Fairytale Life


I chanced upon a good friend on YM today. I asked her how she was, and she didn’t sound so chipper with her response. She’s in the Middle East, with a kick-ass rich boyfriend and blazing trails as one of the few women engineers in the region. To turn the conversation to happier things, I asked how was her “Prince.” Bad move.

She replied, “Life isn’t a fairytale, girl.” She wouldn’t tell me why exactly, but she believes that fairy tales are lies.

What? What’s she talking about? Life IS a damn fairytale, that’s why it’s so surreal and complicated. It isn’t a Charles Perrault fairytale, yes, but it’s every inch the Brothers Grimm.

I guess it’s not her fault she grew up with watered-down stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. But the fairytales I’ve come to understand are those where girls with dancing shoes cut of their feet and ogres who capture princesses don’t keep them around just to play a golden harp.

Life is scary, unfair, dark, bloody, grim, as much as it is ethereal, bright and wonderful. Life is a fairytale, girl. In fact, it’s the most terrifying and wonderful fairytale of all.

I don’t know what you’re going through over there, R, but I do hope you’ll find the fairy tale in you where the damsel in distress kicks butt and steers the pirate ship home.

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