This I Believe: I believe in believing.

"I do believe in fairies, I do, I do," I hear my niece chanting as she watches Peter Pan. I can't help but chant with her, watching as Tinkerbell's light flickers back on fully. My niece shouts with joy when Tinkerbell starts flying again.
This I believe. I believe in believing.
My niece and I both share a common interest (actually we share many), but one specifically is that we love Peter Pan. The whole story of Peter Pan is based on believing, which many of us stop doing as we grow older. We stop believing in flying, dreams, fairies, and other little things that had been able to bring us joy and laughter with its innocence. I however, still do believe, because i know that being able to act like a child is an important part of growing up, although that may sound like a contradiction. I know that I'm not the only teenage girl out there that hopes Peter will fly through her window and take her to Neverland, to live a life that she wouldn't be able to otherwise.
I know that Peter Pan is just a story, written by J.M. Barrie, a man who never really grew up himself, but I still like to make believe that there will be a time when I can leave life behind. Going to Neverland would allow me to leave all of my stresses in another dimension, so that I could run around care- free and play pretend, have adventures and secretly crush on Peter. Everyone has a place that they go to in their mind when they want to escape the pressures of life, mine just happens to be a place that someone else made up, but that I feel is my own nonetheless.
My favorite part of the story is that a baby's first laugh becomes a fairy, because I know that when I have a baby, I will think it's laugh is magical. You will never catch me saying that "there's no such thing as fairies," in fear of killing a fairy somewhere else in the world. When I watch Peter Pan or anything that has to do with it, whether it be the play, the cartoon, or Finding Neverland, I will clap my hands and shout "I do believe in fairies," because I always will. Not only does Peter Pan help me believe in believing, it helps me believe that innocence can still live on in the world, whether it be in fairies, children, or even adults. There is still good in the world, and believing in what some people may call a silly children's story helps me see it more often.