Of Princes && Fairytales
By Ani

POV: Original Character POV
Summary: And so, one day a girl ponders on love and princes and happily ever afters.

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When I was a little girl, I was read stories about fairies, prince and princesses, love and happily ever afters. I dreamt of love between princes and princesses and that I would one day find my own prince charming out amongst all the regular, average Joes.

When I grew up and my mind finally matured enough to grasp the concept of love much more than happily ever afters and once upon a times, I learnt of lust and the skipping of heart beats and of handsome men on the cinema screens. I learnt of love through my friends' own experiences, of my own personal life's experiences and cliché movie scripts where a female is the one whose heart is usually crushed by their 'supposed' prince charming. Need-less to say, it turned me off love.

When I went into, ventures and survived junior high school, I deemed myself innocent, observing, yet, understanding of an emotion I might've thought I had felt for one err ... or a 'few of those regular Joes’. But thinking I 'knew' when I wasn't even sure if I had 'felt' love, as I look back now, was not only stupid & logical but also much more stable than what experiences one usually goes through in senior high.

When senior high came rolling in, my life was on a high; great friends, great grades, just ... dandy. Nothing of mistaken princes, only recognized lust for a few regular Joes whom didn't send my world spinning in sadness anyway. But I didn't realise what was right in front of me 'til later. I went through my senior years writing of broken hearts, not so happy but happily enough ever afters and stories of my fantasies of my own heart's demise, never once really understanding the feeling of love or of the heart's own beating and burning emotions for another.

I heard that graduation, the finality of leaving your security blanket behind, shocks you enough and unveil truths that your eyes see but your brain unconsciously blocks out. I realised that guys or 'those regular Joes’ weren't not princes but princes in their own right, each as unique as the next. There was beautiful, kind, funny, smart and talented princes all around. I only had to open my eyes to the possibility that one of the princes that I had befriended was my own prince charming. But doubts ran through my mind; what if that one prince destined for me, came along and I did not see? Or maybe, I was not free to receive their love or develop my own?

It was like the Great Depression drowned the world into despair, as confusion stepped into my mind and rattled my small yet somewhat peaceful world.

I tried encasing myself in happy thoughts of love, thinking and hoping for the best, thinking of leaving whatever love experiences I might get, to God. I guess looking back I found many princes, though not my own for that particular time; found princes who at that time were what I thought, right for me and found princes whom became my friends and nothing more.

And I found love and happiness in the most unexpected, yet most obvious of places: in myself. And I found myself understanding now that we shouldn't seek love but to let it come to us.

fin.

ps. and take note that ... not only girls get hurt.