I remember being 14 when my whole world revolved around the dream of soul mates. “Obsessed” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’ve always been a romantic. Every male I saw was a contender. “Could he be the one?”
Girl, take a breath. Go to school. Be a kid.
Unfortunately, since I don’t have a time machine, I can’t go back and tell Teenage Me that. I can’t tell her to just enjoy her youth while not being responsible for anything except homework and to know that things will work out just fine.
I did eventually find my Prince Charming, but it wasn’t until college. I certainly didn’t recognize him at first, but once I did it was like a lightning bolt. He’s wonderful. He gets me and we are so in love.
And life has gone on.
Those Disney movies I love so much don’t really go into the after. They stop at the wedding or at the first baby and you don’t get the nitty-gritty of what follows. The fact that Prince Charming really is human {at least outside of the fairy tales}. He has a brain block on putting dryer lint into the trash. Cinderella secretly hates doing dishes. Rapunzel has a habit of leaving clean laundry on the couch for days. Prince Eric just can’t remember to close the garage door.
You get the idea.
In the day-to-day ugh of this new life we’re living, I tend to forget that this IS my happily ever after. I get frustrated when he doesn’t have the kids suit up properly before playing in the snow, but I need to remember that having a life with this man and these children is all I ever dreamed about when I was a teenager.
Confession: I hate cleaning the house.
But this house, this dude I sleep next to every night, these crazy kids who can’t remember to bring their backpacks to the car when we’re leaving for school… THIS was the ultimate goal. Every moment should be a dream-come-true. But that horrible word “should” is so tricky.
It’s all too easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, get frustrated when things don’t go as planned and get exhausted by the monotony of vacuuming and nagging kids to put away laundry while reminding them to be kind to each other. Every once in awhile, when I’m having a particularly existential moment, I have to remind myself to take a step back and make a mental note to Teenage Me.
We made it, kid. After all that worrying, all that praying, all that stressing…it worked out. So let’s remember to pause sometimes and enjoy it.
