Once upon a time...

There’s a point in your life that you realise it’s not ever going to be a fairytale and that Disney movies have given you unrealistic expectations of love. There are very few moments when your Prince will come flying in and sweep you off your feet; or come into your place of work dressed in his Uniform (no I don’t mean from Maccy Ds) and carry you out in his arms. Real life is simply just not like that; and besides, these days we women are far to independent to require any form of rescuing, although if I’m honest I’m all for the sweeping off my feet.

The problem with the fairytale is that of course you never get to see what happens afterwards; you see Cinderella get her Prince…well actually now I think about it you see nearly all of the Princesses get their man (Even Ana although not the one you’d expect! – Sorry Spoilers). But you never see what happens next, you don’t see Ariel heavily pregnant or Cinderella frantically trying to get the kids to school or Tiana cracking under the strain of being a full-time working mum with her own business as well as supporting her husbands musical career and juggling children. Ok so I might be getting slightly carried away with the analogy but you get my point, no-one would ever watch a Disney movie if it showed every day life. 

Real life or IRL (In Real Life) in our household is just somehow that much more mundane; there are bills to pay, shopping to do, cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing blah blah blah and everything is so time consuming that after all of that all you really want to do is sit and watch the TV; probably in silence and if you’re lucky you’ll stay awake to the end of the latest episode of Dr Foster. There is just no time for the Fairytale, no time for grand gestures or declarations of undying love or Fireflies writing your name in the Sky (sorry I went a bit Disney again). Its easy to lose track, to stop making an effort just let everything else take over and perhaps feel that little bit resentful that we're not always at the top of the priority list. I've been at this point, felt somewhat unappreciated; the cook, the cleaner, the nurse, the groom of the stool!!!! It was only recently when I was writing a post about my husband that I really noticed all the little things; none of them are remotely Disney worthy! He’ll empty the dishwasher before he leaves for work in the morning as he knows I have the school run to two different locations, both of which require the children to be there for 8.45. He'll prep the slow cooker and leave me instructions with hearts drawn on them. I’ll open the cutlery drawer to find a ‘hidden’ bar of chocolate and the best bit is that its from a multipack so I know there’s another five to find! We’ve been married eight years, together for eleven and we have very little time for date nights or romantic gestures, its rare we get more than an hour together that is uninterrupted. Despite this I think we are probably the strongest we’ve even been and its because of the little things.

My point is that sometimes life is hard and you’re oh so tired, whether its from working all the hours or looking after the children or whatever it is you need to do that day and it becomes so easy to lose sight of the other person; not because you don’t care anymore but just because your exhausted. It’s the little things that help you show that despite all of the real life pressures you are still thinking about them, that the love is still there. It takes no time at all to send a love emoji on your phone or to scrape the ice from the other person’s car if you’re the first one to leave that morning. None of these things would ever make it in to a Disney movie or probably even a romantic novel but they are all done from a place of love. 

My life isn’t a fairytale and I’m ok with that because I know that in between the big grand gestures like getting engaged, getting married there are hundreds of small ones that show despite all of our real life pressures we are not losing sight of one another 

and we lived happily ever after…