Apparently, a girl never outgrows her love of fairytales. I mean, I'm well into my twenties (I won't say how well into them) and I've found myself thinking about a couple of my beloved fairytale heroines the last few days. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. However, because my thought processes are rather unusual, I've seen visions of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella in a very different setting than the typical glistening palace and sparkling slippers that one usually pictures for these two lovely heroines. No, my mind's eye has recently set these two ladies to dueling it out in the boxing ring of sorts. Strange, I know; but let me try and explain...
Having been a girl disappointed in love once or twice and having experienced the incessant ache of deferred hopes, I have often thought how wonderfully merciful it would be if one could REALLY be Sleeping Beauty. I mean, to be able to simply fall asleep until "THE ONE" (namely, Prince Charming) should come along and wake you with a kiss. You would never have to feel the shattering pain of disappointed hopes, the weariness of the waiting, the agonizing doubts of wondering will it ever happen/is this 'THE ONE'? What bliss to simply 'come alive', as it were, when true love is already yours. So this is Sleeping Beauty. Yes, sign me up for a Sleeping Beauty story, right?
Now for Cinderella's story. What girl hasn't LOVED the story of Cinderella? The good and sweet, but lowly servant girl who escapes a cruel life of drudgery by catching the eye and the heart of the unassailable Prince Charming. A rags-to-riches kind of romance story. We love this story, because it is us. Most every girl would put herself in the oh-so-average bracket, but like Cinderella someday we'll escape the soot and grime of this lonely singleness to the heaven of life with "THE ONE" (namely, Mr. Right). So this is Cinderella. Yes, sign me up for a Cinderella story, right?
Hmmm. The other day as I found myself wishing in particular for Sleeping Beauty's story (the escape route)...a fleeting vision of Cinderella came into my mind. Suddenly, I found myself comparing the two. What about the time of singleness for these two fairytale princesses? Sleeping Beauty's was spent...well, frankly, sleeping. True, she didn't experience the pain, the agony, the doubts that inevitably come as part of the long, lonely days of life as a single person, but what of the REST of life? She was sleeping through it ALL. She missed out on the loveliness of the evening sun shining after a gentle summer rain, she missed out on the laughter of children playing, she never woke in the morning to the birds singing outside, never watched the curtains billowing in the breeze from an open window, never had the chance to hold a sweet baby, she never felt how good it was to sleep after a hard day of sweeping the floors and dusting the house. In short, she missed out.
Cinderella's single life? Well, at first glance it doesn't look so attractive...sort of lends credence to Sleeping Beauty's single life. Cinderella was very much awake. She worked...HARD. Serving even the most unlovely of people. True, she felt all the pain of a lonely life, she cried well-deserved tears from disappointed hopes and shattered dreams. BUT, when she was found by her Prince...well, she'd experienced life. She was a woman, mature and lovely and REAL, and she could appreciate him and all that he brought to her so much more for having been awake and alive during those long, hard, awful days of singleness. He was much more of a hero to his heroine, because of the life she'd actually lived and experienced during her singleness. Even her pain and her toils were a jewel in his crown.
The outcome of the boxing match? Well, in my mind's eye it has put the lovely and attractive Sleeping Beauty cowering in the corner of the ring, with her hands over her face as a shield from pain...but Cinderella's character packs a punch that has a real strength behind it (probably from scrubbing all those floors). Sleeping Beauty when found by her prince will, it's true, know nothing about pain and her lovely face may be untainted by scars of any sort, but she will also know nothing about life...she will not be a good match for him. Cinderella will know how to keep house, how to serve others, how to LIVE and how to LOVE. So now the question is...Sleeping Beauty vs. Cinderella, which one would YOU rather be?
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