Believed

When I was 7, I believed in my parents. They knew everything there was to know and I thought they were perfect. I kissed and hugged them every night when they tucked me in with my musical lamb.

When I was 9, I believed in fairies. I looked for them in the woods under moss and around streams. My brother and I climbed trees and made forts out of planks and torn sheets. We cried when the storms came and blew down our castles.

When I was 12, I believed in my imagination. I read a book in my room from morning til night. My best friends were Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield and I wished that I went to Sweet Valley High. I wrote stories about the fairies I once believed in and about girls who were nerds but became super models.

When I was 15, I believed in magic. I put love spells on my crush with feathers and candles and stole grass from his yard to carry around in my pocket each day for a year. I sewed butterflies all over my bell bottoms and dressed up to go to basketball games just for the dance afterward, but the spells only worked on all the wrong people.

When I was 17, I believed in myself. I thought I could do anything and joined the Air Force to "see the world." My brother told me he couldn't wait for me to leave. I told him he would be sorry when I was gone. I read "Gone With the Wind" and wished I lived in another time. I fell in love with a new boy every few weeks as I searched for the prince who lived in my mind.

When I was 18, I believed in beauty. I thought I loved my new life as I spent hours each evening in front of the mirror just to impress the guys I'd meet at Club Gotham or at John's weekly Friday night party. The next morning I'd wake with a headache to wonder, as I hugged the toilet, "Is this all there is to life?" The nights I didn't party, I leaned over the balcony outside my room, searching the stars for an answer, praying to a god I didn't know.

When I was 19, I believed in Jesus. Old things in my life passed away and all became new as I prayed for my brother, wrote about God, and felt peace in my future. I began to live for someone other than myself and found out that Christianity was the farthest thing from boring, after all.

Searching the world for something to believe in finally ended when I found my true Prince. That emptiness was never in my heart again, and the person of the past seems someone from a dream.