we all want a fairy tale, don’t we?
when I was 21, I thought I had it all figured out. I’d met a guy, fallen in love. I was on track to finish college. we were young and everything was fresh and wonderful – and when he showed up at my parents’ house with a romantic backyard proposal, that all my family and close friends were in on, with a perfect ring, down on one knee… well, it felt like my fairy tale.
so the dress shopping and the venue scouting and the arrangements and the flowers, all of the bridal things, intermixed with a long distance romance and my senior year of college – this is what you’re supposed to do. after all, there has to be a little drama in a fairy tale.
and the fights, the control, the changes, the overriding my opinions or desires, the disagreements with my extended family, the push for me to drop my second major and graduate in time for the wedding, the decision to not apply for grad school – I explained and justified and brushed it all away. after all, there has to be a little excitement in a fairy tale.
and the tension, and the late night calls, and the disagreements, and the compromises, and the letdowns, and the decisions, and, and, and. I was young and I was determined and I held on with every fiber of my being. because there has to be a climatic moment in a fairy tale.
it started escalating over the holidays, when we’d been engaged for about 4 months and still had 6 or 7 months to go. I remember feeling it bubbling below the surface at family gatherings. I remember the way my shoulders held all the tension, the way my face would twitch when I pushed away the doubt. the way my uncertainty twisted through my body.
I had found my fairy tale, but the dragons weren’t attacking from outside. I was battling inner demons, both mine and his. it felt like I’d waited my whole life (remember I was 22) for this: for my first love, my true love story, and instead it was threatening to unravel right before me.
I started having nightmares. I found my first grey hairs at 22. I bombed a midterm after a particularly bad fight. we had a long, drawn out, all night fight the week of spring break that ended in his decision to cut his visit short. that led to a long silence between us that stretched past 2 weeks.
in some ways I should have seen it coming. but I truly believed that this was meant to be, and I was willing to do anything – anything – to hold on to that destiny.
we only talked for about 5 minutes, that last phone call. it was short but it was not sweet. it felt like my lungs were being ripped from me. even if I had had an opportunity to talk, I don’t think I would have been able to. I remember coming back into the room where my mom was staying, and I couldn’t even form words, just wrenched my engagement ring off and handed it to her. I was empty.
it was the end of the fairy tale. it was the worst day of my life. it was exactly 10 years ago today, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
I mean, obviously not in the moment, and not for a long time after. we broke up less than 4 weeks before I graduated college, 2 months before the wedding date. I was devastated. I floated through my last week’s of class and my finals. I barely remember any of it, especially the calls and decisions I had to make to officially cancel everything. I attended a very small private college and I remember feeling like literally everyone knew.
it was the opposite of a fairy tale. I felt like Cinderella’s stepsisters. and I’m so grateful.
I think at the time I was convinced it would be the worst thing I’d ever go through. but that was before I watched my brother slip into a coma in his last hours of life. or before I watched my best friend lose her husband. before I lost close friends, moved 3 times in the first 4 years of marriage, got kicked out of a church, sit with friends grieving parents and children and pets, had a massive car accident, endure a pandemic, and on and on.
life isn’t a fairy tale, filled with fairy godmothers and magic wands, curses to be broken, quests to be fulfilled. it’s more than that: it’s real. I hope my ex fiancé recognizes how tremendous of a blessing he gave me that day, because I think it was the best thing that ever get to me.
perhaps the greater 