Fairy Tales

Life is not a fairy tale. I think there are times, in our heads, when we paint our lives as fairy tales. We make them seem like more than they are, sweeter than they are, more idealistic than they are. We tell all the good stories and leave out the bad. We try to convince ourselves of feelings we see in movies or in books. We cling to the hope that we can somehow mold and morph our lives into fairy tales. 

It's not that good lives aren't happy in a lot of ways. It's just that they aren't fairy tales. No matter how good our lives become, they will never be fairy tales. Because we are real. And because we are real, we hurt, we get angry, we become defensive, we are sometimes treated badly, we fight, we cry, we fail, we embarrass ourselves... 

Striving to live a fairy tale is an impossible goal. And pretending life is a fairy tale will only continue to impress upon you that you're not being honest with yourself.

There have been times in my life when I've painted a fairy tale. For myself. For others. Sometimes when I was feeling conflicted, I still clung to the fairy tale. 

And yet...now when I look back on the past year, I could make a list of all the bad things that have happened. All the terrible things. In fact, my list probably has on it some of the shittiest things that can happen to a person... but the strange thing is that now that I'm not painting a fairy tale, not ever...now that my every day is excruciatingly and awesomely authentic, I see so much fairy tale material everywhere. At work. Here. In my own life. 

Isn't that ironic?