A Life of Fairy Lights.

What little things make your heart happy? What puts a grin on your face?

As I child I loved fairy lights, they seemed magical and filled me with a sense of awe and wonder. And you know what, they still do! That’s why my backyard is filled with solar fairy lights; wrapping around the trees, brightening up the side gate and lighting up the backyard.

As an adult, we are expected to put away “childish things” and to act our age. But I just never got the hang of that. I still love to eat icecream in a cone, and think that fairy bread is delicious. My laugh is still too loud at the cinemas, and have been known to cartwheel down the beach. When I’m driving in the car, I sing at the top of my lungs and don’t mind who’s listening. Sometimes in life, it’s the little things that bring us joy. It’s the moments of wonder and awe, that make being alive so incredible.

When I was 17 and talking to my mum about 17 year old things, I can remember her saying that it didn’t feel like too long beforehand that she was my age. I can also remember scoffing as she said that, because it seems like we had a hundred years between us. But as I am getting older I realize what she meant. Time does move so quickly. Even though I have learnt a lot and grown a lot, that 17 year old version of me doesn’t seem too long ago.

Can you remember learning about the transformation of a butterfly for the first time? Can you remember the awe and wonder you felt afterwards, perhaps when seeing a caterpillar and wondering what kind of butterfly it will change into? Why must we lose our awe of the beautiful things in this world as we grow older? Is it just that we are used to it? We’ve seen the magician do his rabbit trick too many times, and now we just don’t care?

Baking a chocolate cake never gets old. We know how it is made and how it will taste. Yet, when getting all the ingredients out of the cupboard there is an anticipation and excitement for the final product. It was delicious the first time we ate a chocolate cake, and it will continue to be delicious everytime – unless we substitute salt for sugar!

So what is the difference between baking a cake and witnessing the magicians trick? Why does one get tiresome, and the other does not? The latter is something we witness; it is an observation of something outside of our involvement. It also might be that as we grow, we learn the secret behind the trick and the amazement fades.

In a day where the whole world is at our fingertips it is easier now than ever to lose our sense of awe. A picture of a sunset on instagram with photo edits and filters, seems more beautiful than the sunset we witness in our own backyard. When we have access to so much, why does it become easy to lose interest at what’s in front of us?

There are many things I’d like to tell a younger version of myself. One of them would be, “Don’t lose your awe of life, remember to take it all in and be filled with wonder”.

Keep doing the little things that make your heart happy.

-Hazel.