Fairy Tales Should Be Outlawed!

I cannot tell a lie. (Remember George Washington and I are cousins, it is genetic!) This week has been rough.

So much has happened, work stuff, day to day life stuff, beginning Christmas shopping stuff and of course preparing for Turkey day stuff. In the middle of all that, I had a breakdown of sorts. I spent a few days crying over milk spilt long ago. Have you ever done that?

I found myself traveling down a road in my heart that I know better than to go down. It is a road filled with good memories but also heartache and sadness, regret, lost hope and general feelings of unworthiness and devastation. Not a pretty place. In fact, it is down right ugly there. I try to never let my heart get ahead of my brain and drag all of us down there, but this week, I lost control and sent myself and a few others into that abyss.

This week's trip was a bit different in the way it affected me as compared to trips taken in the past. I literally cried for two days. With little to no provocation, tears poured from my eyes. It was as if a dam had burst open and there was no little Dutch boy to help hold it back. I couldn't listen to the radio, look at the computer, the television, my family or my co-workers without suddenly bursting into tears. It was a strange phenomena indeed. I began to feel like it was a cleansing of some type and then yesterday I noticed the tears starting to dry up. To make matters even more bittersweet, almost the minute I quit crying, the skies in our town opened up and poured rainy tears over us all. It has now rained for two days, I don't need to cry anymore, the atmosphere is crying enough for both of us.

There is no reason to go into all the gory details of my trip down memory lane. It is what it is. I know who I am, and that is a happily married woman with a beautiful little girl. I have all I could have ever wanted and then some. For that reason, you might think it strange that I would find anything to cry about over a heartbreak from years past. I know! It caught me by surprise as well.

I have come to realize that I was not so much crying for the me of today as I was for the me of long ago. Shedding tears for the girl who thought her world had ended, who thought she was unlovable, who felt that because her fairy tale ended the wrong way, she would never be happy. I wish I could go back and tell that girl that indeed, although her world ended, a new one would open up for her. That she was not unlovable, because she would be loved again. And most of all, that there are no such things as fairy tales. The white knight on the white horse gets muddy, the glass slipper breaks, a kiss cannot wake up a sleeping princess after one hundred years and there is NO way even a princess could feel a tiny dried up pea under all those mattresses!

As strange as it might seem, I am thankful for my two lost days of introspection. I have come out of it refreshed. The tears did me good and the pain helped to open my eyes to my strengths and weaknesses. I see my world a little clearer today.

The guy that hurt me so long ago is now a grown man. Choices he made that altered both of our lives, I can no longer hold against him. Today, I proudly call him my friend. I never saw it coming but I am thankful for his truly unconditional friendship and his place in my life.

My "fairy tale" ended up having a different ending than the one I envisioned so long ago as a young girl. I know now there is no "happily ever after", however, I am grateful for the gift of my husband, for his role as the best father my daughter could have and for the life we have built together.

This week I took a trip. I traveled down a highway and crossed a bridge. I visited the past and ultimately it has freed me up to live more fully in my present. It has been a bumpy ride, but I think I am all the better for it.


Living Happily in THIS Moment!
Beverly