Do you ever revisit a memory…

and feel like it glows a little softer than it probably did back then?

Like it has this quiet warmth to it…

this almost cinematic stillness…

as if it belonged in a story

instead of real life.

And the strange part is—

the more time passes…

the more beautiful it starts to feel.

Even the parts that once confused you.

Even the parts that once hurt you.

Especially those.

And you start wondering…

did it actually feel like this?

Or did I make it feel like this over time?

I’ve been thinking about promises lately.

Not the formal kind people make during ceremonies…

Not the kind written in contracts or spoken loudly in front of crowds.

But the quieter promises.

The ones we learned long before we understood what a promise really was.

The ones we absorbed from stories.

From fairytales.

From those moments where a character looked at another character and said something simple… something absolute.

I’ve noticed something about the way my mind works.

I keep comparing fairytales with reality.

Not occasionally.

Almost constantly.

I’ll hear a story… or remember one from childhood… and somehow my mind immediately begins placing it next to real life.

I start asking questions like—

What would this look like if it happened in the real world?

Why do these stories feel emotionally familiar?

Why do the struggles of fictional characters sometimes resemble things we quietly experience ourselves?

And sometimes I wonder if that habit is strange.

Why compare the two at all? Right??

There’s something fascinating about the way we approach fairytales.

Even when we know they are fictional… we believe them

Not every detail.

We don’t necessarily believe in dragons or magic spells or enchanted castles.

But we believe something else.

We believe the good in them.

We believe that kindness matters.

We believe courage can change things.

We believe love can transform people.

We believe patience can lead to something meaningful.

And somehow, those parts of the story feel true.

Even when the rest of the world tells us that reality is much more complicated..

There’s a strange habit many of us carry without even realizing it.

We keep waiting for our lives to start.

Not literally, of course. We wake up, go to work, talk to people, move through our routines. Life is technically happening every day.

But somewhere in the back of our minds, there is a quiet assumption.

The real story hasn’t started yet.

There are moments in life that don’t look extraordinary to the outside world.

They don’t make headlines.

They don’t break the internet.

They don’t look like the kind of achievements we usually celebrate loudly.

But to the person living them… they feel like a crown being quietly placed on your head.

And recently, I experienced one of those moments.

I was chosen as the only intern to feature in the official testimonial video of our School of Ayurveda.

Now if someone heard that sentence quickly, it might sound simple.

Just a student appearing in a video.

But the moment I heard it, something inside me shifted.

Not because of the camera.

Not because of visibility.

But because of what that moment represented.

It reminded me of something I had forgotten.

My life… never stopped being a fairytale.

Sometimes I think we misunderstood fairytales.

We assumed they were meant to describe a perfect life.

A world where everything aligns neatly.

Where love arrives on time.

Where courage always wins quickly.

Where every story ends with certainty.

But the more I observe real life, the more I begin to suspect something different.

There is a question people ask with a certain tone.

Almost like they already know the answer.

“Do you really think life can be like a fairytale?”

And usually the answer expected is no.

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Hey, I reflected on this topic as an escape from my medical internship days, which have been very physically and emotionally demanding. I thought that reflecting on this topic, made me much more aware about the rhythm of everyday,that is not much different than fairytale.

Maybe we are living the fairytales we loved in childhood.

For some time, I wasn’t scrolling Instagram.

Not because I was trying to prove anything to myself, but because life had its own rhythm. The days were full. The hospital was demanding. The mind was occupied with real people, real illnesses, real responsibilities.

But recently, I started scrolling again.

Not obsessively. Not in a way that feels like an addiction.

Just enough for it to quietly become a part of my day again.

And something interesting began to happen.

I started seeing people my age.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-four.

And they were doing incredible things.

Winning Olympic medals.

Receiving global awards for their work in film and art.

Standing in front of parliaments, changing laws that could save lives.

Starting movements that reshape entire communities.

People my age were doing things that once sounded like fairytales.

And then there was me.

Standing in a general medicine ward.

An intern in a white coat.

Listening to patients’ symptoms, writing notes, checking vitals, trying to keep up with everything that medicine demands.

Objectively, there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, this is exactly where I once dreamed of being.

Years ago, the hospital itself was the fairytale.

The long nights studying.

The anxiety before exams.

The moment I first stepped into medical training.

All of that was part of a dream I once chased relentlessly.

And yet… something strange happens when you begin comparing timelines.

Suddenly, the dream you are living begins to feel… ordinary.

You start asking questions you never intended to ask.

What am I even doing?

Sometimes I wonder if fairytales were never meant to be fantasy.

Maybe they were always meant to be instructions for how to look at life.

A

A wish.

A meeting.

Real life unfolds in the exact same way.

Most of our lives feel ordinary… until suddenly they aren’t.

One conversation can change the direction of years.

One decision can quietly redraw an entire future.

One moment can divide your life into before and after.

If you look at it this way, life already carries the rhythm of a fairytale.