For The Lady Who Longs

Written by B. Iman

Image courtesy of Jenna Coley

For she who yearned to love like Ariel & Eric, Bloom & Sky. Tantalized by the romance of the Barbie Princess and her Prince Ken. Visions of love and fantasy interweave for the young dreamer, the magic of media ever so potent. She, too, desires to be a princess swept off her feet. Courtship and chivalry, a brazen knight with flowers. With zealous eyes, from flicker of screen to flip of page, the fairytale emboldens. But what happens when the fantasy cannot be actualized? 

With no magic beans, just time in life, she grows as the stalk would. And beyond adolescence, a full woman has formed, with heart and mind still composed of her childlike wonder. The sun sets, and the moon rises time again, and within this constant, she has found that no frog will turn into Prince Naveen. 

A desire for betrothal or the grandeur of touch, it can often feel so fleeting in the here-and-now. Many of us sit at the precipice of a love that feels so close, yet so far away. Our mind unravels with every eventuality, looking to conjure every timeline, in search of every universe's iteration of this love’s possibility.

The toying with this magic does not negate what may lie upon. A forced reckoning we often begrudgingly accept: they are not mine nor can they be. The experience is cyclical – dreamers and lover girls alike, vortexed into the repetition of pain and desire, desire and pain. 

We ache and wonder if the page and program have fed a lie. Many princesses have forgone their antiquated ambition. Some take to the stars for an omen. Others rest amidst, padding a thin line, unsure of which path to take. 

A great woman once said,“ A culmination of love is grief, and we love despite the inevitable”. While Laufey the Just is a being of fantasy too, the lines she speaks carry tangible power. The desire and longing for love show strength within the lady—a resilience in knowing that there is a happily-ever-after to be had, despite the pain that may arise on one’s journey.

“The desire and longing for love show strength within the lady – a resilience in knowing that there is a happily-ever-after to be had, despite the pain that may arise on one’s journey.”

Her days are not filled with woe. She tends to her interiority as if it were a garden. Knowing each flower requires varying care, she studies self as both botanist and florist. As suitors arrive (and they always will), she will not allow their daffodils near her bed of daylily. Heart on sleeve yet protected by boring brick, turn not from the fantasy and remain steady within the reality.