I fell in love with a fairy tale. The perfect boy who’d do me right and love me just for me. He was everything…my larger-than-life knight in shining armour, my dream boy, my fairy tale. I’d known him since I was born. His smile could melt any girl’s heart, his blue eyes are the stuff of heaven. I dreamed about him. In my mind, he was everything I could ever want in a guy.
But so much of him was just a dream. He’s a real person…a real boy on the football team, my first best friend, a handsome, kind, respectful, good kid. But it’s hard to tell the difference between this boy and the boy I hoped he was. The boy I imagined he was. The boy I dreamed he was.
Yesterday he hurt my feelings. Not the first time that has happened. It’s subtle, insignificant, most would say meaningless and unimportant. But because I dreamed of him as being the boy who would never hurt me, because I thought he was all that and more, his brief, inconsiderate words broke my heart. I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. I laughed and got away to be by myself for a minute. I could hardly breathe. “Oh well,” I told myself wildly, “He’s just a jerk…he doesn’t matter…I don’t care. What an idiot, how could I not see it? His poor luck not mine. He’s immature and stupid. Who needs him? Not me.”
But he was supposed to be my everything. And I’m a terrible liar. My heart just wouldn’t believe my words, not even when I smiled and laughed and brushed him off like dust from the shoulder of my winter jacket. Just plain unimportant, he was, nothing to me at all. But then why do I keep thinking about him? Why does my life seem empty without him? What’s that hole in my heart doing there? I feel crippled, like I’m missing a leg and can’t stand straight. I go to lean on those dreams and hopes and they’re just not there anymore. And I fall. He’s gone.
Don’t fall in love with a fairy tale. Don’t dream too much. Don’t let the sun glinting off his shining armour blind you. Be honest with yourself.
Because some day, those dreams and false hopes will be revealed. What goes up must come down, and you’ll fall. And on that day, you’ll realize just how much you depended on those dreams…just how much you needed them. Just the faintest breath of an insult, the slightest hint of disinterest, and you’re broken.
Don’t put yourself there. Don’t fall in love with a fairy tale. It hurts too much.
