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I went to see a magic show at a magic castle. I hadn’t seen one since I was four years old and was as excited as I usually am for a totally different kind of magic.

“You are an adult now, you will probably see through it,” my friend told me.

I gave the industry credit that there have been magical advances in the past twenty years. My mentality? Not so much.

 

In The Magic Castle, magicians walk around like regular people. It is kind of like being at a bar, but when They tell you that they can make something disappear, it isn’t an overtly sexual and sick pick-up line.

I started talking to a hypnotist because I have always wanted to involuntarily cluck like a chicken.

“My greatest skill is making people believe that the lies they are telling are the truth,” he told me.

“Have you met my ex-boyfriends?”

My greatest magic trick is making my clothes disappear. And even then, I sometimes get the feeling that my audience would be more excited if I added a top hat, glitter and a rabbit to my act.

 

I don’t actually believe in magic. Anytime I have been faced with a psuedo-magic situation, the logical side of my brain has kicked in and reminded me that by definition magic can’t possibly exist, because if it was possible it wouldn’t be magic. But I do believe in illusions and, I suppose more importantly, disillusions.

 

But there is one situation where, not through lack of trying, I can’t think of a better word to describe the chemistry that is prominent in some relationships. I am talking about the electrifying tension that can leave you with a magical feeling towards another person.

I feel delusional saying that I have had magic once with one person. Just like how my excitement for a magician cutting a girl in half has not wavered in twenty years, my excitement for this person has only increased. I live the illusion of a reality where I am the only member of his audience who is applauding every part of his magical personality.

 

I asked the hypnotist if he could actually make me quit smoking.

“Yes. But only if you want to do it in the first place.” I don’t.

I asked the hypnotist if he could actually make me get over my ex-boyfriend and kill the magic that only I can see.

“Yes. But only if you want to do it in the first place.” I…don’t know.

Thoughts started flying into my head like doves flying out of a jacket sleeve. What the magician was telling me is that the magic is in the choice I make, not in what I see.

 

For the past two days, I have lost my magic spark and have reverted within myself while I think about what is happening in my head verses what is happening in my reality.

Spending time with the only man I have ever truly loved, who no longer wants me, has the same feeling as when you see the magician stack the cards and become disillusioned to the magic: disappointing.

 

Earlier in the week, I had been talking to AM and informed her that for the first time in over twelve months, I may be opening up to the idea of actually having an adult relationship. It was like I had pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

“No more twenty-year-olds and barriers around yourself?!” She asked.

“I’m not a magician, mother,” I responded. “I can’t just make all of that stuff disappear.”

But maybe my clothes will stay on until I find someone who I have that magic feeling towards?

 

The hypnotist didn’t make me cluck like a chicken, quit smoking or get over my ex-boyfriend. I thought about how much of a chicken I am towards Him over a [packet] of cigarettes.

Why can’t I just tell him how I feel? I wondered.

Why can’t I just follow my instincts with this? I questioned.

Why can’t I make my feelings for him disappear?

 

I have no solution of how to get my own magic back (other than eating an entire block of American cheese. It is the stuff of miracles). All I know that what is cutting my mind in half is something that comes down to my choice.

If I want to make something happen in my life, I have to make it happen myself. Magic, unfortunately, does not exist.

 

But chemistry does. 

 

Post By Salium.