"No, I don't want "Cinderella" tonight, we've read it a thousand times!" Martina, the little girl that I am babysitting, is wearing a light blue fluffy pajama with some of the most famous Disney princesses stamped on it. As every night, she refuses to go to bed before I read her one of 365 fairytales contained in her precious book, "A Year of Love and Magic."
"Do you prefer the "Little Mermaid" instead?" I suggest.
"No, it's boring, I don't like it."
"Then what story do you want?" I ask her slightly annoyed. She ponders for a while and then her amber eyes seem to illuminate:
"I want Caro's fairytale!" she proclaims.
"You want what?!" I am a bit disoriented.
"I want Caro's fairytale! Come on, create it!" she commands crossing her arms in front of her tiny chest and giving me an intransigent and severe look.
What the f*ck, I think. She wants me to create a fairytale about me? How the hell am I supposed to do it? I have zero imagination, and my life is not exactly the fairytale prototype she is normally accustomed to. What do I do?
“Okay, I’ll tell you Caro’s fairytale, but you have to promise you won’t be disappointed.”
“What’s the title?”
“You also want a title? Isn’t Caro’s fairytale enough?”
“No, I want the title!!” she orders stubbornly.
“Okay, let’s call it… The Biggest Love Story. Do you like it?”
“Mmmmm… yeah, it could work” she says positioning herself under the velvety blankets.
“Alright.. let’s see...
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was shy and insecure and the mere thought of being around people made her shiver. She never looked anyone in the eyes, she never spoke to anyone –unless is was extremely necessary— and she never expressed her opinion about anything. Every time she was afraid of doing something wrong she would start to suck her thumb and scratch her nose as a sort of punishment. She thought she wasn’t enough for anyone; nothing made her feel alive, nothing lightened her up or filled her heart with joy. She was like Rapunzel; she lived in a tower, she saw days passing by but she didn’t have the courage to go out.
"As every little girl, she would fantasize of love. She always associated the concept of love with a person…"
“What person?” Martina breaks in.
“What do you mean what person?”
“I want to know what the Prince Charming looks like!” Her almond eyes brighten up as she awaits for the specific details and traits that will physicalize the image she has in her head.
“Alright, she imagined her Prince Charming to be a tall, blue-eyed, handsome boy.."
“Like a mix between Zac Efron and Justin Bieber,” she whispers poetically.
“Mmmm.. Maybe just Zac Efron" Picturing Justin Bieber dressed like a Prince made me want to throw up.
"So… In her mind, one day her Prince Charming that looked like Zac Efron would come riding a glorious white horse, hand her a sunflower and look her in the eyes so deeply and passionately that she would finally feel complete, happy, alive. And then of course they would marry, have a lot of kids and live happily ever after in their super big house in Hawaii. However, Prince Charming came in a slightly different way...
"One day, when she was ten years old, the church she went to offered a free drama course. Her best friend, excited by the idea of trying something new, wanted to participate, and of course, she wanted the little girl to go with her. 'What a stupid idea!' thought the little girl 'I can barely speak to my teachers.. how will I ever be able to perform in front of all the parents and families?'
"Eight years have gone by since that moment and the little girl, who is not that little anymore, still doesn’t know why she decided to venture in what she was sure to be the most terrifying hell. What she knows now is that if she hadn’t taken that free drama course, if her best friend hadn’t been so pushy, if she hadn’t had the courage to risk, she would have never fallen in love.”
“So she met Prince Charming Zac Efron in the theater?” asks Martina, full of hope.
“Not exactly. You see, after she performed for the first time, she felt something that she had never experienced before. It is complicated to explain.. but once she stepped into that stage, all the fear she had, all the self-judgment she had, all of her weakness stopped. She felt strong and invincible, tall and big. The rest of the world dissolved while she was acting, nothing existed outside of the world the play created. She was excited and her heart was full of joy. She was as alive as she had never been before.”
“But where is Prince Charming?” she insists.
“There is no Prince Charming, Martina. At least, not as you are used to think about him. The little girl, after eight years, found out that marrying a tall, blue-eyed, Zac Efron style boy, having a lot of kids and living in a super big house in Hawaii was not her happy ending. That what she really wanted, her biggest love story, was not going to be with a boy, but with the theater. The sensation that she has when she is on stage, when she is in class doing her exercises, when she is watching her peers' work or seeing a play is ineffable. When she thinks about acting, her heart starts beating wildly; when she has to go on stage, adrenaline flows rapidly in her veins and possesses her. Nothing bad can happen to her while she is acting. There is not safer, sweeter place to her than the stage. Isn't this the same way you feel when you are in love?"
"Yeah, I guess so.."
"Well, the little girl discovered that her Prince Charming was the theater, that what really made her feel alive was acting, and that she would have never, ever gave up on it. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure she was the luckiest person in the world: she had found true love at only ten years old."
"But then what happened? Did they live happily ever after?" Her curious and sweet eyes shine bright.
"I don't know," I reply. "I guess we'll have to find out."
