...and then the princesses took all of their fancy poof skirts and mirrors back to their castles on mountaintops in lands far, far away.

Fairytale Princesses have always been a part of culture.
When I was a child, Fairy Tale princesses, like Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty had Fairy God Mothers; Seven Dwarfs; impossibly long hair.  They had evil queens trying to destroy them.  They wore big poofy gowns in the forest and sang songs with woodland creatures.  There was a story of good vs evil, and evil was looking like it would triumph, but then in the end, GOOD always won, and the princess married Prince Charming, and the closing scene showed them driving off into the sunset together, to live Happily Ever After in a beautiful castle.

     I think that's a pretty good story.
 I think it's the story that lives in all of our hearts and minds, for it's the very story of our spiritual reality, according to the bible. 

     When I was a child, fairy tales were kept in books and in Disney movies.
They lived in an alternate world, and their lives did not intersect with my own.
I would read the stories, or they would be read to me.  I would look at the pictures and think about all of the pretty things.  And then I would close the book, put it back on my shelf, lace up my tennis shoes, and go outside to play football. 

     But here now, in 2014,  princesses are everywhere.  Princess culture has invaded.
I think the shift began in the early '90's.   The "Princesses" became less princess-y, and increasing more relateable, realistic, less likely to go live off in a faraway land, and more likely to live in another country.  But definitely on this planet.  And possible just a few blocks over.
   Little girls dress up like them.  They brush the hair of the toddler doll versions of them.  They collect the Barbie version of them.   They watch Disney specials in which the princesses interact.  Their closets are lined with princess dresses.
I am not saying that these things are bad.
I am simply observing the shift, and can bear witness to the fact that at least one Four Year Old I know is overwhelmed by the lack of distance the Princess Invasion has brought. Her identity becomes overwhelmed by the subtle messages, not so subtle to her.
She has not yet learned to identify fact from fiction.
To say "That was a brilliant story, and so beautifully portrayed.  What was the lesson in it?"
And then put the book on the shelf.
In the culture I see around me,
The level of innocent separation and distance has been removed from today's childhood. 

And then I walk through the store and see the covers of magazines, in which real women are posing in bathing suits with impossibly long hair and unlined faces, and the caption says that so and so famous person is " 60 and BETTER THAN EVER!"
Is it just me, or is it strange to see a 60 year old who looks like a 20 year old?  I don't think, "Wow," I think, "Weird."

And then I wonder, in what way is this famous person "Better?"  Better at looking 20?
I realize that "20" is the center of the Earth, to which the force of gravity is pulling everyone of every age.  The toddlers are trying to be 20, the elders are trying to be 20.

 Princesses never age a day past 20.

There are surgeries performed, there are injections injected.

There are bones broken and rearranged and skin stretched and stretched and stretched.

How awful if anyone were to see your laugh lines are realize that you had ever laughed.
How awful if anyone were to see your crows feet, and realized that crows had ever landed on your face.
Which is apparently just one of the hazards of being a Princess.*

     Not all women have elective medical procedures involving knives and scalpels and loss of blood  done to themselves, but the number of women who do these things is increasing.  And for each new convert to Botox and elective surgery, it becomes increasingly ironically unnatural looking for a woman to do what she does naturally.

  Which is to age. 
And the saddest thing about this is: 
Aging is an honor.
 And not everyone gets to do it.
The lines are there to show where you have been, what you have done, how much you have experienced, how much you have lived.
Stretch marks can only be obtained from having had babies.
I have never been upset about my own.  I have always carried the sense that I had to earn those, to suffer for them.  It's like a tattoo on my skin, the permanent reminder that these five humans who walk about the Earth with their own opinions and eye colors once lived inside my body, their face unseen was softly unlined, and for a while, it was just the two of us.
Once upon a time, your life began inside of mine. 

-XOXO,


*yes, that was a joke, but go back and watch Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella, see how the human and animal world's interact therein, and then tell me I don't have a point. 

For the record, yes I plan to color my hair and wear make up and generally "do it up," because I like doing these things, and they are the measure of taking care of myself which do not involve self mutilation, and yes.  Just yes.