“I’m the princess and
Daddy’s the prince!” My daughter shouted, lifting arms up high, in her
pronouncement of love for her father. I
thought, ‘This is the wrong order of things,’ a cloudy thought circled in the
back of my head, I could use this to my advantage.
“No, if you’re the
princess, then Daddy’s the King and I’m the Queen,” after a few recitations of
this she got it. I was the Queen, Daddy
was the King, and she was the Princess.
I felt that I could use my new found status as a parlay into my unquestionable
authority. I have yet to have to invoke
the rule of the queen, but in a pinch I just might.
Later in the day I
realized that becoming queen did change my status, by all definitions I was no
longer a princess. I’ve never thought of
myself as much of a princess, really more the anti-princess. A few years ago I was chatting excitedly with
a friend about a new romance of hers, then it dawned on me,
“Wait, I’m the
sidekick,” it popped. My reality had
changed, in prevalent romantic comedies the whole story is the falling in love,
the beginning of romance. Each movie
culminating in marriage or the protagonists finally declaring love for each
other. My own personal romance had
culminated in marriage about two years prior.
I was now relegated to the sidelines, the snappy friend who has
something wise and wonderful to say to her friend, but is no longer the center
of attention. The birth of my children
pushes me even farther away from the center stage. I am the rare movie friend, the young mom,
still snappy and full of sage advice but sweatpants clad, harried, and maybe a
little too truthful. I am there to
remind the young ingénue of her future, does she really want love, marriage,
and then the baby in the baby carriage?
I am sure to guarantee her that it’s all worth it and point out the one
character flaw that keeps her from true love.
I still am the center of my own life, aren’t I?
As I’ve aged I’ve
watched the actresses I’ve grown up with, age along with me. Seeing Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron
becoming the queens in movies rather than princesses has surprised me. I don’t feel older, I certainly don’t think I
look that much older. I’m sure I do,
crinkles at the side of my eyes, sexy on a man but sad on a woman, a waist thickened by childbearing, some looser skin.
Here it was again. I was the queen. Relegated to the background of fairy
tales. What does it mean to be
queen? More responsibility? Wider hips?
At best queens are smiling, chubby, and wise, at worst they are driven
to mad jealousy by the loss of their beauty.
These paradigms make me uncomfortable with my new status. I resent the mad jealous characters, as if my
only value is my face and if I lose that I have nothing left to offer. I like the wise characters, but I still feel as
if they only exist to be there for the princess.
There is a shift
though. I feel like parenthood is the
last stage of maturation, suddenly your life doesn’t revolve around you and
what you want, there are these little creatures to consider and their needs are
so much louder than your own. I remember
the shift that suddenly I just became the person in back of the stroller, the
steward of this adorable new creature that everyone needed to see. I honestly never minded, sometimes a joke
would be made when the person was a friend, after greeting my child first they
would say something like,
‘Oh hi, Lara,’ I would
smile and say something like,
‘I’m back here too.’ Most of the time I don’t mind, in some ways
it’s nice to no longer be the center of my own world, there’s only so much of
me that needs tending to, and being self absorbed can be so tedious. I suppose that’s what queens do, they need to
think about other people first. Their
needs become less important, the people that they take care of come first. The loss of princess-ness in my life is not
really something I mourn, in some ways it just is what is; we all get older. Surely the aging process is not something that all
women look forward to, but I am thankful for some things that those crinkles
around my eyes have brought me, some wisdom, a little more calm in a storm, and
quite a few precious memories….and maybe a few precious children.