Neverland

I was not always ambivalent about my appearance.

This'll shock some, but when I was quite little (about 3-4 years old), I hadn't an ounce of tomboyishness in me. I hated pants and wore skirts at every opportunity. I clipped little bows in my hair. I played with makeup.

Most of all, I dreamed of being a princess.

No - not that princess, but we'll get back to that in a sec.

One of the first memories I have of my childhood and this early onset obsession is of me watching The Swan Princess (the sh**y Don Bluth movie with the talking French frog) while I was sick.  But I couldn't be contented with just watching it. I needed to pretend to be a part of it, too. To that end, I stole a blanket and wrapped it around my body so that I'd have a long dress with a flowing train.  Of course - my sister made me wear my PJ pants underneath, as I had a cold and all, so it ruined the illusion a bit.  But I got over it and fell away into my day dream.

And, mind you, it wasn't just Swan Princess. I did this multiple times with various movies (including Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, for some reason.)  Just to give you the image, this was a baby blanket with a clown pattern, but I pranced around like pretty, pretty princess.  Yeah, I was smokin' - trust me on that.

It didn't stop there, either.  I was really into the princess thing, but not in a normal way.  I wanted to be Super Epic Martyr Warrior Princess girl.  Evidently, I was really into Cinderella from an early age because I would cut holes in my nightgowns to make them look like rags.  They actually came out more like Swiss-cheese, thoroughly infuriating my parents, but I didn't care.  I had these extremely complex games in my head about starting out as a poor peasant girl, fighting against The Man, undoing the wrongs of evil tyrants, saving princes, and getting assassinated but revived by the awesome power of love (I don't even know).

And, in my head, I was wearing a b*tchin' poofy dress the entire time, too.

Those fantasies stopped around the age of 6, but it's not hard to see why I grew up really enjoying shows, books, and movies like Ella Enchanted (the book - NOT THE MOVIE), Ever After, Xena, etc.  They embodied everything that little-girl-me wanted.  Frankly, they were like a gateway drug to every fiction book that I read later in life.

Of course, as I grew older, I fell away from these fantastical notions, realizing how silly and infantile they all were.  The books and movies were shelved.  I donned a pair of goggles, and got down into the nitty-gritty of science and being an adult.  How could I possibly entertain the idea of still getting so immersed in these outrageous ideas?  Pish-posh.

...

Hah hah, just kidding, folks:

Some things never change.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

Until the next.