Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Day 11

I am starting to run out of topic ideas. 31 is a lot. I wanted to have a balance of superficial and deep things, but who knew it'd be this tough? I think today I want to talk about Princesses. If you are approximately my age, and did not live under a rock you saw the movie A Little Princess. (If you are even more like me, you also read the book). This is a quote from the movie, which is my favorite one of them all:

"Miss Minchin: Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.
Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he? "

I wholeheartedly agree with Sara. I believe that all girls are princesses, despite circumstances.

Someone sent me a link to this article :http://donmilleris.com/2010/08/10/excerpt-from-bittersweet-from-shauna-niequist/ and I'd like to know what you think.

I agree with a lot of it. I don't want anything handed out to me, I want to get wherever I get in life because I earned it, not because of anything else.

But why, in the processes of getting to that destination, can I not be a princess along the way. "but no tiaras, no wands, and no princes coming to rescue any little princesses." Why can I not wear my tiara and twirl my wand...what do Princes coming to rescue me have anything to do with it?

I used to want to be rescued. I used to think that someone would come into my life and rescue me. But as the years went on I started to realize...rescue me...from what? Why do I need someone else to slay my dragons? We should not be punished because of the Princes. I should not have my Princess-ness taken away, for fear of thinking that I would need a Prince to complete me.

I love the idea of what Shauna is saying, but I think she is just a bit twisted. I say that girls are free to be Princesses, we are free to be pretty, and fun, and sparkle and glitter and do all sorts of things. But really, we are more than that. We can grow up to be Queen Ester's and save our people, or Queen Victoria's who re-shape entire nations. The life of a Princess is not always glamorous. As Sara said, some of them aren't pretty, and some of them wear rags.

This is not an attack on the Princes though. It is not that you have done anything wrong, it's just that over time, society and stories have made us think that to have a Happy Ending, you have to be there too. And sometimes, it works out that we get both. We get to be Queen, rule the world, and have you as our King. And that is great. In fact, that is how I hope my Happy Ending is. But in the mean time, I am going to be a Princess, and I am going to slay my own dragons, and no one is going to stop me.




***Also, in case you don't stalk me on Facebook...I posted this as my status.. if you could do it, you'd be making (almost) all of my dreams come true!

"So today is day 11. I'd like to measure the amount of readers I have, just out of curiosity. I will be doing this on day 11, 21, and 31. If you read my blog, even just once, or every single day...could you let me know? You can message me, like this status, comment on this, (or the blog), text me...whatever. You guys are great!"



xoxo,
N



Also! I can't believe I forgot this. Anne is amazing and I will now apparently love her forever.

5 comments:

  1. Some guy once told me he wanted to be rescued by a princess in shining armor. He was into role reversals.
    I dunno. Was never into the whole prince/princess thing. I just put on my wizard hat and Merlin'd it up.

    Also: totally saw that movie in theaters. Haters gonna hate.
    Also also: dude who made that movie went on to make Y Tu Mama Tambien (about two friends who have a threesome with an older woman) and Prisoner of Azkaban. Unrelated, but interesting.

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  2. Many women tend to think that they have to choose between being strong or feminine, that femininity is somehow a weakness-- which is not the case at all. You can be both, there can be a balance. If someone says that you can't kick butt in a tiara and glitter, they have probably never met a drag queen.

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  3. Warrior Princesses are always badass.
    One reason I love Beauty and the Beast is that it's a great story about a Prince being trapped in a castle and needing a Princess to come rescue him.

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  4. Des, if you want to be my prince, I think I might be okay with that. That was SUCH a fabulous comment.

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  5. so i read the quote out loud, as you know because you were sitting right next to me. all i can say is goosebumps...goosebumps

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