My Cinderella Story

It's natural over time to forget things. One can only retain so much before it gets lost in the multitude of memories made each day. One memory that I pray time will kindly leave with me is the moment with Tony and Kaylen sitting together at the kitchen table. Him smiling down at her, she looking up at him both mutually admiring. "I'm taking mommy on a date," he told his tiny daughter. Wistfully she looked up into his face, "Are you going to the ball daddy?"

I love that her image of Tony and I together is her mommy in a magical dress swirling across the dance floor in the arms of her daddy, Prince Charming. 

It's so sad to consider that in this world, happy marriages aren't the norm any longer, but the exception. 

Each young bride comes tripping down the stairs in their wedding finery, hours of planning and preparation by loving hands brought to fruition. And at the bottom, a jealous world takes on the form of the ugly stepsisters from the Disney version of Cinderella and tear apart the lovely dress, leaving a mess to clean up and a broken heart. 

I'm here to tell you that Happily Every After does happen. But it's not magic nor a fairy tale. The Prince Charming that I married isn't perfect. He makes messes he doesn't clean up, sometimes he is selfish and on occasion he can he downright grumpy. And, if I'm being honest, more times that not I'm more of an ugly stepsister than a Cinderella. I make impossible demands, have lofty expectations and think more of my own self than any other. 

But every day we choose to love. 

And if this world would stop thinking only of me and starting thinking of we. If it would let loose of I and embrace ours. If wives would act like princesses and treat their husbands like Prince Charmings, even when they're not...(and vice versa!) then many more would find themselves in the middle of their Happily Ever After. 

It's not magic. It's a moment when each chooses the other and puts them first.