Member-only story
He Was Never the Spark to Light Your Fire
You didn’t need him as much as you thought.
Once upon a time, I thought the glow of love would illuminate me and make me a better person than I had been before.
That was the way of things, wasn’t it? Every Disney fairy tale ended with a happy couple that joined hands and saw their world forever changed. Cinderella had her prince, Sleeping Beauty awoke from her slumber with a kiss of true love, and Ariel finally walked the human world with her beloved by her side.
You could say I was hoodwinked by the lure of fairy-tale happily-ever-afters (there’s a reason the song “Mad at Disney” is much more than just a bop). I waited to see if Prince Charming would come along and dazzle me with his ethereal presence born of much more than magic.
I believed I would meet my true love, and then I would alight like a phoenix bursting into flame before being born anew.
It was a nice dream. That ideal carried me through the soul-crushing cruelties of high school. Those boys who thought they were too cool for me? Yeah, I wouldn’t be needing them. There was someone else out there waiting for me, and he would acknowledge me as no one ever had before.
But that didn’t happen. There was no boy who lit the spark of my heart and put me through…
