*Originally published on Rebelle Society*

I’m mourning the loss of this fairy tale relationship I now know I will never have. I’m finally surrendering the vision I’ve held in my mind’s eye:

He’s holding my hand

we’re laughing in bliss

I feel the sunny rays

of his complete acceptance

of all that I am.

I yearn for his quiet listening, his gentle words of affirmation. I give him my smile, chime words full of bells that celebrate my knowledge of who he is. And secretly I wait for his reciprocation, for his celebration of me, of the grace of my being.

I wait alone for a very long time.

I try to show him by the way I love him. Try to show him what it is to give, how I can leap through hoops with a smile on my face, and dance and dance and tap-tap dance.

As he talks over my carefully laid out words, as he tramples upon the shards of myself that I offer up for him to hold, as my heart sinks from the great holes torn deeply by his blind eyes that see nothing but expectation…I know that we will never have the happily-ever-after relationship I’ve worked so hard to create.

I realize this as he complains about my driving and the floor I haven’t swept; as he competes against my accomplishments, reaching his hand that much higher, staring blankly while I talk, interrupting mid-sentence with his higher intellect.

It’s in these brushed off moments that have filled my lifetime with soggy birthday party confetti, that I finally know that these men will never love me in the way I want to be loved.

I have been forever looking skyward, watching a balloon filled with all the energy I’ve spent to become his image of perfection. It’s full of all the ways I have shifted, edited, morphed, hoping that by me being different, he would be different.

Gazing at this latex container of emotion, I cut its ribbon that too long has ripped into my wrist. Watching, it slowly floats away, bobbing along the current of the wind. I watch it, awash in feelings of hope and freedom as I let it go.

Then, quite suddenly, the balloon bursts.

Fireworks shower down around me as all the pieces of myself that I gave away in payment for his love, are returned back to me. My eyes adjust downward and I finally become earthbound, embracing the vast landscape that for too long was encased in a balloon-centered tunnel vision.

I stoop down to scoop up these pieces of myself. And as I eat them whole they add fat and flesh to my love starved ribs. Packing a bag of rations for this new adventure, I step off to explore an entirely new world I had actually always inhabited. This fairytaleless land was here all along, it was simply waiting for my awakened gaze.

And so I peacefully release happily ever after

and live in the thrilling perfection of now.

{Photo via Tumblr}