A Different Cinderella Story

Everyone knows the story of Cinderella. Moms usually tell this story to their little girls before they close their eyes. Once upon a time there was this little unhappy girl that lived with her mean stepmother and stepsisters. One lucky day, she met her fairy godmother that gives her a beautiful dress and a fancy cab made of a pumpkin. She went to the ball, she met the Prince, they fell in love, oh what Midnight?!?, she runs back home but she left a precious small shoe behind. The Prince, madly in love, went to look for her all over the country just to find the precious foot that would fit in the small shoe and had left a path in his heart. Bla blah blah, the prince found her and they lived happily ever after.

That's the story we all know. That every single girl on this earth has dreamt about. They all dream that some good, loving and a little bit overweight godmother will appear when they don't believe  in happiness anymore and will give them the most beautiful dress they could ever dream about. They will go to the ball, find the Prince and have their personal happy ever after. I used to be one of those girls. I used to believe in fairytales. But I found out that life is not as perfect as Cinderella's story taught me. As Cinderella, I didn't get an invitation to the ball. As Cinderella, I asked the stars to help me going to the ball but unlikely to her I didn’t receive it from a chubby and smiley godmother. Instead , a skinny and mean girl invited me just because she was feeling too sorry for the lonely girl. Also, she did that just to have the opportunity to look at her and criticize her body and underline all her aspects that made her an outsider. As Cinderella, I wish for the most beautiful of the dresses but unlikely her, I got a simple and very anonymous dress and I finally got ready for the ball. Once there, the handsome prince was waiting for his princess but unlikely Cinderella, that princess wasn’t me. I wasn’t tall enough, skinny enough, beautiful enough. I was invisible.

How would you feel when everything you did believe as a child turns into the biggest lie of your life? How would you react when you find out that you won't have your own happy ending? How would you survive the pain to be once again left aside from the world you expected to live in?

After that, I started believing that stories like Cinderella's should not be told to little girls

before bedtime. Those fairy tales might be good material for sweet dreams without nightmare but what if they just create a nightmare in the real life when all the expectations are disappointed?

Growing up with all those fairy tales, girls fill their wardrobes with beautiful dresses to impress people around them and they secretly hope that finally one day, among alcohol and loud music, they will find their prince and have their happy ending. I was one of those girls until one day I looked at all those dresses, some of them still with the tag on and I asked myself: why? Why have I spent all the time in the shop looking at myself in the mirror and imagining a charming prince complimenting my dress? Why have I spent all my energies on crazy diets to feel beautiful in those dresses? Why have I focused so much on the happy ending that I won't have if first I don’t love myself?

If I used to envy Cinderella for her perfect happy ending, now I don’t envy her anymore. I actually feel sorry for her. She won't ever know what happens after midnight when you and your friends head to the dance floor and the DJ plays the latest tunes. She won't know the feeling of feet in agony because of those heels high as skyscrapers. She won’t try those delicious chips from the shop at the corner of the street that you and your friends love. But most of all she won't know that real friendship is the most perfect happy ending that will last a lifetime. 

Once

 "Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?
   We accept the love we think we deserve"



Once I used to think that to love was simple. I used to think that when two people meet, some chemistry get them together, something that cannot be explain, something similar to magic But one day you open your eyes and realize nothing is what fairy tales taught you when younger.
Once I used to believe things were easy. People get to know each other, get closer… then what?
Why everything suddenly changes? How that happens? Does something go missing? Does problems get in between them? What happens? 

Once I used to believe love could go through everything.
Once I used to believe that love was enough. 

But how can it be enough when we live overwhelmed by all what it is happening into our lives? How can we connect with another person when we cannot even understand what it is going inside us? How can we understand what we feel for someone else when we cannot feel anything but confusion inside us?  
What is the answer to all this questions? Is any answer out there? Where? But above all, WHEN? We have an established time on the earth, why do we have to spend it in our minds instead of living and enjoying every single moment of this short life? 

Once. You only live once. Stop wasting time looking for an answer, making yourself all those questions about love because the answer it is love itself
Love every moment you live because you are not going to live the same again. If you meet someone you love, tell him because life can take you the opportunity to say it in any time. Accept the love that is given to you and if you feel that it is not enough, then it is not worth it. But most important of all, love yourself above anything else. Because you are the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with.

Take me home

We all were born in a family, in between people we don't choose. They say they are our family, that they love us but sometimes we just don’t believe it. We don’t fit in between them. 

So one day we decide to pack our dreams in a suitcase, a couple of memories and leave. 

We run away from our fears and regrets and hide all the nightmares under the bed where we won’t sleep in anymore.
We build a new life, start everything from zero, a new city, new friends, new exciting challenges and new memories.
But we cannot avoid sleeping and nightmares with it. One day we wake up and we find them there, sitting on our bed, looking at us with their yellow eyes, a shadow over us.
And it start all over again. The feeling of being alone, unwanted and misunderstand. That big shadow follow us everywhere, no door will stop it from follow us, no sea or ocean can keep it away from us. 

And that’s when we need to be taken back home.
Back to that physical or mental space where we can find the strength to keep carry on. Home is where to feel safe. Sometimes home can be too distant or can’t been reached easily but we know it is there. We just have to keep it in mind. We don’t have to forget our suitcase full of dreams and hopes, they are the reason why we started this journey. We put so much effort in that that giving up is not an option.
It is totally normal to feel homesick sometime. But memories are there to show us the path back home.

Waiting

We spend our life waiting. For everything.
We spend long minutes waiting for our bus at the stop, waiting in the que for the coffee to be ready, waiting our stomach to be hungry so we can eat, waiting that some divine signal from the sky tells us it’s finally time to do what we have been waiting to do.

But it is all this “waiting” worth it?

Do we really want to spend our life waiting for the right time? Waiting for living?                        

Why do we waste our time? Why when dozens of people have already spent their life writing big poems about carpe diem (“seize the day”)  or good songs that we often listen at the radio we still don’t understand how short is life?

In this 2016 that has just began as every year people have made their new year’s resolution list copied from the past year’s list as they have never actually found time to accomplish them. Because they were waiting for the right moment to tell that person about their feelings, waiting for Monday to start a clean diet, waiting for someone to accompanying you to watch that art exposition together. 

Stop waiting. Start acting.  

Doing something actually takes less time than thinking on how to do it. So just act, follow your instinct. If you do a mistake, don’t worry much about it, don’t regret your actions, take it as a new experience, a way to stop waiting.

Just live the present. I know, I’m not saying anything new from Ovidio or Walt Whitman but it is important to remember it to ourselves once so ever, especially when we feel that our lives are senseless. But in my experience, life never gets senseless. Everything happens for a reason. 

We just have to live everyday as it was the last on the earth, live without regrets and fearless. That’s the only way that we can tick off all those “to do” from the list.