Cinderella needs a rewrite

I just keep thinking, why on earth must I suffer for the blatant lies that were drilled into my way of thinking as a child?  I shouldn't have to suffer.  That's - just - it.  It's not my fault... not by a long shot!  Just wait though... you will soon understand who is to blame. 

As young girls we are flooded with glorious images of princesses in fancy ball gowns.  Their hair is always perfect, immaculate, they sing and flowers bloom, they pee on a weed in the middle of the woods and it suddenly becomes a sunflower.  They dance in the woods with owls and deer and countless other wild creatures (could you see me doing that? No. Someone would inevitably create that state institution I like to refer to just to lock my deer dancing butt up---who-who... yes, Miss Wife, you!).  You know the routine.

The best part of the whole unrealistic scene is the prince.  Oh yes, the prince.  He says very little, right?  And what he does say is like pure gold flowing from a public water fountain.  We all want some of that.  The prince and princess dance away into the sunset, into the dimming ballroom, or kissing from the back of a horse drawn carriage with a sign reading, "Just happily married." 

But you know what gets me most?  The whole, "and they lived happily ever" without so much as an effort or a quarrel or a battle or even hair pulling.  (okay, okay, we don't pull hair, but I'm all for new things).  Why do the fairy tales leave out the juicy details.  Blah, blah happy... blah, blah ever... blah, blah after.  Why does the story end there?  I think children, especially us baby girls (I'm referring to my child self here), would do well to know there's more to love and marriage than just happily ever after bliss.  A marriage with all bliss and no struggle makes for one unrealistic "made for TV" special.

So, excuse the happiness out of me when I get all angry and feel like I have been jipped.  This is not what I was led to believe that "happily ever after" would be.  I would go so far as to say, I sometimes feel like I'm in grade school and someone took all of my glitter and poured it out onto the floor.

Why can't they just make sequels to all these amazing fairy tales?  With a little more insight, I certainly wouldn't have spent countless years feeling like a failure... chasing the illustrated versions of happily ever after that never really exist like they do in animation.  Wondering what I was doing wrong and why I couldn't make my life what the fairy tales made it out to be.

Yeah, I obviously had some growing up to do.  So... what about my baby girl, my baby boy?  Well, perhaps I can help some by teaching them that all good things are made good as a result of hard work, patience, diligence, dedication, trust and empathy. 

Big C and I made a promise a few years ago that the word "end" and the word "divorce" did not exist for us.  We never considered it an option... but in the heat of a battle, those words have serious consequences and can go far to damage trust.  So, we decided to agree that sometimes, when you love someone like crazy and you admittedly understand that you are married to your polar opposite, you just have to accept that crazy will sometimes ensue and you just have to love each other anyway. 

The best part of my happily ever after... being able to fight like there's no tomorrow and knowing that tomorrow we will still love one another.  And guess what Cinderella, you didn't teach me that one!