Every fairytale I can recall reading as a child always started with "Once upon a time..." and ended with "...and they all lived happily ever after." Of course they all didn't live happily ever after- there was the unfortunate incident with a stove and Hansel and Gretel's witch, and Cinderella's stepsisters' feet will never be the same, but the lessons we all learned were that love prevailed and goodness conquered evil, and in the end, we, too, could find our prince and live Happily Ever After.
"What utter nonsense" is what I came away thinking at the wizened and jaded old age of about 8, when I decided that fairy tales were lovely stories but completely bogus when applied to real life. Women didn't need men to come rescue them from themselves, and working hard was not only its own reward, but also much more sensible than waiting around letting your hair grow just in case someone managed to get past all of the other obstacles in order to save you from a tower.
This way of thinking didn't stop me from working toward my own happily ever after, it just had me envisioning it a bit differently than the brothers Grimm and certainly differently than the Disney corporation would script it for me. I could and would have a happy life, but I would set about getting it for myself, and so I did.
The true trouble with these stories, though, isn't that they set up a helpless Princess mentality in our little girls. It's that they never say exactly how everyone managed to live happily ever after. When you turn the page at the end of a fairy tale, you read The End, typically in some scrolling script, like a pretty font makes the end better than times new roman. What it doesn't say is the following:
They all lived happily ever after, in a house whose roof leaked when it rained hard, and whose floors never seemed to get quite clean enough to meet the mother in-law's standards. Aforementioned mother in-law managed to only drop by when it was most inconvenient, of course; when the garden needed weeding and the babies needed changing and dinner had been scorched and the clothes hanging on the line to dry were covered in mud from the dogs running through them.
They all lived happily ever after but barely getting by financially some years because they'd invested poorly or been misled by their stockbroker or someone had been laid off or decided to buy a boat, which was a really foolish thing to do since no one had any time at all to enjoy it on the weekends since there were so many chores and errands and other, more pressing things to occupy their time. The boat (or RV or new car or cruise to the Bahamas) wasn't ever for their own enjoyment, anyhow, but merely to keep up with everyone else who was also living happily ever after.
They all lived happily ever after but the knight in shining armor felt ambushed the minute he got home from work by the children and demands and nagging voice of his wife after a long day at a menial job he found tedious at best and grueling more often than not. He dragged himself there every day, though, because he had cute female coworkers who didn't know or didn't care he was married, and the flirtation he engaged in with them that started out as innocent and suddenly wasn't anymore made him feel alive and wanted and as if happily ever after wasn't such a bad place to be. Sure, his armor might get a little tarnished, but to the victor go the spoils.
They all lived happily ever after but the helpless princess eventually realized she was the only person holding her household together. She did all of the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, decision making and planning, and had her own job and money and outside interests- or she would have, if she had had time for them. She realized at some point there simply must have been more to life than living happily ever after, but by then, she was far too entrenched in it to do anything about it.
No, the storybooks never spell out exactly what happily ever after actually is. Perhaps it's because they'd like you to use your imagination and make up your mind that for one princess it was dancing all night every night at different balls, while for another it was singing to bluebirds and skipping through the forest all day every day. What I happen to think is that they never spell it out because it is just as mythical as the rest of the story; if you expect everything to somehow fall into place and some hero to come rescue you just when it looked like you were doomed, you're going to be waiting for your life to start until it's over.
Sure, I'm living happily ever after. I worked very hard to make it that way. I don't know anyone who has a happy life who didn't work hard and make conscious choices to get that life. I chose to do the things I did in my past, leading me to my present, which is very happy- most of the time.
I worked my way up a career path- it's more of a stepladder than an actual ladder in my line of work, but I'm working on getting to the next rung, and until then, I'm content in what is a genuinely fulfilling career that pays the bills and still manages to keep me in shoes. No one ever handed me the keys to the city and I certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I enjoy the things I have much more because of that.
I dated a lot of men to know which types of things about them I enjoyed, which I couldn't stand, and which I simply couldn't live without. I may not have dated a lot by Sex and the City standards, granted, but there was a time when I was one bad date away from owning thirty cats. The point is, I put myself through that tortuous experience not to be able to claim I had done it as some crazy right of passage, but because Mr Right or Prince Charming was not going to knock on my door while I sat at home patiently waiting for him to come rescue me, so I went about my regular business, sure, but let myself be open to the possibilities.
