When I was little, my grandpa called me “princess”

 

I felt like that was such an unrealistic expectation

I wasn’t royalty

I wasn’t rich

Or magical

Or blond

I was a six year old

With sticky fingers and matted hair

I was the epitome of normality

But to him I was a princess

 

Fairy Tales are told to us as an escape

As a happy place where the hero or heroine save themselves or the world

Where the girl always gets the boy

Where the poor always rise above their station

Where magic is the solution to even the smallest of problems

 

In reality, sometimes a girl doesn’t need a boy

Sometimes the poor are trapped into the life they lead by no fault of their own

Sometimes, no magic comes to clean up a mess and you have to use Clorox instead

 

When I was little, my grandpa called me “princess”

 

This was not out of some unrealistic delusion as to what I really was

This was not him wanting to make me feel superior or earthshatteringly gorgeous

This was him recognizing all that I was, all the odd child smells and loud temper tantrums, all the picky eating habits, and extreme attachments to stuffed animals

 

To him, I was as good as the princess in any fairytale

Because in the end, it is the average non-magical human being who pens all fairytales

And it is the princesses in those authors lives who are immortalized between those pages

 

When I was little, my grandpa called my “princess”

 

So did millions of other grandpas across the globe

But so didn’t millions of other grandpas across the globe

 

Everyone’s life is a fairytale

Everyone has a prince or princess in their life

Everyone has a story to tell

Everyone is constantly fighting for their own “Happily Ever After”