Sarah Corcoran A 1920’s Murder of One

A 1920’s Murder of One Sarah Corcoran

The Tinker Bell Fantasy Mariella Ajami

When I was a little girl, I spent so much time watching Disney movies. I would sit in the living room on the floor with a blanket wrapped around me, playing movies one after another until not only I, but every single person in my house could mouth the words while watching. Many of those movies took a place in my heart.

I loved Disney princesses and enjoyed their movies, but unlike other girls my age, I never cared to be a princess. I wanted to be something else. I did not know what that something else was, but I knew it was equivalent to being a princess. When I watched Peter Pan for the first time, I was in shock and couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted more: to re-watch it or to be a part of that world they all live and fly in. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about Peter and his little friend Tinker Bell and imagining what it would be like for me to be a shiny, beautiful fairy with beautiful wings to take me anywhere with Peter Pan by my side.

The freedom that flying brings is fascinating! It would probably look silly right now for me to jump across the living room from couch to couch trying not to fall; however, as a nine-year-old, that was what my whole life was about. Every night for weeks, I would play the movie and start jumping. With every jump, I got higher and closer to the ceiling. With every jump, my hopes got higher, and with every jump, I would tell myself: “This is it: I’m going to fly this time.” Watching Peter Pan was a turning event in my life. As a child I was completely convinced that I may not be Tinker Bell or be able to fly side by side with Peter Pan, but I never lost faith in my ability to fly one day.

My mom was starting to get concerned as I would not talk about anything in the world but flying. The only time I did not talking about flying, I was practicing it. It started as an innocent childhood fantasy that my mom found cute at first, but it got serious enough she had to sit me down and explain to me (multiple times) why it wasn’t

humanly possible for me to fly because I did not have wings, nor was I born with them. She continued to say that it was not all bad because I would get to see cities, oceans, and land from above and fly by the clouds when I got older and could fly — on an airplane. I didn’t care one bit about what my mom said or what my family thought. If anything, their words only made me more dedicated to prove them all wrong and magically fly one day. I couldn’t resist the desire to be unique: to fly high in the sky, to see buildings as if they were little Legos from afar, to dance with birds while the wind blew through my hair, and to enjoy the fact of being free, and to have the ability to go anywhere I pleased.

Unfortunately, as days went by I started losing my motivation. I realized my dream may not come true, and my mom was right all along. Humans aren’t capable of growing wings. It took me a while to actually accept the fact I will never be a Tinker Bell, and I will have to continue living my life as a non-shiny, wingless, and regular sized girl. When I finally accepted this reality, I wasn’t only disappointed in myself, but I was also disappointed in Peter Pan for saying, “Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough.” My mom was very upset with the situation and the way I had been feeling. She almost made me stop watching Disney movies altogether. She did not want me to get attached to another movie and be disappointed again. But that never happened because as soon as I watched The Little Mermaid that became my new movie obsession. And that’s how the whole Peter Pan phase passed. I recovered peacefully as my concerns shifted to how to grow into a mermaid.

Sometimes in life we get stubborn and refuse to take the hints because we get passionate about a certain idea and cannot see anything else, no matter how many people try to change our minds. Sometimes, the only way to achieve bigger dreams is to experience failure that pushes us to try again. Thinking about that story today still makes me smile. Even though my dream to fly did not come true, many other dreams did come true in my life. I can’t be anything but grateful for all the failures and disappointments that made me who I am today. And who knows what science will come up with in the future? Maybe one day I’ll be able to purchase wings and connect them to my shoulders via Bluetooth and say, “Alexa, fly me to work.”