People can only meet you at the depths of who they are. Nothing more, nothing less. They say you need to find someone who understands you or you will spend a lifetime translating your soul. I think most of us don’t exactly know the true meaning of that quote, because most of us don’t understand what it means to be understood.
From an early age, and I can only speak for those of my gender, we (women) are shown that the prince will come into your life and only then will your life truly begin. Before Shrek, Fiona was locked in a tower far far away. Before Prince Charming, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were sleeping, Cinderella a slave.
One of the few tales from when I was growing up that slightly differed was Beauty and the Beast. For once the male was represented as something other than a savor. For once the woman was not in need of help, but quite content with her own life. While Belle agreed to live with the beast, she did so only in order to save her father’s life, there was no release of a magic spell guaranteed.
My point most certainly is not to tell you that men are beasts and that women are to stay far far away, like Fiona in a tower guarded by a dragon. My point is not to convince you that Disney is bad, and despite all controversy, I am unconvinced that my childhood movies are “bad.” My point in writing about fairy tales isn’t to tell you that they don’t exist, in fact, I used to live my life believing I was in one. That one day I would meet my prince and my life would begin. That he was the key to releasing me from whatever it was before him. While I can most likely blame Disney for teaching me this way of thinking, it is now my job to unteach it.
To live a fulfilled life while projecting the blame of your unhappiness outwards, is to avoid life in itself altogether. Would my childhood have been better off filled with movies of matriarchy, independence, and power? Would I have been spared a false narrative should love, prince charming, and fairy tales have not existed? Anything is possible, but just because something could have been different, does not mean it would have been better.
To a certain extent, if you are unhappy with something in your life I believe you have the power to change it. I am writing from a place of privilege. The privilege of having unlimited running water, and hot or cold water at that. The privilege of not going to sleep nor waking up hungry, having access to food quite literally whenever I want. I have the privilege of going to sleep and waking up. I do not have to work through the night to support a family nor do I suffer from an illness that would take me away before morning. I have the privilege of having had an education that allows me to quit my job and most likely find a new one within a reasonable amount of time. I have the privilege of choosing happiness.
So if to a certain extent, you are also privileged, you too have the power to be happy. And for your unhappiness, there is no one to blame besides yourself.
During my childhood, I had dressed as almost every Disney princess for Halloween. What would now be extremely controversial, I even dressed up as Pocahontas. What a fucked story that is.
Princesses I haven’t dressed as were Tiana and Mulan. Princess and the Frog and Mulan are two movies that never fully resided with me. I think I was too far down the prince-charming-path for these movies to have convinced me that fairy tales could be written otherwise.
In Princess and the Frog, Tiana is a two-job-working-waitress who is convinced by a frog to kiss him in exchange for a cash reward only to then be transformed into a frog as well. The two spent the rest of the movie in attempt to turn human again all the while falling in love with each other as frogs. And it wasn’t until after that, that the two even discovered what the other looked like in human form.
I often think about the process of a blind person falling in love. I often think about what they would say if someone asked them their “type.” Would they say green eyes, good physique, blondish-brown hair? Or would they reply by describing that person’s tired voice in the morning? Their higher pitched giggle when they are happy? Would they tell you about how that person’s touch excites and calms them at the same time? Would they tell you that they feel safe? Would they tell you that even though they don’t know where it is they are going, they trust that next to this person- it is somewhere worth visiting.
Would they describe to you the feeling of ease the word’s of this person bring? Similarly to when a person of vision looks out at the ocean. One might find solace in how tumultuous waves can appear to the eye and yet just beneath the surface the world falls silent and still. The same hues of blue with white that fit together like a colored version of yin and yang, are invisible to a blind person’s eyes.
There is no bright red sports car that could sway them in the direction of going home with you after the bar, there is no gold watch that rest on a wrist that catches their peripheral. No height advantage that might stand out in a crowd, no eye color they find unique to the rest. There would be no scar you find ugly nor bruise you’d have to explain. How wonderfully at peace you might feel to have the freedom to be entirely you.
