Posts Tagged ‘fairy tale’

Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a very small castle with her family: her father, the King, her mother, the Queen, and her little prince brother. Their kingdom was not a very big one and the King had to go to work to pay for the castle. While he worked, the Queen took care of both of her children and life was pretty uneventful.

The little princess longed for the attention of her father, but the King was more occupied withhis son the prince. Father and son spent lots of time together, and it was clear that the little prince was more valuable to the King. After all, he would become the next king.

Years flew by and the little princess longed for another kind of life. The King and Queen had begun to fight every single night and soon, the princess had to move to a different castle. She visited the King, but once more, it was clear that her father was more interested with his son the Prince. So, she longed for a prince of her own. Since her family was so dysfunctional, she longed for her own family, full of little princesses and little princes.

Very soon her father introduced her to various evil stepmothers, most of which detested the little princess and made her feel unwelcomed in her own castle. He mother the Queen started dating a knight who turned out to be a pretty nice guy. But even then, it was not enough for the princess to feel like she had a family. She still longed for the day her prince charming would come and sweep her off her feet.

And that moment came when she became an adult. Her prince came and made her heart flutter. She fell madly in love and imagined the great life she had ahead of her. Unfortunately, it was only after the birth of her very first child that she realised she had been deceived. Her prince was not a prince after all, but an evil sorcerer who had disguised himself as a prince.

The princess fled, taking her little princess with her. Thanks to the protection of her fairy godmothers, the evil sorcerer never bothered them again. She nevertheless hid in a little cabin in the forest and worked hard every single day. Gone were the days of dreaming of being a swept off her feet. Gone were the dreams of weddings, a castle full of children and dancing every night with her prince charming. She tended to her garden in order to feed her child, chopped wood and played with her daughter. Life was simple and safe.

But one day she met a knight of her own. He was as kind and as sweet as the man her mother the Queen had met. He too had seen his fairy tale end in a very horrible way. The princess he thought he had married turned out to be an awful witch who only wanted to turn him into one of her slaves. Because he was so strong and courageous, and because he had a pure heart, she did not succeed. He managed to escape but had to make a deal with her. He would give her part of his soul and part of his heart if he was allowed to see his son and be part of his life. The witch accepted the deal and the knight lost that part of his heart and soul forever.

The knight fell in love with the princess, but because of his missing heart part, he would not let himself go to passion. The princess had a brief moment of hope that her fairy tale could come true. That she could be married and have children and have the dream life she so longed for all those years ago. When she saw that the knight could not give her what she wanted, she decided to stay with him anyhow. She decided to build a life with him and figured they could protect and help each other.

The princess worked hard at creating a family, only it had another name now. It was called a stepfamily. Living under the constant threat of the evil witch was not easy, but the strength she had developed and the resilience that came from inside her was enough to survive anything. The knight loved her and she loved him back. They settled in a bigger house in the woods and raised their children together. It was a simple life really, but a good one. But sometimes, when the princess was sleeping, she would dream of giving a big ball in her castle, surrounded by tons of little happy children, and a smiling husband who would kiss the hand where he had placed a shining diamond.

I’m at a point in my life where I need to rethink everything. As a young woman, I had dreams, like everybody else. To me, life was simple. I grew up never feeling like I really had a home or a family. It hurts my mother deeply when I say this. She worked as hard as she could to create a home for us. But to me it wasn’t enough. She met a wonderful man and he filled in a place my dad never wanted to fill. But he wasn’t my dad. The one who was supposed to love me unconditionnally did not. I spent my whole teenage life longing for something else. For a family of my own. I knew I would love my kids unconditionally. I wanted to find a dad that would love them just the same. I wanted to find a man who would never leave, me or his kids.  Career wise, I did not care about fame and fortune. I wanted to find a fulfilling job. One that would give me enough money to live and enough time to devote to my family.

Things just didn’t turn out this way. I was blinded by wanting this family, so much so that I forgot to choose carefully. I recreated for my daughter a situation just as bad as the one I went through. Her dad took off when I was pregnant.  She feels left out, just like I did … and still do. I tried, like my mother did, to make up for this. I tried to be extremely present. But it wasn’t it. I had nobody to share the joy and the pain with. I was surviving. Struggling. I found a job that was exactly what I had planned. It gave me enough money to put food on the table and enough time to be present. But that’s all I had. No one loved me and my daughter enough… something was missing.

This time, I found a man who embodies everything that I should have looked for in the first place. But I’m just too late. The dream I had of a family, he has had already. Even though his family is broken, it satisfies him. It’s not what he is looking for anymore. The sadness I feel right now is immense. I feel lost. Completely and uterly lost. I will never be the type of mother and wife I wanted to be. I would need to focus on a career that fulfills me, but I just don’t care about that. I don’t want to value myself by how much money I make . I don’t want to wait for a boss to tell me I’m doing a good job. I want to feel it every day because my daughter is happy. Because my husband comes home every day. Because my newborn baby looks up at me and needs me.

I was heartbroken when everything fell apart with my ex. But never as much as I am right now. I still had hopes back then. I still thought that a family was possible. I know that what I have is a sort of family. But it will never be it. When my daughter graduates from universtity, I will be the only one with that immense sense of pride.  Yes, my man will feel happy for her, but never the way he will feel when his own son will graduate. We will both be grandparents, but separately. He will share his joys with his ex, the mother of his child. The one he lived the birth of his son with. They will share this feeling. They will know exactly how the other person feels. I will never have that. My daughter will never have real sibblings. She will never share that bond with anybody else. His son will, he already has a brother, a real one.

