itsawonderfilledlife

Happily Ever After …

That is what women want.

There is an image (just to the left) that is so representative of that to me. When hubby and I were planning our wedding, we would dream of the future (how is it that it is so easy to dream of the future before you are married, and so easy to dream of the past after you are married?). One of the ways we would speak of the future was when we would talk about many, many years off into the future, when we would sit in our rocking chairs on our front porch … and just sit … and rock … together.

It was the sweetest dream. It was OUR dream, and one that spoke of commitment, of a future of forever together. It said, of both of us, ‘I’ll be here forever,’ and ‘I’ll never leave you.’

Although it might drive young single men nuts, though it might go against our human natures, the stability of forever is what women want. But I’m not talking a ‘life sentence’, I am talking happily ever after.

If there is a ‘face’ of romantic … it’s a female face. I believe it is partly in our nature, but nurture does add to it, as well. We females are ‘fed’ romance and forever, from a young age. But, really, we can’t just blame Disney for force-feeding it to us. Reality is, Disney wouldn’t have made money off of their Princesses, if their customers were not willing to pay for it. And the reason their customers are willing to pay for it? We want it! And we want it, because somewhere, within our DNA we WANT ‘happily ever after. Heck, the picture to the right from the Cinderella book version I grew up with. And that picture, not the ones of her wedding, not the ones of her dancing at the ball, but this last picture in the book, under which, the only words written were “… and they lived Happily Ever After,” was my childhood dream.

That dream was about forever, but it was more. It was the dream the love does not fade, or disappear, or die. It was the dream that the ‘prince’ who would earn my heart … would never break it. And, I don’t think I am just speaking for me, but for all women, when I say our greatest fear is that we will have been wrong, and we will have given parts of ourselves away to one not committed to forever.

Recently, I read these words of a heartbroken, hope vanished, dream stolen woman …

“You broke my heart,

but even worse than that

your actions blew out the last light of hope

for a girls dream of happily ever after.”

She was in mourning. In mourning for the future, that she had dreamed of all her life, of the future that her parents had dreamed for her, of the future that even God dreamed for her. She could, eventually, forgive the one who had blown out the candle of her dreams, and hopes, but the scars left behind would never allow her to forget. Forget the hurt, forget the loss. She would never hear of a 50th, or 60th wedding anniversary and not feel the tugs on her heart, that she would never see, and experience in the joy of such a celebration.

In the safety of forever, women can give wholly of themselves to another. In the security of forever, women can be confident of today, and tomorrow. In the permanence of forever, women are never alone. In the intimacy of forever, women can continue to dream. In forever love, we can do anything we want it to … even create miracles.

Women want forever … happily ever after …