The Little Girl

This post is not a scribble. It's a story. And, like every story, it has a beginning, middle and end, so it is not sempiternal either.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was like almost all other little girls out there: she loved to play with dolls and longed for lots of pretty clothes to dress them up with; she liked to read/listen to 'princess' stories like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty; she was full of innocence and hope and saw the world as a mysterious but wonderful place, with her own perfect 'Prince' hiding somewhere within it, waiting for that perfect moment to 'find' her at last and take her away to live 'happily ever after'. She was confident he would find her, no matter what. Just like 'he' found Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Of course, she knew those were all just stories and not real, but she also knew that all stories started off from some kind of truth. So she waited. Patiently. She knew that whenever she would meet 'him', she would surely know he was The One. And so time passed, the little girl grew up, experience taking the place of her innocence, hard realities taking the place of hope. But her one childhood belief that did not falter, even for a moment, was the one that lots of grown ups seemed to believe in too: love, and it's immense power. A power that would one day surely draw 'him' to 'her' and bless them with so much happiness that every pain would be dealt with, every hardship overcome.
And then he came. Or at least, she thought he did. Because, why else would just a glimpse of him set her heart aflutter in such an alarming way? Why would his smile make her feel like she was in a dream? Why would looking into his eyes make her see her entire world held in them? Why would his voice make her want to listen forever and ever? Why would every moment spent with him seem perfect, and every moment apart be filled with his thoughts? Why would she think of only him every night when sleep refused to come to her? And the first thing every morning, when she woke after dreaming of him? Why would she want to share everything with him, to see him happy always, to do anything for him? And why, oh why, would her heart's greatest desire be to fall into his arms and stay there for eternity? (as impossible an idea as that is.) He was definitely The One. The Only One. But alas, if this was HIM, why didn't he DO something? Why didn't he make any effort to take a step towards their 'happily ever after'?
The Little Girl who had Grown Up pondered and pondered, sighing away the hours, dreaming of the day he would realise she was his princess, and then it hit her.
If HE didn't do something, it didn't mean SHE couldn't! It had been a long time since her favorite stories had been written, and things seemed to have changed. Maybe SHE was supposed to go and profess her devotion, sweep HIM away in a cloud of blissful love, rather than the other way around.
And so, like a modern Cinderella, she set off to tell him how he was the one she'd been looking for, how her world had transformed since he'd arrived in it, how she loved him beyond anything she'd ever felt before or thought she was capable of feeling.
And then the bubble burst. The bubble the Little Girl who had Grown Yp had been living in for far too long, without even realising it. He seemed puzzled about how she felt. He was her friend, nothing more, and he'd never thought she 'felt that way'. She thought it was quite thick-headed of him not to have known, not to mention absurd. Hadn't he EVER felt that crackling energy in the air between them that gave her goosebumps? Hadn't he seen it all in her eyes, like she'd seen it in his? Weren't eyes supposed to be the windows to the soul? Then how come he hadn't seen she was his soulmate? It couldn't be. But it was.
And the Little Girl who had Grown Up wanted to be little again. All the dreaming and the faith and the hopes had been a lot better than her 'prince'. She wished he hadn't come along. At least it hadn't hurt when he had been lost somewhere in the mysterious world. But of course, she knew that time did not turn back, not even in the stories. And so, she was stuck: hopelessly in love with her dashing prince, but forced to keep the love to herself. It was as if he had politely said 'Thanks, but no thanks' to all that she held for him in her burdened heart, and now she didn't know what to do. If he wasn't her's, then who was? Would she ever feel that way about someone ELSE? Would she love like this again? The thought was wrenching. And, even worse was the thought of who his REAL princess would be. Who would be that lucky lass he would hold in his arms and cherish forever? Why couldn't she have been that girl?
Perhaps, she reasoned, it was because she didn't have a fairy godmother like Cinderella, or she hadn't been put to sleep for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty, or, most probably, because she wasn't 'the fairest of them all' like Snow White. He was definitely The Prince in every way, but the Little Girl who had Grown Up was not a princess in any way. And in this sad truth she lived. No, not happily ever after. Because she knew now that 'happily ever afters' didn't exist. She was now just a grown-up, no longer the Little Girl who had Grown Up.