Cinderella got the boy when the odds were not at all in her favor.  I love the Dinsney cartoon and to be clear, I have seen the Drew Barrymore “remake” Ever After, probably as many times as I have seen Cinderella.  I believe, BELIEVE, in the stories, what my Mother always made be understand, be a good girl and good will always come to you, and what my father in his beautifully philosophical way taught me about making plenty of deposits in my karmic bank, that being GOOD and doing what’s  RIGHT and working hard, will always win in the end…

I’ve struggled and wrestled and battled through all  my adult life with the green eyed monster, “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;  It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock.”  I’m not too proud to admit that I have cried myself to sleep a number of times in my life as a woman with the “what is wrong with me?” question swirling around my brain as I watched or knew women in my life who were “getting” the dream when I was not.  I hated myself, loathed myself, when I drank myself into nearly a Cognac induced coma the Christmas night my sister got engaged.  I have drank myself into dreamless sleeps many nights after being at weddings, looking at new engagement rings, wishing somebody I knew happiness, laughing at a bridal shower or a baby shower or any one of the occasions when the spotlight is on some other woman living her dream and it is embarrassing, deeply, to be this kind of person.  But alas, it is who I am, or who I became, and I am hopeful that someday I will “SEE” the wrongness of my thoughts and change.  But, change seems so slow and arduous when it is one’s self that needs changing.

I can change a room by rearranging the furniture and getting rid of hideous Thomas Kinkade prints and switching out some lighting.  I can change a space by painting a ceiling and painting the walls and painting the trim.  I can transform a yard by planting decorative pots and adding colorful annuals and flowering shrubs and pruning overgrown bushes.  I can transform a property,  a house, or a room, but still can’t seem to remodel me.

I’ve never walked away from a job and said, no, can’t be done.  I’ve never declined an opportunity to make a house or a yard better with my magic touch…all my work is always done with love, truly, I love what I do and whether I’m cleaning a refrigerator for a millionaire or raking leaves in a random yard, I do it from a place of caring, it’s just how I work…I’d never dig up a garden and then NOT plant it.  I’d never sand a wall and then NOT paint it, so why?, why I ask myself, do I constantly and consistently walk away from the job of reconstructing that which is me?

I have smudged, prayed, wished, had my tarot cards read, my palm read, have read too many “self-help” books to name…and I keep dreaming, yearning, waiting, to have the strength to be who I think I am, or ought to be.  I’ve been told I am “maladjusted” I’ve been told I am “bi-polar” I’ve been told I am “confused” I’ve been told I am “immature” …I’ve been told I am many things, and have at times believed these words that have come from the mouths of others.  I suppose I need to tell myself the right words, the true words, the helpful words that I know are the core of who I am, what I believe in, what I stand for, and believe them above all, because as juvenile as it may seem, I still deep down in my very soul believe “When you’re fast asleep, In dreams you lose your heartaches, Whatever you wish for, you keep.  Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come smiling thru.  No matter how your heart is grieving, If you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.”