Fairy Tales

The dashing prince atop his white steed with the sword glinting in the sheath ready to slay the dragon for the lovely, kind princess. Or perhaps it is a fairy godmother flitting about waving a wand or wrinkling her nose to turn a pumpkin into a gleaming carriage. Or maybe it's nothing more than some handsome man making a girl's eyes dance and sparkle when she laughs as he swirls her around the dance floor accompanied by the lovely sounds of a stringed orchestra.

Most little girls grow up believing that this, or something similar could actually become their reality, at least to some degree. They dream of that beautiful wedding day in which their stomachs are filled with butterflies as they glide down the aisle in a gorgeous swathing cupcake gown toward the man of they've fantasized about their whole lives. Then they dream of the perfect honeymoon, the house with the white picket fence, the fluffy dog, and the giggling babies. Then there are girls like me...

I don't believe the fairy tale. I never did really. I was always the skeptic. And now, well now I don't know what to think. I want so very badly to believe that fairy tale. I want to think that somewhere there is a prince ready to come and rescue me from the tower. It just seems though that I'm destined to be Rapunzel forever, except I have short hair so the prince can't climb to the window to save me. I'm stuck there. Stuck.

I thought I had my moment a couple of weeks ago in court. I thought that finally I got to be the princess instead of Cinderella who gets screwed over by everyone around her. I thought perhaps I finally got to go to the ball and put on the glass slipper. I won in court, by a landslide. It was bad for him, to the point that I felt sorry for him. But it doesn't even matter. I still lose. How? Because he is getting to walk away essentially scott free because of a legal loophole in bankruptcy proceedings. Yes, yes, he has to file bankruptcy, which is bad, but it also absolves him from his punishment for screwing me over.

So as I sit here typing all I can think is that I am sitting in a tower waiting for someone and yet no one will come. We like to think that "we're all in this together" but at the end of the day, the weight of this all falls on my shoulders and mine alone. There is no help mate. There is no one who truly understands. The burden is mine to bear, and I hate him for it. I don't think the fairy tale is real. I told my friend today that I think there are no princes or princesses, only a bunch of smashed up Humpty Dumptys. The looking glass is shattered. There is no magic. Life is not pretty, and I doubt it ever will be. Shame on parents for letting little girls think otherwise. We are not princesses. Nothing of the sort. No matter how many tiaras I wore as a little girl, and not matter how many pretty dresses I twirl around in, I am no princess. The stories aren't true. In the end justice does not seem to prevail. We do the right thing because it's the right thing, but to expect a reward is foolish at best. It is true that no good deed goes unpunished.

And so I sit in my tower and wonder if there is an end to this mess. I try to make sense of it all, but it is a riddle I cannot solve. All the dresses in all the world can not a princess make. In reality, we are all more like Cinderella as she scrubs the floors, makes the food, and mends the clothes with coal smudged on her pretty face.