We have been trained in the way of princess and savior. Cinderella stories of powerless victimization rescued by some prince with a little magical help from above. It is not our strength, our fortitude or our cleverness, we are told, that will create the bridge from present to future. Rather, it is man or magic that will rescue us from whatever state we have fallen to. It is the magic kiss that heralds the good life. The “they lived happily ever after” still bred in modern-day romances. It is insidious.
It is implied in the bombardment of magazines that tell us to be thinner, have smoother skin and whiter teeth. If we are pretty enough, only then can we feel good about ourselves. Pretty has become the fairy godmother. It is the magic that will make everything better, that will give us the gown and the glass slipper Cinderella got to catch her man.
We educated ones claim our independence. We know that the story is a myth. But the myth has crept into our cells while we were sleeping, downloading the incessant stream of media information and social interactions we receive each day. It is the shadow in the galleys that hides just at the edge of the peripheral vision.
The myth stays out of sight until the story breaks, and sooner or later it does. There comes a time for each princessed woman when our knight will fall. When he will drop to his knees in the clank of hammered metal. When the character trait we thought was responsibility reveals itself to be rooted in a fear of doing it wrong. When what you thought was pure compassionate response feels like a hijacking of your own experience. When the quiet you assumed was stillness turns out to be the external freeze of the internal ruminations of trying to figure out “what the hell is going on.” There comes a time when the knight loses his armor, when the prince loses his crown and reveals himself to be nothing more than human.
The princess is a part, and she has a job. She was handed the story by people who loved her, and she keeps us safe by being pretty enough, good enough, patient enough, grateful enough. Her whole plan rests on one beam: someone will come. When the knight falls, her first words come out raw: “But you promised.” Underneath she is young, and she believes that without him and the gown, no one will be there at all. The knight has a keeper of his own, who was handed the armor as young as she was handed the gown.
Think of the last time someone you counted on faltered. What happened in your body before the words came? Did the floor tilt? Did your eyes lose focus and your chest find the numbness of shock? Did your hands go cold and start looking for a job? Did you turn very polite?
It is in that moment that the galley doors are opened wide and we stare straight in the face of our peripheral. When the lumpened, varicose veins of princess ideology are impossible to ignore in their craggy bulgingness, like foreign masses that have twisted and distorted what was once a clear stream. We are called, then, to bring out the bulldozer, trash bags and heavy gloves. We discover that the magic we were seeking turns out not to be the fairy wand, but the labored work of our own hands.
The work does not finish. The veins ache again at the next wedding, the next anniversary where someone is handed a ring, and out come the gloves. Some couples take the armor off and find they do not want to walk the same road. That is a loss, and it is also information that was worth the labor.
Love cannot exist in the land of fairy tales. That kind of love is misty and impossible to hold onto. Our lovers must leave their rescuing armor beside our princess gowns, there in the land of impossibilities. We must learn to walk side-by-side, naked in our humanity, free from unrealistic expectations and archetypal overlays. Only then can love become real.
Be gentle with the unbuckling. Gowns and armor were put on young, and sometimes feel melded to skin. The unsticking is often a slow and meticulous process.
May you set down the gown without shame.
May the one beside you set down the armor.
May you walk side by side, naked in your humanity.
May you be at peace.