I know I should not place those barriers. Stepfamilies work out all the time. To my man, his failure came at the end of his marriage. Mine is happening every day. I will never get my second chance. It is just too late. My life will consist of doing my best for my daughter and being the best stepmom I can be. To love my man as much as I can. But I will never be content. Every day is just another day.  I don’t look forward to anything. I just live because I’m still breathing….

I just finished reading this blog entry and it brings up interesting issues. This is what I’m dealing with in my relationship right now (among other things…) I want the fairy tale. Yet my man is hesitant on getting married and does not want other kids. What??? Where is my: and they lived happily ever after and had lots of children? Where is my big wedding and my prince carrying me away. Instead, I get a big dose of reality: I have a child, he does as well. We have his ex to deal with on top of both of our families. He has a big successful career, mine is down the gutter. We have karate practice and dance lesson to go to. Where are the cute little singing birds and the long walks in the park?

I do however, have a great man. He is patient and kind. He loves me and I love him with all my heart. So why can’t I be content with this. Why do I want more. Maybe this blog entry has it right… we have been fooled into thinking that our prince is coming… It has made us blind to what we do have… Yet, I can’t help but feel depressed and dissapointed that this is my fairy tale… my not happy, not unhappy just what it is ending…

Drunk on Sleeping Beauty

Posted by Koraly on 14-12-2009

Lips that shame the red rose, hair of sunshine-gold. She’ll offer springtime wherever she goes. Arora is stunning, thin, the victim of Maleficent’s cruelty. Arora dances to ‘Once upon a dream’ deep in the forest with cute, furry animals. The prince sneaks up behind her. She’s hesitant – she can’t talk to strangers. But they’ve met before: once upon a dream. She lets her guard down, he takes her in his arms, and right there, and that precise moment, I want to throw myself into the Disney Classic and never return to reality again. The prince is noble, gallant, a little rebellious. It’s love at first sight. He fights the evil dragon, conquers Maleficent and wakes Arora with true-love’s kiss. It ends happily ever after and the prince and princess dance in the clouds to ‘Once upon a dream’.

Love, take me away…

But I know something’s not right when my three-year old daughter is obsessed with Sleeping Beauty. We fight daily – she wants to play the DVD, put on her dress (no pants because Arora doesn’t wear pants!) and twirl with her imaginary prince.  When she’s not waltzing, she stares at the screen quietly, absorbing every phrase. I wasn’t any different as a child, fixated on fairytales and Sleeping Beauty. But as I observe my daughter’s perception of love being moulded before my very eyes; when I hear of yet another couple breaking up, another ending in divorce; when I listen to single girlfriends whine that there are no decent guys out there; or girlfriends contemplating ending a relationship because they’re boyfriend isn’t romantic enough, should be more impulsive, has an annoying habit, isn’t more…something (they can’t put their finger on it), or they’re convinced they ‘can do so much better’, I have to wonder:

Did we all watch too much Sleeping Beauty?

Fairytales all have happy endings and these are the ideas we are instilling in our children. In the original version of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid the prince actually doesn’t choose Ariel and she turns to sea foam(dies). Disney rewrote the ending. But this craving for happy endings, of the man rescuing the damsel in distress, also extends to adult film and literature.

A few years back I couldn’t stop watching the TV series Sex and the City. I purchased the DVDs and watched it again and again. When I think back to that time I realise I was probably trying to make sense of why Big and Carrie end up together. In reality Big and Carrie never would have worked out. He was a commitment phobic. They had orgasmic sexual chemistry though. In terms of a life partner, Aiden was perfect for her and she blew it when she had a lustful affair with Big. We all want to believe that love=lust and maybe that’s why Sex and the City was so successful. After five years of making Carrie’s life a misery he finally(out of the blue) decided she was ‘the one’. The audience pay-off was huge – we got the happy ending and the hot sex too.

A recent example of this in literature is Toni Jordan’s Addition. It’s had huge success but does it have a realistic ending? Without spoiling the ending I can easily say that it is a Hollywoodisation of both love and mental illness. Are we censoring the reality of relationships by feeding this unrealistic craving for romance, lust, and the easy relationship where everything magically falls into place without complication? Are we feeding this notion that when you meet ‘the one’ you’ll know instantly and you’ll ride off together in the sunset? Are our films and literature showing us lust but calling it love? Love is about companionship, compromise, communication. Relationships are bloody hard but bloody rewarding. Are there any successful books or films out there that portray this(and by success I mean sold well). Should writers give readers what they want and ditch reality? Is that being socially responsible?

I can already hear the objections to this post, the ‘I haven’t waited all my life for Mr Right only to settle for second best’ and the ‘if he was the right guy for me we wouldn’t have so many problems’. To me it seems that relationships these days end at the slightest whiff of complication. Or don’t even start up because there was no ’sexual chemistry’. But if the reality of relationships doesn’t seem to gel well with you and you’re still holding out for prince charming or the little mermaid, maybe you should shut up shop in reality and move into a Disney Fairytale.

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