That's another thing- what did I think he'd be able to rescue me from, this elusive man I hadn't yet found? The tedium of my job? Certainly not, and besides, I like my job, and more than that, I like having control over my own finances. In this day and age, what's the worst that can befall me, a flat tire? Well, I know how to change a tire, and if I simply don't feel like it, I can pay a tow truck to come get my car and then a mechanic to fix it for me. I am not obligated by some outdated need to be rescued to have a man around. This means that if I do have one around for any length of time, it's because I choose to keep him there.
I have two children, and since they're both healthy and thriving happily with me as their mother, it seems as if I haven't done everything wrong there, even though by many standards I don't parent conventionally. For a good portion of both of their lives, I was their only adult role model and frankly, I sort of think all parents should have to be single parents for at least a short period of time. It makes you stronger in ways you didn't know you could be, simply because you have to be. There is no other option, no room for failure or for handing the duties off for a day or evening or weekend to your partner. It's all on your shoulders, and you really learn just how much it is you can handle.
I am perfectly happy in my home, but that's another thing I had to work very hard for. There was no knight riding up on a white horse who had a castle sitting empty, just waiting for a woman's touches. I had to decide that if home ownership was a dream of mine, I would provide it for myself and my family. I did, and while I love my home and my town and the fact that I can look out a window and know that as far as I can see, the land is mine, there are also downsides. If the furnace blows up and the roof blows off and the basement gets flooded all in the same week, there's no landlord to call. It's up to me to keep us warm and safe and dry.
We have many milestone ages- at five, we can go to school; ten is double digits and seems important for some reason; thirteen marks our entrance into the teen years; at sixteen we can drive; at eighteen we're considered adults and can join the military and get credit and buy lottery tickets; at twenty one we can drink alcohol; thirty used to herald our entrance into middle age, now it seems as if forty is that age. But there is no milestone age for marking our having reached the happily ever after we strive for from the beginning of our lives.
No one tells us we're now living happily ever after, and I just can't help but wonder if people forget that this is it for them. True, we're not all walking around with giddy grins on our faces and breaking out in song randomly (okay, I do break out in song semi-randomly, but there's no giddy grin), but it's all too easy to get caught up in the daily quagmire of life and forget to live. I don't think any one's happily ever after just happens. We work for it, but then when we finally have it, I think we get so wrapped up in just getting through all the little mundane details of life that we don't even realize we have it.
I first realized this was my happily ever after when I was reviewing my Big List of Life's Goals and realized there really isn't anything left to accomplish. Man: check. Kids: check. Career: check. House: check. All that's left is enjoying it, and not taking any of it too seriously.
"What utter nonsense" is what I came away thinking at the wizened and jaded old age of about 8, when I decided that fairy tales were lovely stories but completely bogus when applied to real life. Women didn't need men to come rescue them from themselves, and working hard was not only its own reward, but also much more sensible than waiting around letting your hair grow just in case someone managed to get past all of the other obstacles in order to save you from a tower.
This way of thinking didn't stop me from working toward my own happily ever after, it just had me envisioning it a bit differently than the brothers Grimm and certainly differently than the Disney corporation would script it for me. I could and would have a happy life, but I would set about getting it for myself, and so I did.
The true trouble with these stories, though, isn't that they set up a helpless Princess mentality in our little girls. It's that they never say exactly how everyone managed to live happily ever after. When you turn the page at the end of a fairy tale, you read The End, typically in some scrolling script, like a pretty font makes the end better than times new roman. What it doesn't say is the following:
They all lived happily ever after, in a house whose roof leaked when it rained hard, and whose floors never seemed to get quite clean enough to meet the mother in-law's standards. Aforementioned mother in-law managed to only drop by when it was most inconvenient, of course; when the garden needed weeding and the babies needed changing and dinner had been scorched and the clothes hanging on the line to dry were covered in mud from the dogs running through them.
They all lived happily ever after but barely getting by financially some years because they'd invested poorly or been misled by their stockbroker or someone had been laid off or decided to buy a boat, which was a really foolish thing to do since no one had any time at all to enjoy it on the weekends since there were so many chores and errands and other, more pressing things to occupy their time. The boat (or RV or new car or cruise to the Bahamas) wasn't ever for their own enjoyment, anyhow, but merely to keep up with everyone else who was also living happily ever after.
They all lived happily ever after but the knight in shining armor felt ambushed the minute he got home from work by the children and demands and nagging voice of his wife after a long day at a menial job he found tedious at best and grueling more often than not. He dragged himself there every day, though, because he had cute female coworkers who didn't know or didn't care he was married, and the flirtation he engaged in with them that started out as innocent and suddenly wasn't anymore made him feel alive and wanted and as if happily ever after wasn't such a bad place to be. Sure, his armor might get a little tarnished, but to the victor go the spoils.
