given to me, but at the age of sixteen I was taught to drive and got my driver's licenses. I had to get a job. Little me, scared and alone and confused, took this as a chance to sneak out on little rebellious freedom escapes. (I don't know what one might think my rebellious period looked like, but trust me, it wasn't anything exciting. It consisted of me saying my work hour extended an hour later than it did so that I could go sit under a tree at the park and read. I've been told every human goes through a rebellious period, I don't know if this is true or not, but I think mine rated down there as one of the least exciting ever.)


I wasn't sixteen when I began to believe in magic though, I was twenty, perhaps twenty-one, the ages blur. For some reason, I do not even know why, my dad rent The Fellowship of the Ring for us to watch. Because of the ending we rented The Two Towers the next day. The Return of the King was to release at the very least a month later, so I drove myself to the library and check out all three books. I was still in by rebellious period, and I secretly read all three books, one book a week. Just like that, the world of magic opened up for me.


I am the history person among my friends. Besides one other friend, I am the one who tends to rant and spout out anything to do with history and the past. I think I perhaps would come off as a more logical person, well grounded without any room for what might be considered flighty ideas of fantasy. And I do like logic. Solid reasoning, lines, sturdy foundations. Yes. I really do like all of that, and I need all of that.


But that does not mean I will not go and sit out by the lake and watch the Dragonflies dance on the edge of the water and then follow them as they fly off in the hopes of catching sight of the faeries they visit. The silver of the moonlight, the golden beams of sunlight, the paths of rainbows, the opening of every flower and leaf...if someone looks at the world and tells me there isn't magic in it then I am going to assume you aren't looking close enough. Because I am still the opposite. The older I get, the more I grow into magic.

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