When I was a kid, at about 6, my dream was to be a fairy and to be able to do fairy magic. I was obsessed. I thought that by wearing fairy wings and carrying a wand everywhere I was going to turn into one. When I was really little, it was leaves for wings and a stick for a wand because I wanted to be a nature fairy, but it soon turned into pretty purple wings and a glitter wand with a star on the top.

All of this was inspired by Peter Pan, the 2003 movie, and Tinkerbell. I would wear my fairy wings everywhere with my best friend, Alison, and we would wave our wands at ugly things and “turn” them pretty so they could have another chance at being the best versions of themselves. We had a secret lock book that we would keep track of the things we “turned”. Draw them and write descriptions type of thing.

A few times we were teased and made fun of, but our belief in magic and fairies was so strong that all the teasing was pushed aside and a path through was made, clear and bright. Neither Alison or I faltered to question our strong belief that we were the messengers for the fairies. No matter how much we were teased on the school bus we would chant louder, sing higher, smile wider. Nothing would bring us down. That is, until my mum got a job at our school and I stopped taking the bus. Even though we lived a minutes walk apart we grew further. I made new friends and she grew up. It didn’t help that she was a grade higher than me, and when I stopped seeing her at school I gave up on us.

I look back now and I regret giving up on our friendship. She would have been a great friend to have by my side, but I do believe things happen for a reason. I do not, however, believe that we all have our own fates, and I do not believe that we should just sit back and wait for things to happen. I believe in the magic of hope. I believe that hope is the strongest kind of magic. I believe that we can try our best to make things turn out how we would like them to, and to hope that they will turn out right. That is the best thing we can do. The best kind of magic. Not fairy magic, but the magic of life, and hope.