I grew up daydreaming of a princess worthy wedding to a cowboy with a slow southern drawl and a stetson atop his sandy blond hair and twinkling blue eyes. Of a fairy godmother to sprinkle generous amounts of fairy dust over me in order to make me glow and sparkle on my wedding day. I would be beautiful and forever fair, always with a glow and an aura, and all things in life would come easy.
I dreamed of the unspoken content of happily ever after, and just knew it included a flock of little daughters to dress in perfectly coordinated frilly pink and white polka dotted dresses, hair adorned with ribbons and tiny little fingernails sparkling with the palest pink polish. Life would be full of female companionship, little beings for me to share the joys and fun of being girly with. French braiding and curling irons, the art of keeping your hairspray from feeling like cement. Life would be a delicatesson of rainbows, sparkles, stickers, flowers, and all things girly.
Girly Girly Girly. That was my version of happily ever after.
I met up with my fairy godmother sometime during my 19th year. I should have suspected something was amiss when she hit me upside the head with her wand and instead of my charming blond cowboy, I fell head over heels in love with an intelligent, sarcastic, quick witted, red headed Irish submarine driver with a poet's heart and a silver pen.
I soon discovered she had a very dry sense of humor when she blessed us with the wedding gift of months upon months of separation.
I should have realized my fairy godmother was a bit quick to short circuit when I requested my fairy dust for grace and charm and instead received a misting of drop everything you touch drops that had been generously double dipped with bull in a china shop sawdust, but I opted to overlook it.
It became a pattern. Every time I would request her assistance and a wave of her wand, she would appear, but quite disheveled and absent minded. Her filing system was lacking (as in nonexistent)and her gown had no pockets, so she was always shuffling through and dropping little bits and pieces of paper with everyone's wishes and dreams scrawled on them. She left a trail of paper confetti wherever she went. She was forever mixing up my requests with those of others. I'm entirely sure my request for culinary skills is sitting on the side of Route 30 somewhere near New Lenox, Illinois. I wished upon her lucky star for a house with a white picket fence and she waved her wand to grant me a white house with a chain link fence.
And happily ever after has no girly girls attending- sometimes I think not even me. I go for such long periods of time without hairspray that every time I try to use it, the applicater has been fossilized in the squirty thing, and requires a hot bath and a full on attack with steel wool to clear it up. My stash of nail polish has gone so long unused that when you shake it, the little metal ball inside goes all Matrixy on me and gives up, dropping limply to the bottom of the bottle.
Family dinners are a connundrum stuck inbetween lecturing my boys on the necessities of controling bodily functions at the table and calling out defeat and laughing at whoever's functionality was the loudest. Most stickers in my home have a monster truck motif. When I grocery shop, I deliberately park next to the Porsche, or the Mustang, or the Hummer in the parking lot, because I know of a certain little boy who likes to ooh and aah over such things.
I do not keep my eyes peeled for Barbie and pixie dust coated fairies. Instead I scan every construction site we drive by for tractors in motion. Matchbox cars catch my eye and make me giggle in anticipation. I turn cardboard boxes into parking garages and fashion empty wrapping paper tubes into pirate ships with paper towels and cardboard.
Each night I tuck in two little boys, kissing and squeezing on them in an attempt at memorizing their smell and the feel of their little arms around my neck. Their little arms and hands are forever growing, their faces are forever changing. I marvel at my overflowing heart and their ability to make it sing.
My fairy godmother received my order for little girls to do all things girly with. And like everything else in my life she's dipped her wand in, she messed it up big time.
But honestly?
Happily ever after never looked so beautiful.
I dreamed of the unspoken content of happily ever after, and just knew it included a flock of little daughters to dress in perfectly coordinated frilly pink and white polka dotted dresses, hair adorned with ribbons and tiny little fingernails sparkling with the palest pink polish. Life would be full of female companionship, little beings for me to share the joys and fun of being girly with. French braiding and curling irons, the art of keeping your hairspray from feeling like cement. Life would be a delicatesson of rainbows, sparkles, stickers, flowers, and all things girly.
Girly Girly Girly. That was my version of happily ever after.
I met up with my fairy godmother sometime during my 19th year. I should have suspected something was amiss when she hit me upside the head with her wand and instead of my charming blond cowboy, I fell head over heels in love with an intelligent, sarcastic, quick witted, red headed Irish submarine driver with a poet's heart and a silver pen.
I soon discovered she had a very dry sense of humor when she blessed us with the wedding gift of months upon months of separation.
I should have realized my fairy godmother was a bit quick to short circuit when I requested my fairy dust for grace and charm and instead received a misting of drop everything you touch drops that had been generously double dipped with bull in a china shop sawdust, but I opted to overlook it.
It became a pattern. Every time I would request her assistance and a wave of her wand, she would appear, but quite disheveled and absent minded. Her filing system was lacking (as in nonexistent)and her gown had no pockets, so she was always shuffling through and dropping little bits and pieces of paper with everyone's wishes and dreams scrawled on them. She left a trail of paper confetti wherever she went. She was forever mixing up my requests with those of others. I'm entirely sure my request for culinary skills is sitting on the side of Route 30 somewhere near New Lenox, Illinois. I wished upon her lucky star for a house with a white picket fence and she waved her wand to grant me a white house with a chain link fence.
And happily ever after has no girly girls attending- sometimes I think not even me. I go for such long periods of time without hairspray that every time I try to use it, the applicater has been fossilized in the squirty thing, and requires a hot bath and a full on attack with steel wool to clear it up. My stash of nail polish has gone so long unused that when you shake it, the little metal ball inside goes all Matrixy on me and gives up, dropping limply to the bottom of the bottle.
Family dinners are a connundrum stuck inbetween lecturing my boys on the necessities of controling bodily functions at the table and calling out defeat and laughing at whoever's functionality was the loudest. Most stickers in my home have a monster truck motif. When I grocery shop, I deliberately park next to the Porsche, or the Mustang, or the Hummer in the parking lot, because I know of a certain little boy who likes to ooh and aah over such things.
I do not keep my eyes peeled for Barbie and pixie dust coated fairies. Instead I scan every construction site we drive by for tractors in motion. Matchbox cars catch my eye and make me giggle in anticipation. I turn cardboard boxes into parking garages and fashion empty wrapping paper tubes into pirate ships with paper towels and cardboard.
Each night I tuck in two little boys, kissing and squeezing on them in an attempt at memorizing their smell and the feel of their little arms around my neck. Their little arms and hands are forever growing, their faces are forever changing. I marvel at my overflowing heart and their ability to make it sing.
My fairy godmother received my order for little girls to do all things girly with. And like everything else in my life she's dipped her wand in, she messed it up big time.
But honestly?
Happily ever after never looked so beautiful.
2 comments:
Sometimes, just to dream about 'what could have beens,' I'll walk down the Barbie aisle at Target, then turn the corner and browse the dolls. Then I'll hear a crash or someone start to bicker, and I'll go hunt down my boys in the Lego aisle.
And then? Then all is right in the world.
Someone need to have those boys. Anyway I'm sure your sister would send 3 girls your way if you start to feel lonely. LOL
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