Once Upon a Time

When I was five years old, I fell in love with Ariel, from The Little Mermaid. As I was in the hospital for weeks, I watched this movie, over and over and over again. As soon as the credits started to roll, I’d ask my mom to please turn it on again. I knew every word, every song, and I could pretend I was her, and not me, sick and scared and hurting. (And yes, even as a 5 year old, did wonder how mermaids had babies. Out of their tail-fin? Their belly button? What??)

And then I fell in love with Beauty and the Beast. I loved Belle, I could relate to her more than any other Disney princess. She always had her nose in a book, like me; she even wore a yellow dress (my favorite color at the time) in the climatic ballroom scene where she and the beast finally fall in love. She was beautiful, and self-sacrificing to a fault, and though I didn’t really want to marry a beast when I grew up, (though I did marry someone almost as hairy, bahahahaha) I was so happy that she ended up with her prince charming.

I liked Cinderella too, though I couldn’t relate with her as much. I always secretly wished a fairy godmother would come to me, though, and make me beautiful and happy and turn me into what I was always made for. She had a happy ending, too.

Ah, and Sleeping Beauty. Born a princess, but raised a pauper. She found her prince charming, too. She was happy, in the end.

And what about Jasmine? She was a princess, but kind and humble enough to fall in love with a “street rat” (…riff-raff, I don’t, like that…ah now that song’s stuck in my head haha). She even had a tiger for a pet. She was rad, and had great abs.

And me? I found my prince charming. I never did get a fairy godmother, though Buckle did step in and help me with my wardrobe. ;) I’m not a princess, I can’t sing, and thank goodness I haven’t lost a parent like almost every other Disney princess out there. I don’t live in a palace, I don’t talk to my clock or candelabra, nor have any glass slippers – wouldn’t those be terribly unpractical? - and (as far as I know) have no evil step-mother/queen/witch/villain plotting my demise, and I certainly don’t have that cute hour-glass figure, and those smokin’ abs.

But I have enough.

I hope I can get my and they lived happily ever after, too.