Relationship!

She is in love! She knows because she can hardly go a day without thinking of him. He is everything she ever dreamt of and craved in a man and then some. He is kind, considerate, gentle, soft-spoken and caring. Every time she sees him, he makes the world a better place for her in many random ways. Like the time she needed water and he fetched some for her, never mind that it took a whole day to bring her the water, with him first having to drill the ground and get the water that he then spent hours purifying! Or the time her pay was late and he stepped in and paid what she owed. The other thing is, he never made her feel beholden to him despite so many things that he did for her, He always made her feel like it was a priviledge and honor to be of service to her. Small wonder, her heart sang whenever they met and shyly but surely she opened to him. He wanted her but he knew he should not, he really should not. He knows he is incapable of such commitment and devotion and the road would be fraught with serious issues yet he went ahead, giving her false hope and making a believer out of her. 

He is in love! His queen is kind, warm, rich in character and a paragon of beauty. There is no way to describe her without using all the words he has already used over again. She makes his heart sing the tune of the morning. She is the saviour he was waiting for. After trying and failing so many times, he had finally found the beat of his heart in her smile. He daily worships the ground on which she walks because he knows that love like this does not just happen, so he daily works to sustain his reality. He will never be the same again having tasted this variety of love and experiencing this dimension of feeling. It takes his breath away. Strong and dependable as he usually is, he turns to mush at the thought of her radiance.

I am an innocent bystander, looking on and wondering how long this their euphoria will last. I know as with all things, they are existing in a  bubble that can not be sustained. Love does not happen. Please humour me, it just doesnt. It may be worked at and kept alive like you would a nine-to-five job, only its a twenty-four-seven job. I am all for fairy tales but that's the problem, they are inherently set up to end and even though the end sounds great....all that happily ever after crap, try and envisage the story, two weeks, nay two months after. 

Ask how Beauty is coping with the Beast-turned-Prince's depressive dark moods and being an instant Madam of a household filled with cranky characters who are used to giving her orders and taking none. 

Ask Sleeping Beauty what she is doing during the long absences of her new husband the Prince who answers her question of  'How long this time?' with a growl and a fierce look and a retort of 'but if I dont go, you dont know what treasures I could bring you from my travels'. He is blissfully unaware that she worries about how many other pretty Princesses he might rescue and bring home to her or even get involved with while he is away on his journey. 

Ask Rapunzel how she is coping with the long line of maidens waiting to get a haircut from her beau and how frustrating it is that he waxes lyrical about each tress that he does business with at the end of the day and how she worries that someday, some maiden with finer hair will appear on the horizon of their lives.

Ask Little Red Riding Hood, how difficult committing is because no guy can measure up to her father, sensitive, intuitive, strong and dependable. All the guys fall short, in one way or another. She despairs that she will end up an old maid.

Ask Snow White why she looks so haggard when she is the fairest of them all, she hardly sleeps as she despairs of her evil stepmum catching up to her but more than that, she is worried that the Prince thinks she is a freak of nature.

I wonder at the crazy notion that one person exists for only one person and used to believe all of that till an academic discourse opened my eyes to the 'what if's. It made me question that particular belief and I came up short and then like a pack of cards, they stumbled and fell.....love, fidelity, exclusivity, kindness, selflessness, and love. 

Now I know what I know and decide to apply what I know to my reality. If I dont gush anymore, know that I have issues and even though this is my 'happily ever after', alas, I have worries about how my story was warped from the beginning but the seduction of love did not let me know or see or understand. What relationship?