Happily Ever After

I can’t say for certain when it first happened. I guess it happens to every girl. At some point, while we’re growing up, somehow we get it into our heads that fairy tales can come true. We spend our childhood watching Disney movies with pretty princesses and perfect men who end up living happily ever after and from that very first happy ending we want nothing more than for that ending to come true for us.

My parents got divorced when I was quite young and I was lucky enough to end up with four amazing parents as opposed to just two, but it wasn’t the fairy tale story I had read so much about and my parents’ lives read nothing like a Disney movie. I guess no one’s really does. But it got me thinking as to where I got this fantasy and why I have based so many on my life’s decisions on a fantasy which, as far as my limited experience goes, may be completely unfounded. Where did I get this urge to believe in something that only seems to exist in books and movies?

And that’s the one flaw with movies and books; they’re selling you a big, perfect moment that only comes once in a lifetime, when actually life is made up of a sequence of little moments, which all have the potential to be whatever you want them to be. So maybe I’m not a princess, and maybe there is no Prince Charming out there waiting to swoop in and save me from all my problems. Maybe, just maybe, there is a guy out there who can share in all of my little moments and make each one of them worth far more than any make believe prince ever could.

Maybe somewhere in this world there is someone as crazy and as adventurous as I am and if I am lucky then one day when I am looking back on my life I will see a series of fantastically beautiful, little moments and I will know that for once Walt Disney got it wrong and that actually the fairy tale ending is not an ending at all but rather the beginning of something amazing.

The nicest thing about this theory is that I can so easily believe it. I have seen other people experience such wondrous, little moments and I know without a doubt that these were more real, and loving, and true than any film could ever hope to capture.

And it is with this theory in mind that I must congratulate two of my closest friends on their recent engagement. In them I have witnessed such love and honesty and true kindness not only towards each other but towards everything else in their lives. I have seen so many of their little moments and I know with every fiber of my being that they have found the ultimate fairy tale. In each other they have found a love that will last forever. And I could not be happier for them.