Happy ever after

“Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale.” I read that in a card. I thought that it was an appropriate thought for Valentine’s Day. Fairy tales! I could write a book about the meaning of those words and unrealistic expectations caused by them but I won’t do it here.
For now, let’s just agree that all fairy tales have happy beginnings and happy endings. It’s the stuff in the middle that most of us don’t expect. And we don’t know how any of our fairy tales will end until they do. In this day and age of disposable relationships, “happy ever after” doesn’t seem to exist. I think it’s because most people don’t stick around long enough to see the end. Many just can’t get thru the messy stuff in the middle.
Read the quote again- it doesn’t say that LIFE gives us the fairy tale, it says that LOVE does! So what is “real love”? The skin horse told the velveteen rabbit this- “Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. ….It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
I have learned that real love is accepting one another for who they are not who you want them to be. I have learned that it consists of much forgiveness for big hurts and little hurts. It consists of keeping our opinions to ourselves when necessary and saying them out loud when equally necessary.
It means turning the other cheek and sometimes even a blind eye. It means taking the time to learn each other. It means giving sometimes when you really want to take. Sometimes it means unconditional support when you would like to be the first one in the firing line.
It means times of like, times of dislike, times of hate and woven thru all- the dazzling moments of love. It DOES take a long time. But as the skin horse said, once you are REAL you can’t be ugly to those that truly love you. The happy ending for the lucky few that make it to that point is- that person across the table has seen you in all your beautiful and not so beautiful moments. And they are still there! When you look in each other’s eyes, you don’t see bald or fat or old, you see your prince or your princess and that’s your happy ending.
That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?