I used to believe in fairies. 

The kind with gossamer wings that left trails of sparkling droplets and gentle ripples in the water. Ones that would scatter light across blades of grass, leaving them perfectly sunkissed. Those playful sprites that sat atop dahlias and nursed withered shrubs back to health at a moment’s notice. I even believed in the elusive ones, appearing only under the cover of darkness, sitting cross-legged on the tip of the crescent moon. 

Believing in their presence was as natural as breathing. Despite the rumblings I’d heard about the man Upstairs… and the man Downstairs… and the jolly man on the North Pole, their stories didn’t ingrain in me as deeply as my fairies. I refer to them as my fairies because that’s how my aunt introduced them to me. Very matter-of-factly, she explained that they were my fairies, my friends, my protectors. That as long as I was kind to others and listened to my parents, they would, without a doubt, look out for me. That as long as I worked hard and believed in myself, they would reward me. That as long as I was good, the universe, and the fairies, would be good to me, too.

A six year-old-girl with a highly active imagination and no older siblings to reveal the truth about magic does not take this sort of information lightly. Pretty soon, everything I ever thought, saw, or experienced could be traced back to my fairies in one way or another. It was confirmation bias at its finest. When I won my first spelling bee, they had whispered strings of letters in my ear. When a dragonfly landed on my finger during recess, they had steered it there to delight me. When the shadows in my bedroom were especially menacing, they transferred warmth from their tiny palms into my night light to lull me to a peaceful slumber. 

Part of the unofficial terms and conditions of having fairies was that you were supposed to keep them a secret. My aunt warned me that telling others would drain the source of the fairies’ magic. She said my friends would be so overcome with jealousy or sadness that they would want to take them away from me. You don’t want to make others feel bad, do you? 

This never sat right with me. How could I truly embody the prime tenet of kindergarten—namely, “sharing is caring”—if I was depriving others of a world full of magic and wonder? Why was I any more deserving of the fairies’ joy than my friends? Are the others in my life—parents, teachers, friends—blessed with their magic, too? However, I was not one to question authority, much less to break promises, so I reluctantly kept this magical world to myself. 

In exchange for my secrecy, I spent most of elementary school hounding my parents with questions. There were the fairies from Pixie Hollow, from Winx Club, and from my parents’ stories, and I could not reconcile all of their depictions. I felt like a detective searching for inconsistencies with red yarn and pushpins. My parents, bless their hearts, tried their best to keep their stories consistent, but I was relentless. It was only a matter of time until they told me to redirect my questions straight to the source. So that’s exactly what I did.

Whenever I had a question or wanted something desperately, I wrote letters on my finest sheets of construction paper, adorned them with Lisa Frank stickers, and placed them on my bedside table for the fairies to retrieve overnight. The letters would be gone by morning, but their postal system operated similarly to Santa’s so that they read them but never directly responded. My questions remained unanswered, and my most vulnerable hopes, worries, and prayers were sent out into the ether. That said, whatever disappointment I felt from my futile attempts at opening a dialogue usually subsided when they did deliver. Every toy, every Nintendo game, every book I asked for, their magic was able to procure. Against all odds.

✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ 

I don’t think I’ll ever have the right words to express what my fairies truly mean to me. Discovering the truth about their identity felt like someone pulled back a curtain on reality, revealing a room I didn’t know existed and that I can no longer unsee. Believing in an omniscient entity that I would never have to face relieved me of the guilt of asking for things I knew we could not afford. As my belief in the supernatural subsided, it was gradually replaced with an acute awareness of our financial hardships. Had I known it was my parents all along, I wouldn’t have asked for so much. Had I known how hard they were working, I would’ve vocalized how much I appreciated them. Had I known how often they put my needs above theirs, I would’ve addressed the letters to them instead. 

But I didn’t know, and that’s an important truth I’ve had to accept.

It’s taken me years to shake the feeling that I took advantage of them with my naivety. That I should’ve known better or made more of an effort to uncover the truth or possibly even repay them. That I would never keep my children in the dark because I owed them the uncensored truth. At one point, I was so overwhelmed with guilt that I demanded full transparency about our circumstances. I felt entitled to and deprived of essential information, as though my teenage self could realistically undo years’ worth of adversity.

I very rarely believe that ignorance is bliss, but knowing what I do now about my parents’ quiet sacrifices, I’m grateful to have been preoccupied with my fairies. Part of me yearns to have written to them for a little longer, to have delayed my immersion into the adult world by a few years—but that’s not what happened. Instead, I’m left with the Herculean task of accepting that there are things beyond my control. I’d be lying if I said I’ve achieved this, but I seek solace in knowing that one day, my hard work will allow me to provide my parents and future family with fairy magic of their own.