When I was younger I liked stories. Mostly those hokey romance novels...you know the ones, where the heroine is always some amazingly beautiful woman with long flowing hair and sparkling eyes who falls for the hunky stable boy with the disheveled manner, long shiny hair, and big shiny teeth that are so white that when they smile you can see those little sparkly effects they use in toothpaste commercials. The hero and heroine are put through all kinds of turmoil (i.e. the amazingly beautiful heroine, usually named Angelique or something similarly exotic, is kidnapped by the evil warlord who craves her love and the hero has to swoop in to save the day by blinding the evil warlord with his shiny, sparkly teeth) and they live happily ever after, thus proving that in the end love does conquer all. The end. Forever and ever amen. And so on and so on...blah blah blah until the end of eternity. Man, did those books lie to me or what? I mean the people who write those things should seriously consider going into politics because deception and stretching the truth are definitely their strongsuits.
But I was a kid, and thus easily deceived into believing what my heart wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that kind of love was truly possible...hell, it happened all the time. I would see couples on the street holding hands and imagine them as the protagonists in some alluring love story. I believed that these people had overcome all the odds to be together and therefore it was meant to be this way. I also believed that someday I would meet my hero and the moment our eyes met I would hear violins and see fireworks (not to mention being blinded by his shiny, sparkly teeth) and my heart would be his. He would feel the same way and we would end up as one of those couples walking hand in hand down the street forever bound by our passion for one another...
Does that make any sense to anyone else? I mean, I think we all have those moments where we want to believe in the fairy tale...in the prince who slays the fierce dragon to save the fair maiden who has stolen his heart. It's one hell of a great idea. It's also, from my experience so far in life, one of the biggest piles of maggot infested horseshit there ever was.
I mean, don't get me wrong...I've had feelings that were reminiscent of the whole fireworks and violins thing. Quite recently, in fact. But, the hero and I never seem to overcome the odds. And this leads me to wonder...
Are the odds really so insurmountable that they can't be overcome? Or is it just a lack of motivation or courage that keeps that hurdle from being jumped? Hell...maybe it's just plain old-fashioned laziness.
I, for my part, am willing to try to overcome the odds. Maybe it's that little girl inside of me playing dress-up in a pointy princess hat and pink frilly skirt still waiting for the little boy in him to brandish his cardboard sword and trashcan lid shield and slay the horrible fire-breathing papier-mache dragon that I made for art class last week. Or, then again, maybe it's the woman in me who just craves something lasting...who wants to wake up in his arms every day and steal the comics from his morning paper only to have him laugh at me and shake his head. Either way, I would like to continue to believe in that kind of thing but, in all my 33 long years, even though I've had moments where I thought I heard the violins and saw the fireworks, in the end the note turned sour and the flame just fizzled. What the hell happened? Did the damn dragon burn my prince to a crisp? Damned dragons...always doing that kind of thing...big green scaly meanie poo-poo heads...
I've had a few notable conversations recently that kind of touched on the whole subject. I called someone a pessimist for not thinking the odds can be overcome. He looked at me and said that he was no pessimist...simply a realist. When I repeated these words to a confidante of mine he, in turn, shook his head. "Same thing." He said finally. When you no longer dare to dream you lose hope...and that's when pessimism is borne. Realistically, the dragon could have charbroiled and eaten the hero in one quick gulp before the hero even had time to draw his sword in defense. But...and I know this is a stretch...what if the hero is somehow faster than the dragon's teeth? What if, given enough time and effort to formulate a plan of attack, the mighty hero can slay the dragon with one quick slash of his mighty sword and save the day?
What if...and this is an even bigger stretch...what if there really is such a thing as happily ever after and we are all just too damned realistic to make it happen?
Hmmm...food for thought............
Love is wild magic. It cannot be controlled. It does damage everywhere it goes...but it makes you feel something you can never have anywhere else. That is love. It is wretched and horrible...but sweet and irresistable...and, for those very reasons, we all long for it.
