When did unicorns become a thing? Was it right around the time that kids starting saying everything was awkward? Perhaps it was brought on by Charlie going viral. Maybe it was encouraged along by double rainbow guy.
Either way, it’s cool to like unicorns now in a weird, hipster-I’m-original-if-you-like-it-too kind of way.
But, just so you know, I liked unicorns first. When it wasn’t mainstream or ironic.
Seriously, you can totally ask my mom.
It’s 1989. I am 10. I am in full unicorn collecting heaven. I receive unicorn collateral for every holiday, birthday and vacation. My yellow walled room is filled with snow globes and stuffed animals. Books and music.
All unicorn.
All the time.
My favorite unicorn paraphernalia is an anthology of stories with vivid pictures. In one, a princess is sitting on a mossy forest floor with her arms around the neck of the sleeping animal.
That picture would take my 10 year old breath away. I wanted to be her so badly. I would close my eyes and pretend as hard as I could that I was the princess. That I was the one in the forest. That I was the one in the fantasy.
When my parents would take my brother and me on trips to Acadia or Franconia Notch, I would hike through the birch woods and look for hoof prints.
Evidence of existence.
One Halloween, my mother upcycled an old white Izod shirt in an effort to create the perfect unicorn costume. She had me wear a white sweatshirt underneath. She trimmed the collar and sleeves with fur. She glued a Styrofoam cone (twirled in gold glitter) to the top of the hood. She stitched on pink felt ears. She threw that sucker on me and-presto-I was in magic happy land.
I was a unicorn.
I remember when I realized that they weren’t real. I was incredibly sad. I felt juvenile and overly naïve. I couldn’t stand that I had allowed myself-that others had allowed me-to believe in something impossible for so long. Where was the justice? How was that fair?
The shimmering mirage disappeared and unveiled a reality that felt harsh and cold. I didn’t look for the creature in the forest or in dappled sunlight. I didn’t sit on the wall to wall green rug in my room and dream of possibility. I put my books away and stashed my snowglobes.
I grew up.
And yet. And yet.
We are all still looking for the unicorn. It just symbolizes something else, doesn’t it? It comes in many forms of perfectionism and idealism and achieving of the impossible.
It is as simple as cooking and serving a beautiful meal to children who are rested and relaxed enough to partake in conversation at the dinner table. It is as simple as comparing oneself to others who we feel have somehow managed to attain a reality that is beyond our grasp.
What I am going to deem Unicornism, is nourished in overly perfect social media posts. It is cultivated at craft fairs. In songs. In movies. At get-togethers and community gatherings. It thrives in an environment of false perception.
Unicornism is the wish and the hope and the gut clutching desire to throw the golden noose around the neck of a dream that has to be there. It has to be there.
Put away your snow globes people. You don’t need a golden noose. You don’t need a fabled anthology.
You need simply to step out of the forest and into the sunlight and open your eyes. There might be a creature out there somewhere galloping, just as there might be a Loch ness swimming lazily in Scotland. But those fictions don’t matter.
What matters is the belief that whatever you want to achieve or accomplish is achievable or accomplishable. It’s not always pretty. But it’s real. And it’s honest.
I trust that.
Out there are people who see the belief and trust inside you and nourish it. That allow you to nourish it. There are people who love you without your unicorn. It’s a group effort of acceptance.
Suddenly, the lines blur and it becomes clear. The clouds part; you watch the idea of the unicorn gallop away into the forest in a trail of glitter and spectrum, and you feel happy.