They all lived happily ever after but the helpless princess eventually realized she was the only person holding her household together. She did all of the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, decision making and planning, and had her own job and money and outside interests- or she would have, if she had had time for them. She realized at some point there simply must have been more to life than living happily ever after, but by then, she was far too entrenched in it to do anything about it.
No, the storybooks never spell out exactly what happily ever after actually is. Perhaps it's because they'd like you to use your imagination and make up your mind that for one princess it was dancing all night every night at different balls, while for another it was singing to bluebirds and skipping through the forest all day every day. What I happen to think is that they never spell it out because it is just as mythical as the rest of the story; if you expect everything to somehow fall into place and some hero to come rescue you just when it looked like you were doomed, you're going to be waiting for your life to start until it's over.
Sure, I'm living happily ever after. I worked very hard to make it that way. I don't know anyone who has a happy life who didn't work hard and make conscious choices to get that life. I chose to do the things I did in my past, leading me to my present, which is very happy- most of the time.
I worked my way up a career path- it's more of a stepladder than an actual ladder in my line of work, but I'm working on getting to the next rung, and until then, I'm content in what is a genuinely fulfilling career that pays the bills and still manages to keep me in shoes. No one ever handed me the keys to the city and I certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I enjoy the things I have much more because of that.
I dated a lot of men to know which types of things about them I enjoyed, which I couldn't stand, and which I simply couldn't live without. I may not have dated a lot by Sex and the City standards, granted, but there was a time when I was one bad date away from owning thirty cats. The point is, I put myself through that tortuous experience not to be able to claim I had done it as some crazy right of passage, but because Mr Right or Prince Charming was not going to knock on my door while I sat at home patiently waiting for him to come rescue me, so I went about my regular business, sure, but let myself be open to the possibilities.
That's another thing- what did I think he'd be able to rescue me from, this elusive man I hadn't yet found? The tedium of my job? Certainly not, and besides, I like my job, and more than that, I like having control over my own finances. In this day and age, what's the worst that can befall me, a flat tire? Well, I know how to change a tire, and if I simply don't feel like it, I can pay a tow truck to come get my car and then a mechanic to fix it for me. I am not obligated by some outdated need to be rescued to have a man around. This means that if I do have one around for any length of time, it's because I choose to keep him there.
I have two children, and since they're both healthy and thriving happily with me as their mother, it seems as if I haven't done everything wrong there, even though by many standards I don't parent conventionally. For a good portion of both of their lives, I was their only adult role model and frankly, I sort of think all parents should have to be single parents for at least a short period of time. It makes you stronger in ways you didn't know you could be, simply because you have to be. There is no other option, no room for failure or for handing the duties off for a day or evening or weekend to your partner. It's all on your shoulders, and you really learn just how much it is you can handle.
I am perfectly happy in my home, but that's another thing I had to work very hard for. There was no knight riding up on a white horse who had a castle sitting empty, just waiting for a woman's touches. I had to decide that if home ownership was a dream of mine, I would provide it for myself and my family. I did, and while I love my home and my town and the fact that I can look out a window and know that as far as I can see, the land is mine, there are also downsides. If the furnace blows up and the roof blows off and the basement gets flooded all in the same week, there's no landlord to call. It's up to me to keep us warm and safe and dry.
We have many milestone ages- at five, we can go to school; ten is double digits and seems important for some reason; thirteen marks our entrance into the teen years; at sixteen we can drive; at eighteen we're considered adults and can join the military and get credit and buy lottery tickets; at twenty one we can drink alcohol; thirty used to herald our entrance into middle age, now it seems as if forty is that age. But there is no milestone age for marking our having reached the happily ever after we strive for from the beginning of our lives.
No one tells us we're now living happily ever after, and I just can't help but wonder if people forget that this is it for them. True, we're not all walking around with giddy grins on our faces and breaking out in song randomly (okay, I do break out in song semi-randomly, but there's no giddy grin), but it's all too easy to get caught up in the daily quagmire of life and forget to live. I don't think any one's happily ever after just happens. We work for it, but then when we finally have it, I think we get so wrapped up in just getting through all the little mundane details of life that we don't even realize we have it.
I first realized this was my happily ever after when I was reviewing my Big List of Life's Goals and realized there really isn't anything left to accomplish. Man: check. Kids: check. Career: check. House: check. All that's left is enjoying it, and not taking any of it too seriously.
1 comment:
Your last paragraph summed it up beautifully. We do have everything, and thank goodness we realize it! Excellent post my friend :O)
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