I think everyone could use a lighthearted/happy story right now so here goes:
At the beginning of the pandemic, I went through some painful personal stuff and would often go out at night for long walks because no one was around and I couldn’t sleep anyway. One night I was walking down my street and noticed that someone had set up a few little objects in a tree planter and upon closer inspection I realized it was a fairy garden with a little note about the 4-year-old girl who felt lonely in quarantine and wanted to spread some cheer.
The next day I wrote a little note to her, pretending to be a fairy named Sapphire that had come to live in the tree because she had set it up so nicely and I left it on the tree that night on my walk and said I would gift her with a magical fairy dice (I got really into crafting resin rpg die at the start of the pandemic) if she did 3 things for me:
I wasn’t sure if she’d respond or even find the note but it was fun just imagining what she’d think. The next night on my walk I found this and immediately burst into tears:
So I left a bunch of my die that had small imperfections and left her another note and also a little extra note for her parents with my name and phone number so they could contact me and know I wasn’t some creep leaving notes for their small child:
This was there the next day:
Doing this every night gave me purpose in a horribly painful and lonely time. I looked forward to my days again and I started ordering art supplies and little trinkets to leave her.
We wrote back and forth throughout the last 9 months, helping each other feel less lonely and I got to chat with her mom via text to make sure my gifts were a little more personal. At one point she asked for a photo of me and thankfully I had some elf costume items from the previous Halloween so I photoshopped some photos of myself in costume, looking like a fairy.
In the past month her mom sent me a text letting me know that they had closed escrow on a new house a little further away and would have to leave the fairy garden behind in the care of their neighbors. She also mentioned that Eliana was having a tough time with it so I made sure to include some support in my letters and told her I had to move as well so she’d feel like we were both going through it together. Her mom said it was helping her so much and they really wanted to try to see me somehow before they left.
Well, today, their moving day, after a few days of planning with her mom, I got to meet Eliana. I left one last note this morning saying I had to move out today and made up a little story that when fairies move houses, they grow to the size of a human just for one day to move all of their belongings. I said I had one more gift for her and would leave it this afternoon and hoped she wouldn’t catch me. As they came back from their last walk around their neighborhood, I was by the tree leaving her gift and she got to catch me in the act (I got tested 2 days ago and her
