On Being a Princess and Having a Castle

I found this very wonderful blog (theotherwoman) that celebrated being a woman.

Within that blog, I read one beautiful blog entry which made me think about most of the female friends that I have, who are looking for a partner, someone to love. These women are of different age range (from early twenties to early fourties), with different beliefs and different backgrounds. However, they all share one thing, their quest to find their prince charming. So I thought this blog entry was very appropriate.

I used to be one of them. Although it doesn't seem very obvious, a few months (even years) ago, I longed for someone to be by my side. I do not necessarily feel incomplete without him, but at times I would imagine how happier I would be if I am in a relationship. I did not actively try to find him, but hey, I got lucky! (or blessed, according to some of my friends)

Each of us has a different approach when it comes to relationships. Some may be contented waiting for the one. Others will be pro-active and do everything to be with the one. But in the process, let us not forget what is more important, ourselves. Let us not loose our self in the quest of finding our prince charming.

So, for all the single ladies out there, this one's for you.

The Princess and her Castle

Once upon a time there lived a young princess, in a castle made just for her. It had all that she wanted, and more; all she ever had to do was wish, and it was granted.

She was grateful for her life, and wished for very little. All that she needed was in the castle, and if it wasn’t there, she felt she didn’t need it very much, or that she had to learn to live without it. Lack – and luck, too – was something that she took for granted. Life is not perfect, the princess told herself early on, and it is that way because we have to live with the imperfections, and from it create a perfect life, a perfect being in our own selves.

Yet with all her logic, and all her luck, there was something the castle never had. Exactly what it was the princess could not tell. She only knew something was lacking because it never felt like home, though she had lived there all her life. She had always felt on the verge, as if about to leave. Though she loved dearly all that was in the castle, not one of them, she knew, could make her stay, when it was time to leave.

Having grown up on the usual stuff of fairy tales, the princess thought that a Prince Charming was what was lacking. One day a prince would come and take her to his own castle, and make her his queen. She never really belonged in HER castle because she was meant for HIS castle.

A succession of princes came, but not one was satisfactory. There was always something wrong, somewhere, though each at first seemed perfect. She loved each one of them with all her heart, but somehow felt that not one loved her enough.

And so she stayed in her castle until the years had bleached her hair gray, and written lines on her face. By which time, the princess knew, no prince would come to take her as his bride. Princesses have expiry periods, as everyone knows; though people become better with age, like wine, men think of milk instead of wine when they marry and so prefer their bride to be fresh, not aged. Innocence trumps wisdom anytime, in the eyes of a man.

One day, finally tired of waiting, the princess took a hard look at her castle. This is my castle, she told herself; this is where I live and will die. And she set about to cleaning it and ordering it and transforming it into what she really wanted, regardless of what everyone else wanted.

She closed some rooms and demolished others, and opened up some that she had always wanted to use. She tried not to think of what her family would say, or even her past lovers – and she told herself the future ones, if there were still any coming – would just have to adjust to what she wanted. Age has its privileges.

It took such a long time to put the castle in shape that by the time she finished she was really old. Such a pity I have to leave my castle, just when I’ve finally made it into home, she thought.

But she was much too happy to regret anything, even the years when she had waited for someone to take her away from her castle. In her heart she apologized to all the princes who came when she was young, and whom she thought she loved. Her one regret in life was not admitting, early on, what she knew but could not believe: that a prince was superfluous, at least to her, though everyone else seemed to need a partner.

Yun na! Pak!