“And they lived happily ever after.”
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       My dad closed the book with a soft smile and leaned over to tuck me in. The dim light from the dusty lamp spread out over the room with a hazy glow. I lay still under the heavy covers; my imagination ran wild with the story I had just heard. 

       Oh how I wish I were Alice... Falling through the rabbit hole into that world - wouldn’t it be amazing! If only...

       ​I found myself living vicariously through the books. Content with the story, I would fall back in my bed and force myself to dream the fairytale. I wanted to be the characters. I wanted to have their lives. I wanted to live their stories.

       I grew up alongside the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White and the Three Little Pigs. They felt like older siblings I never had. I could always confide in Hansel and Gretel, my best friends, when I just needed to think. The characters felt so familiar and constantly existed in my imagination. These stories completed my life.

       Unfortunately, it didn’t last forever.

       As I got older, life became busy. I had no time to reminisce on the stories I had always loved. Hansel and Gretel started fading into the back of my mind, and the day ahead of me dominated my thoughts, squeezing out the last moments of my childhood still in my possession. I didn’t bother trying to dream of the fairy tales anymore. My mind ran in solely one cycle: School. Practice. Competition. Test. Repeat.

       I hated the adaption to my new life. The overwhelming continuation of the monotone patterns of daily life destroyed me. Alice and her adventure became nonexistent in my memory. I forgot my wish to live her story. Everything else took priority over those nights with the hazy glow of the dusty lamp I had cared so deeply about. 

       I had no time to think about what I had lost. Never once did I try to regain the connection to the stories that raised me and the fairy tales that taught me the principles of life. The tradition that the five year old girl once looked forward to every night drowned itself in the sea of aging, never thought to be rescued or ever to resurface.

       What I thought would be with me infinitely felt forever distant, like a rock sinking to the bottom of my conscience. I didn’t throw it into the ocean by my own choice. The process of growing up forced the rock to fall out of my hand and sink to the depths of my mind, forgotten.

       Then, something changed.

       Music had always been something I knew of, but I never bothered to take the time to listen to it when the radio was off. I never found music to be essential, meaningful, or significant; it simply served as a background to the more fruitful enjoyments of life. I only knew mainstream artists I constantly heard on the radio - Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Drake, etc.

       One day, I took a chance - I made a Spotify account. Though a small action, it felt weird to immerse myself in a new world. The experience held a foreign and even daunting sentiment. A few months later, I finally felt something familiar - a story. The melodies, beats, and lyrics spoke to me, and I could speak back to them. The songs made me feel something from the heart that only my childhood stories could invoke. Andy Grammer’s powerful voice could make me smile. James Arthur could make me cry from the lyrics of his songs. Bruno Mars’ energy and strong beats could make me dance without hesitation. What I thought would be infinitely lost in the depths of my conscious suddenly resurfaced in another form.

       I left my childhood in the distant past, an inevitable action that nothing I learned from my beloved fairytales could have taught me. No one warned me that when I grew up, I would have to sacrifice my special connection to the characters in my mind. However, music helped me realize how much I missed the feelings that filled my childhood. The companionship of Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood found my heart again through the comfort of music. 

       I will never be five years old again. I will never feel the coziness and warmth under a fuzzy blanket while my dad sits beside me and reads from the book of fairytales. I lost the innocent little girl, untouched by the world’s dirty hands and responsibility, forever with my past. Nevertheless, I never sacrificed the feeling I loved about the stories. Music allowed me to keep the feeling of comfort close to me when I needed it most. It provided for me the mix of emotions I would feel under the heavy covers while I lay thinking about the story I had just heard.

       Although I got older, as every kid does, I learned how to retain parts of my childhood I believed were lost. I found components of my life as a teenager that reminded me of my days as a kid. The difficult and tedious process of growing up forced me to sacrifice the most beautiful moments of being a child. However, by keeping these moments close to me, even in a completely different form, I never truly grew older. In my heart, I remained and will forever remain a child.
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       ​The End.