Since I can remember, my head has been in the clouds. From the moment I could string words together, I was always happiest poring over the pages of novels or tucked with my favourite show underneath a warm blanket of daydreams. I’ve fallen in love countless times with these worlds, each more fantastical than the next. The soles of my feet are worn smooth from the paths walked alongside Peter Pan, Anne Shirley, and Winnie-the-Pooh, my cheeks dimpled in glee from their fanciful tales and my own heady admiration.  

At the ripe age of 20, my room remains littered with the remnants of these fictional passions, colliding in a cacophony of butterflies and skateboards, katanas and typewriters—relics I’ve collected throughout my chimerical travels. Streaky sketches are taped about haphazardly: Rudimentary attempts to capture my flourishing imagination. The countless characters endeared to me remain marked both on my soul and the plaster of my walls.  

I was convinced that this wonder could only exist between the pages of a book or the fabric of a daydream. I could steal away within stories, and like a portal, they would be my solace from the reality of every day. With my feet shackled to growing up, my mind could only remain rebellious in its musings. These two lives existed separately. One could not begin to approximate the other. 

When I was 12, my family sat me down around Christmastime for the long-awaited crash down to reality. I sat very still, hands clammy, as my fantasies of Santa were dismantled. With the resignation settling on my face, I almost missed what I was told next. At Christmas, people are inspired to share gifts, kindness, and twinkly lights. Doesn’t that seem pretty magical? I sat there for a moment, the disappointment and curiosity warring in my mind. 

For the first time, the lines between my worlds began to blur. 

As the stretch of maturity began to tug at my heels, I found magic seeping into the folds of my ordinary life. In a world now filled with responsibilities and the looming chill of failure, I floundered, clinging desperately to any scrap of guidance. I stumbled, and the voice of my younger self echoed in my mind with renewed vigour. I acquiesced to her demands, lapping up my dormant passions and reconceiving my world a bit brighter. 

I felt like a child again, discovering joy in every moment. For the first time, the colours of my secret world were colliding with the reality I was so intent on escaping. This overlap lit the world ablaze with a new definition: Every experience was my first, each unique and tinged golden with secrets. 

I recently had to trek home in a freezing drizzle, the sky pitch dark at 5:00 p.m. I ruminated over my miserable situation, shuddering in my coat and urging my feet to go faster. But as the music in my ears rose to a chorus, I stopped in my tracks. The lights along my path seemed to sparkle, the raindrops slanting haphazardly. I stood there, frozen for a moment as my hands chafed and my lips turned blue. The object of my irritation was suddenly mesmerizing, just as magical as, say, a white rabbit with a pocket watch. 

As a society, we hold maturity as a token of pride. Kids who were praised as ‘mature’ wear it like a badge of honour, and polish it proudly. But as we grow up, we start to long for the saturated days of childhood. As adults, we cling to modest pleasures, only to be called immature. Told to grow up and stop dreaming. 

But who is to say what is real and what is not? There is no time limit on passion and wonder. Children remain the happiest and most intelligent of us all, and it is only the wisest of grown-ups who can defer to the child they once were to take them by the hand and urge them forward—skipping and twirling all the way.