Fairy Tale, meet Reality

December 27, 2009
A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I gazed at the photo of his brother seated on those familiar grooved stairs while playing with their excited Jack Russell terrier. Again I wondered if I hadn't dreamed the five years of love and companionship -- an escape with wondrous and nightmarish aspects folded into one reality.

At its best moments, we were weightless -- freed of all human and earthly constraints. At its worst, it was hell on earth -- a life prison sentence served in solitary confinement. Death Row would have been my exit route, if my cell door had actually locked behind me.

And I realized today that the only way I was able to withstand the abuse and denigration was for the dream-like quality of life as I knew it in Italy. When I was over there, the beauty, warmth and charm blinded me to the grime that coated my future. Once I removed myself from the enchantment, the spell broke. The prince turned into the dragon and the princess was left to fend for herself. It was something I initially could do quite well, but each trip over there he tied my hands a little more. He looped just another layer of rope around my wrists -- not enough to register with me as he did it but enough to weaken me to accept captivity and exile to the ivory tower. There I would remain doll-like, unstained, lonely and aching to take my place in the world. There I would be preserved as his accessory to win praise and admiration for him until my time was up and I was replaced, which I surely would have been.

So you see, the nostalgia was only for the time of soaring dreams and the conviction that believing in something so surely, so deeply would actually bring it to pass. Perhaps it's for my childlike innocence, that moment in time seemingly undisturbed by life's messes, until it became mixed into them in its own good time. For a "slow-mo" moment, it was a daydream paradise, an Eden of sorts, only  mine was a built perception of near-perfection instead of actual flawlessness.

"Fairy tales don't always have a happy ending, do they? / And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay" (Fergie)