Happily Ever Afters By Yemi Olusoga
I love fairytales! This does not stem from being a hopeless romantic and having an overactive imagination and unrealistic expectations about how love and romance should be, as I have been told by my friends over the years. This has been their conclusion for a while now because of my addiction to a Walt Disney collection I have and would not let anyone touch, not even my four year old nephew.
So the other day, I sat in my house watching Cinderella and minding my business when my phone rang. It was a Saturday evening and my plan for the day was a Walt Disney marathon session. It was my friend and the conversation went something like this:
Him: Yo! Where are you?
Me: My house.
Him: Ok. Let’s go see a movie. Don’t worry I’ll drive.
Me: Not today. I’m busy.
Him: Please don’t tell me you’re watching Lion King again.
Me: No. Cinderella.
As I tried to justify my “abnormal obsession with fairytales” to my friend over the phone, he asked if it had ever occurred to me that there was a goof in the story and of course I argued because the story is so….cinderellarish! So he asked me what he must have thought was a very intelligent question,
“If Cinderella’s slippers fit her feet so perfectly that no one else in the entire kingdom could wear it, how come it fell off in the first place”?
My smile immediately turned upside down into a frown and I was ready never to talk to him again, even if there was a goof in the story I didn’t want to know because it would no longer be a fairytale…fairytales are supposed to be perfect and so instead of turning off the TV and going out as he had hoped I would, I found myself thinking, is this the goof in the story or the beauty in the story?
I did turn off the TV, but it was so I could write this:
Happily ever afters…..
What makes a story beautiful? Is it the way it ends? I always thought it was, but now I realize it’s everything that happens between “once upon a time” and “happily ever after” that makes it so.
The entire plot of the Cinderella story is built around the premise that the slipper fit so perfectly that when the prince put it on her foot he just knew she was the one! So how come it fell off in the first place? On the other hand, if the slipper hadn’t fallen off, how would the prince have found her? So my mind wanders (like it always does) to a much bigger story, a story of purpose.
It has always intrigued how people talk about what they consider the defining moments in their lives
“if only I had not married that man”,
“if only I had moved to America when I had the chance”,
“If only I had studied Music, instead of Medicine”.
If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard an “if only” speech, I’d be on the cover of Forbes, smiling next to Oprah and baby George! *insert eye rolling smiley*.
My question is this; can one singular act or event, totally change the course of our lives so much that we never get back on the right path? I honestly do not think so, I think we take the “goofs” in our stories and we use them as an excuse never to try anything new or take risks.
Newton’s first law of motion states that “any object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it”. This is a law that transcends Physics, gravity and science; it is one of the principles by which the whole universe functions. We will most likely stay in our comfort zone or in our safety net until an external force is applied that causes us to move and try something new so we can discover the endless possibilities before us and broaden our horizons.
So maybe it’s a broken relationship, a health condition, a failing business, a dysfunctional family background, whatever seems to be the “goof” in your story right now, it doesn’t have to become the subject of your “if only” story, it could very well be the external force that pushes you out of your state of “uniform motion” into your happily ever after, but guess what? It’s entirely up to you!
What makes happily ever after is not just the “once upon a time” at the beginning of the story; it’s also everything in between.
Yemi Olusoga is a banker by day and a dreamer by night with the crazy notion that one day her writing will change the world! She’s addicted to cartoons and can read just about anything in legible print.