What Happened to Happily Ever After?

Fairytales are a favorite of most little girls. They anticipate the moment the prince and princess are united at the end of the story and, of course, pronounced to live happily ever after. Then the little girl can sigh deeply with a smile on her face and dream of her own Prince Charming that will someday sweep her off her feet, literally. The man that will rescue her from the drab dullness of chores, everyday life, and the need to live within a budget. The problem is, finding Prince Charming does not make you exempt in real life, from chores, woes, and financial stresses; unless you do happen to marry a bona fide prince. By my calculations, the availability of male royalty is severely lacking if every young girl's dream is to be satisfied in that manner. Couple that travesty with the bitter disappointment that a girl faces when she thinks she has finally met her non-royal Prince Charming, only to find out that once she kissed the frog and changed him to a prince, he never forgot his old froggy ways. In the end, it almost seems that fairytales do a disservice to impressionable young minds. Currently, several of my friends are trying to figure out what to do with froggy husbands and wondering what happened to their princes. I wonder if it would have been more helpful, to read a fairytale that ended by stating "and the prince and princess married, took out a loan for a nicer castle, and made mortgage payments for 30 years. They also had several children, that enjoyed testing the sanity of their royal parents regularly, and often humbled them in front of the village subjects by their *sometimes* impolite behavior. The prince and princess decided to move to a far off land, to avoid living near one another's families. The prince couldn't reconcile himself to his commoner in-laws and the princess thought her in-laws were King and Queen Snootypants." At least this kind of commentary would hit a little closer to reality. Most days, I feel like I have found my Prince Charming, but I am not sure living happily ever after is really possible, because happiness is fleeting and emotion driven. We can live a life of joy together, but anyone that lives, knows it "ain't" all happiness. These thoughts were more provoked, not so much by my own life right now, but by the lives of many close to me. I realized, that even with all of the negative circumstances, I have a reason to be thankful. Things are far from perfect or even ideal, but walking this road with the people God has put in my life, makes it doable. I can't imagine not having my prince by my side, even if he isn't ALWAYS princely.