Living the Little Girl Dream
“Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess
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As a child I read obsessively. My favourite birthday and Christmas and surprise presents were always, and remain to this day, books. My favourite books growing up were The Secret Garden and Ballet Shoes, mainly because the little girls I read about in those two stories were like real-life Cinderellas. They had terrible lives to begin with (all four girls were orphans), but through grace and perserverence they became, if not in the literal sense of the word, princesses.
My brothers and I used to pretend that our parents were the King and Queen of our little village of three hundred people. We used to pretend our bicycles were noble steeds and our clunky brown van was really a carriage. We used to call each other Sir Lachlan, Sir John, and Princess Alexandra. Malcolm was just a baby, so we called him the Little Prince. We went on quests and we found hidden treasure and we slew fire breathing dragons like it was going out of style.
It sounds incredibly cheesy, especially for someone who adamantly defined herself as a tomboy growing up, but I am finally living my Little Girl Dream. I am currently living at a beautifully restored 15th century castle in the south of England. It has turrets. It has a moat. I have arrived, and for four glorious weeks I can pretend I am a little princess again … at least for a little while.
On being Single with a capital S
I never used to believe it when people would tell me that being Single is THE. BEST. I always thought it must be lonely, it must be sexually frustrating, it must be depressing and boring to be Single. To be Alone. To be 50% of a yet unknown pairing. Being Single for the first time in a very long time (and yes, I believe the S deserves capitalization) is, I think, akin to letting a puppy out in a back garden for the first time. Have you ever seen a puppy on his first venture into the Great Outdoors? His head nearly explodes he’s so bloody excited. Similarly, initially the prospect of having Unlimited Social Freedom is overwhelming. It’s nearly impossible to figure out which direction to pursue and which curiosity to investigate first.
But that’s the beauty of it. You can meander down Path the First (tall, dark, handsome, and nameless on a crowded dance floor) for a little while, and then backtrack to Path the Second (slightly taller, slightly less handsome med student over iced coffee), and then whirl around and run blindly down Path the Third (cute but not gorgeous, excellent sense of humour and a penchant for bowling in blacklight) because goddammit, you can. You don’t have to be home at 6 o’clock to answer the phone. God forbid you should have to call anyone back.
It’s liberating.
It’s wonderful.
It’s fucking fabulous.
Je ne regrette rien
“And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. when you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
— Haruki Murakami (via Hello Lolla)