They stare ahead at their world of monochrome monotony, relying solely on how they feel to navigate their world. The same world that for you, is so overwhelmingly colored with different choices, their super power is seeing right through them.
I often think about the process of a blind person falling in love. I often think about our world, so overwhelmed with appearances, endless choices and dating apps. How exciting for some it may be to have an array of endless opportunities, and for some seeing right through them, a super power.
-
Rather than being locked away in a tower far away, Mulan was locked away into a gendered role of being married off and living life as an arranged wife. Having bigger dreams in store for herself, she breaks free from her societal tower and fights to save the ones she loves and the country they’re in.
I often find myself struggling to understand how it is I feel about gendered roles. While on one hand I find myself texting my mom in admiration when a man opens my car door, I dislike when he can run faster than I. While I enjoy being able to fully embrace my femininity and be taken care of, I often find myself instinctually reaching for my wallet to split the groceries. I want him to save me from the big bad dragon, but at the same time allow me to walk down the stairs of the tower rather than carry me.
It takes me back to my initial point of being understood. Someone that gives you the freedom to be entirely you, someone who helps you walk rather than carries you, someone who understands that some days you want to slay dragons and other days you want your world to be silent and still. Like the waves, I think love comes in them too.
I think that sometimes love hits you like white caps crashing against the shoreline. I think you collide into each other and there was nothing you could have done to stop it. The entire strength of the ocean was bringing it to the shores of your heart and you couldn’t have turned around to run- there was no sand- it was already high tide.
I think that you stay and wait for it to be low again, playing tag with the waves, running to and from. It’s exciting, but you’re stuck. High tide turns into low and exposes the rocks beneath the surface. It reveals to you the depths that were once hidden, and it is up to you whether you prefer to sit and stay, or to walk away.
I think that sometimes we stay. I think that sometimes, what is skating on the surface of the ocean can be matched equally by the beauty that lays hidden below. But I also think that is rare.
I think that low tides force the less beautiful parts of the ocean to be visible. And while sometimes, the seashells are worth admiring, there are other parts of that ocean that can only survive when covered with water.
Once in a while you come across someone with a bucket who says to these little parts of the ocean “Don’t worry, I’ll be your water until the tide returns.” But once in a while, the tide returns and rather than being grateful for the overflowing love this person with the bucket gave, it snatches them up and pulls them out to sea.
Because I will say it again, people can only meet you at the depths of who they are. Nothing more, nothing less. Even though one may have a glass half-full and be willing to share some of that water, it is up to you whether you take it all, or leave a little for them to have for themselves.
I think that the people who are capable of meeting you at the depth that you are, are willing to give. They are the ones who understand the value of your half-full glass. They are the people who know that while you have extra water to give, they only take what they need. The don’t pull you into the depths of their ocean and drown you with their high tide. They simply thank you for the love you so selflessly offered to them by showing to you again the beauty of high tide. They allow you the choice as to if you’d like to swim out.
I think that sometimes love hits you like white caps crashing against the shoreline. I also think that sometimes love calmly washes over you, like the gradual shift of tides. It seeps into your life, gentle and inevitable as the rising sea. It overtakes you, not with force, but with quiet persistence. It settles into your skin like saltwater in the pores of the earth.
I think that sometimes love arrives not like a storm, but like a moonlit tide.
-
My point in writing about fairy tales isn’t to tell you that they don’t exist. My point is to tell you to create your own. I spent a lot of my life thinking it would begin when prince charming arrived but that is not true. Your life can begin whenever you want it to. That is your super power.
You can choose a stormy love or a moonlit tide love, but blame no one else besides yourself. Blame no one else for when you are unhappy, and blame no one else for when you are happy. Blame yourself for your happiness too. Be your own prince charming. You are a princess with or without one. The right prince will understand that.