Once Upon a Time...
Boy Meets Girl
Man Meets Woman
And they lived happily ever after!
Hallmark and Lifetime channels would have us all believe that every romance - every love story - has a happy ending...
And, perhaps they do!
But, it isn't as easy as these stories make it seem, is it?
It's "real life" adventures and ups and downs and...nothing "fairy tale-ish" about it! People fight and love and die and are born and come and go and...
It isn't always a "happily ever after" kind of life.
In January 2009, I started creating an "All About Me" scrapbook album, making a two-page layout with specific titles once a month for the whole year.
One of the layouts was called "Ever After", with the sub-title, "It's No Fairy Tale".
Today for the fourth prompt, I share the words I wrote for my "fairy tale":
"You know the story:
Beautiful Princess meets Handsome Prince; they fall in love and live happily ever after - Life is good; no problems!
Beautiful Princess meets Handsome Prince; they fall in love and live happily ever after - Life is good; no problems!
"But, real life is not always a fairy tale; real life does not always go all that smoothly. My real life has had many ups and downs.
"Fell in love (many times); eventually got married; had two wonderful children, a boy and a girl; marriage ended after a short time; moved to sunny Florida; new job and soon a new relationship; second marriage; a third wonderful child, a daughter - not exactly in that order; more ups and downs!
"And, life goes on...
"I guess you could say that my life has been pretty normal. Not always perfect or happy; but in the end, pretty fulfilling. So, my Prince and I sail off into the sunset - and live Happily Ever After!
"The End (not yet!)"
I shared more of my "love story" in the first prompt, "Love is in the Air" (read it here); but I also wanted to share my fairy tale as written in that scrapbook.
I wrote another fairy tale for the 21 Days of Journaling in January 2015 challenge; check that one out here. This one is quite the fantasy! It was written during the time I was reading C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia"; so my mind was in the fantasy mode!
And I leave you with a couple of quotes from Mr. Lewis:
"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. but some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis." (C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." (C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature).
We are never too young or too old to read fairy tales!
I wrote another fairy tale for the 21 Days of Journaling in January 2015 challenge; check that one out here. This one is quite the fantasy! It was written during the time I was reading C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia"; so my mind was in the fantasy mode!
And I leave you with a couple of quotes from Mr. Lewis:
"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. but some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis." (C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." (C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature).
We are never too young or too old to read fairy tales!
Love this Barbara!
ReplyDeleteThank you...it seems fairy tales are all around me lately; I've been watching Hallmark channel's Christmas in July movies!! Last January 2015, I used this prompt to actually write a fairy tale...it was fun!
DeleteThanks for reading and commenting!