Magic. It’s something most people think of as fantasy; a welcome reprieve from the monotony of daily life.
But not something real. Not something to look for, not something to try and find.
I’ve always loved fairy tales. Be it a book or a movie, I would immerse myself in the story, lost in the magic I found there. My favorite stories were always about love; about two people finding their happily ever afters.
I wanted that for myself more than anything.
I’d imagine myself in the heroine’s shoes, overcoming obstacle after obstacle to find my true love. And when I did find him — magic.
I believed that was possible. So what if it took a while? I longed for what I saw and read in my own life, no matter how many people told me that wasn’t reality. They’re just not trying hard enough, I thought. They’ve let themselves become disillusioned by love.
Many people do. There is so much heartache and difficulty in the world, and it can be hard not to let that take over our lives. To believe that a fairy tale life just isn’t out there for us.
How do you see the magic when your marriage is rocky and you don’t think you’ll make it? How do you find it when every attempt to find love falls through — and you feel you’ll never get your happily ever after?
Maybe fairy tale lives don’t exist the way they do in stories. Maybe you won’t get your hero riding in on a white horse or live in a fancy castle. Love doesn’t always guarantee a happy ending, as much as we wish it would.
But, if you look hard enough, you’ll see that magic still exists.
It’s all around us but easily missed because it may not be what we expect. Magic that we dismiss because it doesn’t seem to be big enough, or because every aspect of our life isn’t perfect.
Not like it seems to be in stories.
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The truth is, there are fairy tale moments everywhere, you just have to learn to look for them.
From an elderly couple tenderly holding hands at the park to a young couple enjoying a picnic one of them packed for the other. A man surprising his wife with flowers for no reason other than he loves her.
Shy smiles exchanged across the room, dances where you feel like you’re floating. The high of that first date and sparks when you touch: these things don’t just exist in fairy tales. They can’t only be found in movies.
The thing is, things we watch in movies seem so magical to us, but to the couple, it’s just part of their lives.
Do you really think no one’s ever had a kiss like Allie and Noah in The Notebook? A moment where they wish they could just freeze time?
Do you really think no couple has ever embraced in a romantic setting after a long time apart? Or no boy’s tearfully confessed his love outside a girl’s window, claiming he’d do anything for her?
Things like this happen time and time again, but because they’re part of the lives we’re living, we don’t see them as magical.
Yet to a bystander watching the scene unfold, all they can see is the magic in it.
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These things may be small and they may be simple, but when you experience them, they’re magical. They take you away from the monotony of your life, letting you experience that brief moment of bliss.
Of pure magic.
So learn to look for the magic in your life. Wait for those moments when all seems right in the world — it may not happen often, but when it does, it’s worth it.
You don’t have to watch a chick flick to experience those feelings. You don’t have to read a book to get a much-needed dose of magic.
All you have to do is open your eyes to what’s around you.
And if life seems like a never-ending cycle of hardship and misery? Well, every hero and heroine had to struggle before reaching their happily ever after.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have magical moments along the way.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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