Today's Fairy Tale includes a two income household and the ideal of putting off having children for a while. Biology suggest that we have kids at young ages anyway, without planning and without marriage. We divorce, separate ourselves from the biological other parent and even a college education does not ensure the formerly inevitable supportive career.
What I know now - I would like to propose my own Fairy Tale. Each of us has lived, tried out, rejected, made up and struggled with our own Fairy Tales. Thanks to modern technology, anyone can rewrite, update, reject or completely ignore their own word processed version. Sometimes we need help from our friends, our counselors, our lovers and from events over which we think we have no control.
Chris's Fairy Tale
Once upon a time, there was a young woman of 34. She did not yet know what to do with her life, and listening to the music that emerged from radio stations suggesting destinations and all the emotions of wrecked or completed love did not help her. She searched her internal library, old tests and questioned the minds of counselors and friends. Settling on one thing for the rest of her life seemed impossible and she could not do it. She knew that choices narrowed her life's course and she resisted following only one path.
She finally settled on creativity, a life that allows and encourages the inevitable changes that insist on forcing us all to adapt to an ambiguous unplanned passage of time. She had spent her life choosing to behave appropriately, closely monitoring herself; ensuring she did what she believed was right and trying not to hurt anyone's feelings or interrupt their lives. Finally, at 52, she realized that just because you play nice does not mean as she believed, that you will get the life you expect, organized your life towards and intended.
At 53 she began to see that through taking care not to intentionally hurt or interfere with humanity she was a drag on the only event that matters or will become despite your planned destination. Ironically, her gradual philosophical twist was a radio hit, and one that she loved. She notices that change is the only constant; that she is not the only one to notice. In her rush to the intended life, she is able to correctly wriggle away from a path that requires no creativity and discovers her best strength so far.
Suddenly, the night is full of stars and she has always had the means to get to any of them, changing direction by just turning towards a new light.
And she lived happily, unless she was sad, ever after. The end.
Partial bibliography:
“Leads you here, despite your destination...under the milky way tonight” from the album Starfish, a song called “Under the Milky Way” by The Church.
Thanks also to Arthur C. Clark from 2001: A Space Odyssey; “...it goes on forever – and – oh my God! - it's full of stars!”
Thanks to the Big Dipper, that collection of stars in the sky that tells me from my driveway the seasons of the year.
