Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in an idyllic town in Colorado. Although she was happy living in her cottage with her charmingly handsome boyfriend and trusty Labrador retriever, she longed to travel and find adventures. She and her boyfriend were saving money and always talking about far away countries that they wanted to see; they wanted to go somewhere with a little risk, a little danger. The girl had just turned 25, and wanted to test her independence and wanted to prove her bravery, like knights of yore. She was determined not to be a damsel, and was on a quest to find a journey that would challenge her.

The girl thought it odd that, as of late, many people in town were asking her if she was getting married. She was questioned by family friends in City Market. She was questioned by customers at work. She was questioned by people she had gone to school with. To all of the well-meant inquisitions she would reply, “I don’t need to be rescued.” The girl felt no hurry to embrace the matrimonial trend of dressing up like a princess for one day for an expensive happily-ever-after. 

 
 I’m sure that by now, savvy readers have deduced that I am in fact the young lady filled with wander-lust. But I know I’m only one of many Peter Pans who want to enjoy youth and avoid the constraints of adulthood: mortgages, car payments, children or jobs that only allow a certain amount of vacation time. To me, marriage falls under the category of “adult,” and I would feel like a child playing dress-up if I were to wear a white gown.  

My younger sister seems to think that she will turn into a pumpkin at 25, as evidenced by her birthday phone call to me where she related her own freak-out over her impending 22nd birthday. Her melodrama over meeting her own arbitrary deadlines is utterly silly (sorry, Sass). But she is not alone: at a cousin’s wedding this summer, I was bombarded by Midwestern 21-year-olds (half of whom were engaged) with questions about my own love life.

Was I really going to Nicaragua with my boyfriend? How long had we been together? Was it an engagement trip? Were my parents angry with me for moving in with him?

It was then I realized that many girls never get over ideas of glass slippers, Prince Charmings and happily-ever-afters. How else can you explain the popularity of Taylor Swift?

It’s not that I don’t believe in marriage. I don’t believe marriage is a fairy tale nor is it “happily” ever after. Lifelong commitments are a perilous adventure even for the best relationships, though I have been raised on family stories of happy endings and love at first sight. I believe in love and moreover I believe in monogamy, but I think it’s a disservice to relationships to impose upon them the idea of perfection and eternal happiness. Intimacy is knowing someone’s flaws, not adoring their perfection or placing them upon a pedestal.

Disney would have us believe in demure princesses and fearless princes, but, speaking as a less-than-docile girl who might more closely resemble a vengeful step-sister, I’m bored with them. I am enthralled with the goth, ghosts and gore of the older fairy tales—the stories of the Grimm brothers or Hans Christian Anderson, whose version of the little mermaid ended in the sacrifice of her greatest gift, suicide, and unrequited love.

I’m not full of fairy dust. Women tend to hold onto the ideal of “happily ever after,” after all, “Sex and the City,” the grown-up continuation of little girl delusions, ran for six seasons, that’s 94 episodes, and was made into two movies. And the conclusion:  Manhattan Party Princess Carrie Bradshaw forgives her “Big” Bad Wolf boyfriend after years of mistreatment and convinces audiences (I mean women) with a  Manolo Blahnik (it’s an expensive shoe brand, boys) that he’s her Prince Charming. Although I’ve seen it twice, I will try to redeem myself by saying I did yell at the screen to the chagrin of my sister.  Yes, sis, it’s just a movie, but that’s the problem!

These are all just stories, but the collective childhood stories of a given time period act as a mirror to that society. The gullible Red Riding Hood of yore who had to navigate the dark woods was then transformed to a sexually charged teen in a 2011 movie “Red Riding Hood,” where a red-wearing-waif is hunted by her changeling beau. Don’t forget Cinderella’s transformation through generations from a lowly servant to a prostitute wooed by Richard Geer.

Then there’s the Little Mermaid, a character based on the legendary Sirens of ancient Greece who tried to lure Ulysses to his death. She became, through Anderson’s writing, a lovelorn girl who, upon killing herself, dissolves into the sea. She was transformed by Disney into a fiery red-head with a voice worthy of “American Idol” and sea shells deserving of Play Boy. She found her handsome prince, but in a literal sense she had to change into his ideal in order to make the relationship work.

Disney has its own brand of fairy tale. Maybe if we read Cinderella differently, as the story of a prince with a foot fetish who can’t remember the girl he danced with all night, to the point where he almost takes home the ugly step sister (as if it were “last call” at the bar), young people would grow up with a more realistic idea of relationships instead of being conditioned to hope for a convenient rescue from Prince Charming.
Perhaps if girls did not subliminally wish for a prince to rescue them and live “happily ever after,” and if this traditional ending didn’t imply that life ends at the altar, that the quest is finding a man not maintaining a healthy relationship, then more marriages would succeed because relationships would be based on love and not romantic inventions.

And what about the girl in the cottage in Colorado’s Never Land? Who wants to read her fairy tale? She’s a damsel that doesn’t need rescuing, on a quest without a grail; it’s not quite a gripping story.

 I may be reading too much into children’s stories—I began by researching for my Snowdown costume, and like a good bookworm became engrossed with the nostalgia of the tales. Happily ever after is a nice idea, but I’ll worry about it when I get there. I’m doing my best to live happily right now.

– Maggie Casey