I don't understand what happened.

When I was a little girl, you told me fairy stories and helped me see little magical creatures living under the mossy ground in the woods.

You told me Santa Claus was real, and took me on (like you do your father in a political debate...) when I tried to argue that truth. When I was a teenager, you even gave me a book to read, debunking the myth of St. Nick's untruth.

We had a purple dragon for a pet--and you helped me ignore her pipe-cleaner body to imagine her alive. Her companion was a garden gnome who lived below her among your house plants. You taught me not to insult him by calling him fake.

You did everything you could to create magic in our home and in our lives. You did everything you could to make me a believer.

But now, 20-some years later, when all I need is for you to believe in me, all you can do is tell me that believing is foolish.

One of my students put it brilliantly: "It's not about what you look at; it's about what you see."

This is what I think: the dreamers spouting cliches and once upon a times are right. All of us have our somewhere over the rainbow. All of us have the ability to do wonderous things. All of us can be a part of a magic show or a fairy tale.

All. of. us.

We just need to open our minds to the possibility that we can be special. We are special.

We need to look around and accept the amazing things happening to us all the time. We need to open our eyes and see little fairies landing on our noses by way of snowflakes falling. We need to hear the songs of the spheres rustling through the leaves. We need to take in a deep breath, allowing tinker bell's fairy dust to coat every inch of our insides.

She's crazy, you might think. She's living in a dream world, you might say.

Yes. And yes. I have been crazy all my life. And I'd be even more crazy if I didn't ALLOW myself to live in my dream world, because it is mine--every terrible and beautiful inch. This dream is mine, and I can't wait to see the rest of it unfold before my eyes.

I feel like an infant carefully but curiously separating my eyelids, finally opening them to see.