My life is my fairytale

                
   Yesterday was a normal day. It consisted of the kids, work, cleaning, trying to keep up with football scores in the middle. Yesterday was a typical day in the life of Diane. During the course of this day I was planning the week ahead and thinking about Halloween. Gabe is going to be Hulk and Sophia is going to be Cinderella. Which made me think a lot about fairy tales. I grew up with Ariel, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and my all time favorite, Cinderella. I love fairy tales. The idea of being swept off of my feet by a once in a life time love. The idea of a man taking me away from my every day life to a new a better life. I grew up pretending to be a princess. My mom has called me Princess Di since I was a baby. I always thought it was so majestic and wonderful. There are days when I still do. The days when all I do is dishes and pick up toys and clean floors and then do it all over again because the kids took all the toys out for the 10th time or just when I finish the pile of dishes everyone is hungry. Not to mention the endless piles of laundry! Lets face it, this is an every day occurrence in the life of a mom. And we all do it... we day dream. We dream of some place far far away where someone else does all of these things for us.
   What if the story really ends like this song Fairytale by Sara Bareilles? What if a fairytale is nothing more than a dream or a fleeting moment? What if a fairytale is nothing more than exactly what we experience every single day? Love isn't perfect. Life isn't perfect. It's messy and confusing and mean and awful. It's happy and easy and true and amazing! It's a million different things that make us feel every emotion humanly possible. That is what makes it so special. That is what makes it last. That is what makes it worth it.

(Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale)

     I think that growing up I may have missed the point of the fairy tale. Maybe the entire point of the story was that in the end the princess ends up being the happiest person she could possibly be! She ends up with a person she knows she will love for the rest of her life. A person that she knows will love her unconditionally for the rest of her life. I have that. I have that times three! So what makes a fairytale so much better than my life?   
   I guess, the truth is, the fairytale hasn't changed a bit. But my thoughts and feelings about fairytales have changed. You see, when I find myself day dreaming of a different place far far away where I don't have to do the things I don't want to do, I always come back to reality. The moment I come back, I look at my children's faces and I remember the reason that I get out of bed every morning. You see fairytales have to start somewhere. They start and end with true, everlasting love. I have that. Every moment of every day, I have that. My fiancée is my true love. My son is my true love. My daughter is my true love. My life is the perfect fairytale. It is a fairytale tailored to fit me. It is a fairytale story written by me, just for me. And it is up to me how I choose to take it. Do I keep dreaming of being somewhere else? Or do I embrace the fairytale that I have written for myself?There is nothing that makes me happier than doing all of the things I wish I didn't have to do because I'm doing it for my family; the people that I love more than anything in the world. There is no one else in this universe I would rather slave for than James, Gabe and Sophia. So I have to do dishes four times a day. So I have to pick up the same toys 100 times so I don't step on them and break my foot. Why wouldn't I? Do I wish that those toys that give my kids such pleasure didn't exist? Do I wish that my family was going hungry like so many (far too many) families in this world do? OF COURSE NOT!
   Please don't misunderstand... I will be doing dishes for the fourth time tonight when I get out of work at midnight and I will be day dreaming of a place where someone does the dishes for me. Or maybe I'll be dreaming of a place where I have so much money I can just throw the dishes away every time we use them and buy beautiful fancy new ones. I think that these things are perfectly normal and healthy. If we didn't have our day dreams or our fantasies, how would we survive?!
   I just know that from now on, even in my day dreams, I'm going to remember just how good I have it. I am going to remember that everything that Cinderella has, I have right here with me. True, unconditional, amazing love. That's all I need! It's more than I could have ever dreamed. You see my ordinary life... it is my fairytale....