Someday My Prince [Won't] Come

While I was certainly raised in the Disney Princess tradition, hearing and watching all of the fairy tales as I grew up, I've never been much of a "Someday my prince will come" sort of girl. I love the Disney movies, and the music's pretty great, but for most of my adolescence and definitely during my adulthood, I've come to accept that the fairy tales are just that--fairy tales.

I'm not a princess, and my prince will never come. I will likely never lay eyes on, let alone marry, a knight in shining armor aboard a white stallion (white horses are so impractical anyway--have you ever tried to scrub a green manure stain off a white horse? Ugh!).

Not to sound cynical or anything. I prefer to think of myself as a realist. I'm not disappointed with my lack of belief in the fairy tale castle happy ending that many girls secretly, or not-so-secretly, dream of. I think that real life can be, should be, and often is utterly romantic.

I think it's romantic when Ben and Ashley carefully plot out their grocery budget for the week and work together to stick to it.

I think it's romantic that all Emily really wants for her birthday is gas money for Ryan to come visit.

I think it's romantic when people who have been married for more than a couple of years still hold hands on a regular basis.

I like those little details of everyday, ordinary, not-perfect life that make relationships real and special.

I'm not interested in the fairy tale, and while I definitely hope to have romance and love and a committed relationship one day, I'm not waiting for my prince to come.

But tonight I watched two real-life princes on television. I flipped on the TV to fill the house up with noise tonight, and found the first-ever American interview, together, of Princes William and Harry Windsor of Great Britain. The private princes went public with a special interview with Matt Lauer to help promote the charity concert honoring their mother ten years after her death.

And seeing those princes as people, instead of tabloid covers, made me fall just a little bit in love with each of them. Not the "I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby," sort of love, or the "I'll love you forever; I want to marry you" sort of love, but more of a compassionate love. I feel sorry for them.

I have trouble enough trying to empathize and support friends who have lost a loved one; how does a prince find any support, any true empathy, any time in the past ten years of living without his mother? Over and over William or Harry would say something about "being normal," like, "if we were normal..." But it was in a wistful way, not snobbery. "If I were normal, I'd like to be a heliocopter pilot." "If I were normal, I'd want to be a safari leader and help AIDS orphans in Africa." You mean you don't want to be chased by paparazzi? You don't want to train in the army for years only to find out that you can't serve, not because of the danger you'll be put in, but because the men in your company will be put in more danger because the enemy will target you? You don't want everyone in the western world to know you broke up with your girlfriend because they read it in the papers? You don't want photos of your dead mother plastered all over the news, with former friends or staffers making half a fortune off her death?

It seems to me like William and Harry may be the ultimate example of why no girl should long for their prince to come. It doesn't seem like there's much good to being a prince, and therefore not much to being a princess either. Instead, I hope for William and Harry that their regular, run-of-the-mill, average, plain Jane will come, and give them a bit of normalcy, a heaping of empathy and compassion, and a taste of a love that doesn't care much for their royal status.

And I think that maybe that hope is less likely to come true than that of so many girls, for their princes to come.

Talk about a royal shame.