Release Me

You go through a period of time where you think fairy tales are bullshit. Dumb kids stuff, you know? Simplistic ways at looking at the world, especially in this day and age.

I've had some friends tell me stories recently that make me question that.

These stories are their normal. They tell them as if they are mere annoyances, or facts of life.

One male friend moved back home because his (step) father is away on business all the time. So he helps his mother raise his half-siblings. I'm sure he gets lonely. He feels a lot of responsibility. I began to wonder if they make him sleep in the cinders, but I was told they're quite nice to him, it's just a lot of responsibility.

Another male friend's family needed financial help. So he agreed to move in and pay rent to them. He now lives in the garage. Without a bed. Yes, he pays rent, buys his own food, cleans the bathroom and still doesn't even get a room. This sounds so much like the start of a Russian fairy tale that I keep waiting for Baba Yaga or the Tsarevna Marya Morevna to show up.

Then there's my ex, who I do often wonder if he was trapped by the Snow Queen--emotionless, cold, and yet bewildered by the isolation. Or was he Snow White, poisoned and waiting? Sleeping Beauty, broken by the mundane?

What do men do in our society when they're the princess trapped in the tower?

One of the reasons I loved Russian fairy tales so much was because they often mixed it up. They realized that sometimes it was the men who got lost or enchanted or trapped, far more than the Disney-approved heroines that have taken over our archetypes.

In Fenist the Falcon, the kind sister asks for no fripperies from her father when he goes into town. She just asks for a feather from Fenist the Falcon, her one true love.

Seems like her boyfriend was condemned to be in bird form during the day because he turned down a witch.

So her step-sisters--is it really necessary to say evil stepsisters in a fairy tale?--find out she's got a guy in her room at night, and put knives on the window so he can't get in.

So she sets out to find him, and rescue him for good. I'm sure they end up king and queen of some random Tsardom. I remember that Baba Yaga was helpful in this story--sometimes she was, sometimes she was evil.

I was rescued once. It didn't so much involve a kiss as a lot of screaming and yelling. "Fuck you!" was said a lot as well. On both sides.

See I rescued him too. That's the hard part to fathom. At least for me.

I was depressed, disorganized, undisciplined and had no hope. He was depressed, starved for affection, and had no hope either.

I was good at affection. He was good at self-discipline. And as we each clawed our way out of a world we hated, I taught him that it was ok to be a good person, that he was worth caring about; and he taught me how to set boundaries, and how to get crap done.

We didn't need happily ever after. I'm not sure we had happily during. We were most likely the most horrid relationship ever. We had been friends before, we are friends again, and I'm sure we both look back on our relationship and shudder sometimes. But that's when I woke up. That's when he woke up. And if there IS to be a happily ever after for me, it's because of what we both did then.

It's been four years now since I started to wake up.

And it's about time I said: Thank you, Javier.