Cinderella is Dead!

"Cinderella is dead" my girlfriend told me. I had to laugh, but she is right.

My generation grew up reading Cinderella where the Prince finds her and carries Cinderella off to his castle. How romantic!

How far from the truth!!! I remember reading this story to my daughter when she was little. As I neared the end, I did a bit of editing. After the Prince rides off with Cinderella, I explained to my daughter, she gets to the castle where she has to clean, make dinner, raise kids & get a job to make her own money! My daughter was very disappointed to find out that happily ever after includes all of this!

I grew up with the Cinderella fairytale ending. After all, my Mom stayed at home and took care of my sister & me, cleaned & cooked dinner (from scratch!). My Dad went to work every day, came home, ate the dinner my Mom cooked & took the role of handyman on the weekends.

End of story.

Well, except that women my age only wanted to stay home if they wanted to, wanted to have a career & wanted someone at their side who thought of them as equal (equal in housework too)! The only problem was we weren't quite sure how to work all of that out and the men in our lives certainly were not used to this equality stuff!

My friend & I talked more about how this affects our self esteem, our expectations & our choices in life. Neither of us expected our lives to turn out the way they have so far. I think if we had known ahead of time all the painful emotions we would face, we wouldn't want to do it.

We both just want someone by our side who is supportive. We would like to be encouraged, believed in. I told her that I have so many things I want to do, but for some reason I can't seem to get past the first few steps to what I really want.

Her answer...."I know why. You want someone by your side."

She is right. I grew up believing that you go to school, get married, have kids. There was no talk of divorce or things not working out.

I guess I still have that belief ingrained into my mind. The only problem was that it didn't turn out that way. Now what do I do?

Now that I still believed this while I was married to my exhusband. My Mom's advice was that someone always has to give in and I guess she believed that it was supposed to be the woman. The only problem was that I should have left that relationship a long time ago, only I believed my (ex)Prince would love & stay with me forever.

Do I still want my "knight in shining armour" to sweep me off my feet? Sure I do. I just know that I have to build my own castle first & then maybe, hopefully, meet a prince who does housework!

p.s. - if anyone has seen my Fairy Godmother, tell her I need her help! NOW!