It seems like over the last year or so, the people in my life are either moving forward or moving on when it comes to relationships. Some of them are getting married or engaged and some of them are getting on with starting over after a break up. Lately I feel like I’ve seen more of the latter and last night as I watched A Cinderella Story, I got to thinking about fairy tales.
When we’re young, we are told wonderful stories filled with great loves and happy endings; however, that’s actually a contradiction. You see, great loves don’t have endings. They may have happy moments or sad moments but real love stories don’t end. If you can just stop loving someone, then something tells me they will not qualify as the great love of your life and maybe it wasn’t even really true love in the first place. Since I haven't found my great love story (yet), I can only commiserate with the unhappily ever after side of the relationship saga, but that’s the side of the fairy tale we don’t usually see. Maybe if they portrayed the downside of the love story then we would be more prepared for the possibility that happily ever after isn’t always so easy to come by.
So as I was thinking of all the outdated fairy tales about love, I began wondering how these “damsels in distress” would be in a 2011 version of the stories. If Cinderella lost a glass slipper at the ball, would she wait around for her handsome prince to bring it back to her or would she just mourn the loss of a really cute pair of shoes and then whip out the Visa card to treat herself to some new ones? Would Snow White actually settle for cooking and cleaning up after the Seven Dwarfs or would she sign up for Career Builder and move on with her life? Are you honestly telling me that with all the advances in modern medicine that true love’s kiss is the only thing that can wake poor Sleeping Beauty? Would all these girls still be sitting round waiting to be saved in a post Carrie Bradshaw world?
The truth is that I would be lying if I said I didn’t want the fairy tale. I would love to be Cinderella and find my prince charming to ride off into the sunset with but that's easier said than done. We live in a dating world where we tend to find more shady Pinocchios than prince charmings. We have boys that cry love and little boys that refuse to grow up, aka Peter Pans, but we all still hold out hope for the day when we kiss the frog that will magically turn into the handsome prince we have been waiting for.
But the question still remains, what if our prince turns out to be just a villain in disguise? When that happens, you can’t help but start to wonder why some people get their fairy tale romances and you get stuck with yet another heartbreak. The song says, “Someday my prince will come,” but when is someday?
To be honest, if I could answer those questions, I probably wouldn’t still be looking for my own prince charming but for all of you starting over, the only advice I can offer you is this. Breaking up is hard to do. Be sad or angry or whatever it is that you need to be to help heal your broken heart but don’t wait around for a prince to come take you away to some magical life. Great things happen when we least expect them to so do your best to let go of your search for happily ever afer. Live your life and when the time comes, let a guy fall into the life you already have.
You can say this little diatribe is about girl power or feminist, but the underlying theme is the same regardless of gender. It's just about healing. It's about moving on and realizing that your world is not over because your relationship has ended. We don’t need a handsome prince or white knight to come throw us on the back of their horse and save us. What exactly are they saving us from anyways?! Trade the horseback riding for a Mustang convertible and be in the driver’s seat when you ride off into the sunset. Maybe you’ll pick up a prince along the way or maybe you won’t but don’t settle for just being a princess needing to be saved. Be a queen and rule your own life.
"The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it." - Roseanne Barr
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