Hello travellers along the merry path of my mind!
Today we are going to be listening, or reading rather, a story!! Inspired by the thoughts of a good friend, it made me think about my life and here's how it goes....
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, there lived a Princess. She was no ordinary Princess as she was rude, sarcastic and obnoxious but none the less, everyone thought she was a Princess. However, despite her shortcomings, she was kind and loved the woodland creatures, in fact, any creatures and she was forever bringing them home, wherever home was. One day, when the Princess had reached the age where she could be independent, walk home on her own and get a mobile phone, should she ever need one, she decided that she would go out into the world and learn about life, how it ticks along and what actually happens in the big bad world. Now she knew that on the journey that she may meet some unsavoury creatures but that there were also kindly folk who would not want to see any harm come to her and then there were the knights, those in shining armour, who would want to grab hold of her, pull her onto their steed and wisk her away to far away lands that had limitless possibilities. She just needed to be patient and bide her time. So the Princess left the safety of her homeland and travelled far and wide, meeting many people along the way. There was one problem in this, that was that the Princess did not see herself as a Princess, not someone to be treasured and kept as a prized possession by any knight and so the problems started. Her self image was such that she saw herself as a servant girl, one who would never quite get to the point of meeting a knight, let alone being wisked away by one. So one day a knight in training comes along, and he sees the Princess and she falls in love with him and they run away to his kingdom, he lived with his family in a village a fair way away from the land of the Princess and for many years, life was good. But the Princess was struggling with the trainee knight. He saw her as a prized possession and very soon became obsessive over her and she felt like a caged bird, let out only to see the sun when he was near. Soon this became too much for the Princess and she longed to fly free and far away from the trainee knight - she soon learnt that the love that she once had for him was replaced by a feeling of possession, and she found that unbearable. Nobody should be kept in a cage and one day when he least expected it, she flew out of the cage and into the sky. She flew so high that when she looked down, she was giddy and had to rest on a branch of a nearby tree and it was at this point that she saw that the trainee knight was in a secret garden that she never knew existed with another servant girl (remember the Princess was not under the impression that she was a Princess at all!) This was too much for the Princess to take and she flew and flew, her heart breaking with each flap of her wings until she arrived back into her kingdon, where another knight was waiting to catch her as she fell exhausted and battered from the flight. She was tired and the strain of her escape had bruised her so the knight had to nurse her back to health and he kept her in his kingdom until she was healthy again. It took some time but soon the Princess, no longer a bird but a Princess again, still under the impression that she looked more like a servant girl, was happy and she lived alongside her new knight, safe in the knowledge that she could be independent as she was no longer in a cage. What she didn't realise was the cunning knight knew that cages were too obvious a trap to use and so one night he had placed a slight sliver chain around her ankle. She was bound to him from that day on but never realised, she had enough chain to move around as free as she wished but she was bound all the same, she just never knew till later. One day, whilst out with her knight, a wolf in sheep's clothing came along. He decided that the chain was not an issue and wanted to take the Princess for his own - and he tried that very night. The Princess was so upset and detested the wolf for his trickery and called to her knight to save her but her cries were left unanswered. She was alone and yet bound to him and from that day, her life spiralled out of control. The wolf lived to see another day and the Princess had to see the wolf, whilst the knight was protected from him. All the Princess had to protect her from the wolf was her integrity, honesty and humanity but it was being stolen from her daily by the wolf and a pack of them had started to move into the kingdom. The Princess was distraught and one day she took the decision to cut the silver chain that she had found and run as fast as she could from the kingdom and so she did. She ran and she ran until her feet hurt and her legs could carry her no more. There was a white knight who was riding the other way and he saw her running and followed, he saw her fall and he stopped and picked her up, put her on his horse and he carried her for a while. All the time that he was carrying her, he looked out for her and in time she grew to love him and his caring ways. But there was an underlying problem that the Princess had, in that she couldn't trust anybody - she had been let down so many times and been prayed upon by the wolves so she built herself a tower and when it was big and strong, she entered the tower and closed the door. She climbed to the top of the tower where there was a solitary window and she sat there, talking from way up high, down to the white kinght. She was safe in the knowledge that whilst she was in the tower on her own, nobody could hurt her and she could see the white knight below, making sure no foes could enter. Years passed and the white knight and the Princess slowly stopped loving each other as they used to and became the best of friends and towards the end of the Princess's self inflicted incarceration in her self made tower, they gradually stopped talking to each other and became strangers. The Princess decided that the tower had protected her for long enough and she slowly began to dismantle it, brick by brick until it stood at half the height she had originally constructed it at. She decided that it should remain at half height and was to be there should she ever need its protection again and as she left the protection of the tower she spoke to the white knight, who said that he was to leave for another kingdom. She bid him farewell and wished him luck, waved him goodbye and turned in the other direction. She walked along the path into the forest where she had never been before and found that she was not scared, although it was dark and sometimes cold. As she walked along she met kindly folk who walked with her, and knights who wanted to wisk her away to their kingdoms but she was wary - she looked into her mirror and all she saw was a lonely servant girl staring back - not a Princess. One day a knight came along whom the Princess knew from when she was younger and she spoke to him of times that had passed. She was surprised when he called her a Princess and again looked at her reflection in the mirror but still the servant girl stared back at her. She told the knight that she was waiting for her Prince Charming to come along and he said that she was really waiting for her knight in shining armour and she thought about this and decided that he was right, she was waiting for her knight in shining armour, however how was a servant girl supposed to get a knight to notice her. The knight said that she was wrong and that she was a Princess but that he was not and had never been worthy and that baffled the Princess because she felt that she was not worthy of the knight. So the Princess decided that until she meets her knight who will wisk her away, every night she will sleep with a pea under her mattress - and she has ever since. The pea is uncomfortable but it helps to keep her grounded and is a memory of her battles that she has fought and either won or lost. It reminds her of who she is and where she has come from. She still sees herself as a servant girl and probably always will, not the Princess that so many have declared her to be. She sleeps with the pea in the hopes that someday soon, her knight will come and rescue her, take her into his arms and never let her go. She wants to be free and allowed to live her days in the open air, not caged, shackled or locked in a tower. And one day, hopefully, he will come and it will be the knight that she dreams of, and he will understand that he has always been worthy of her attention and that she won't give up on him and will not shackle him or keep him caged. Then and only then can she stopsleeping on the pea. She just wants to ride into the sunset and live happily ever after - in denim :)
To be continued..........hopefully x
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