One of my favorite stories as a kid was Cinderella, and then it became one of my favorite Disney movies later on for many reasons. When I was a kid I read and read and read so much, but when I got older I just couldn't sit still enough to read and there were always a million crazy things, ideas and plans in my head that everything about me was just too busy to read. Then I became a lazy movie person; while everyone else had read the books first and then seen the movies. Nope, not I.
Cinderella always had perfect beauty queen hair, with no tangles or bad hair days and never any roots from hair coloring. But, she lost her mother so young, loved her dad but he died too early, had an evil stepmom and stepsisters, and had to do the crap of the crap of the housework (like sweeping "cinders" as if that was so 2010). That wasn't enough though. She also never had any money or an allowance, so that could have meant no new or good clothes, not going out in public much, few friends (but little talking mice and animals), and just saw nothing good ahead for her life at all.
Sometimes, I can relate to her.
Then everything changed in the twinkling of an eye. Her long lost godmother, who she hadn't ever met due to dysfunctional family issues, suddenly appeared to help her in her time of need. She was a super nice lady, really pretty, and plus she was an actual fairy with fairy powers. Just what she needed to zap all the people who were mean to her. No, I mean she never did that because fairy tales and cartoons were a lot simpler back then. Wow, a story with no revenge. Huh. She just wanted to go to the big party at the castle where she would be transformed into a princess and dance with her prince charming, who would later become her husband. I think actually it was her godmother that totally changed her life around. (And I am a godmother, so I am kinda partial to that way of thinking. Plus, she was the one that did lots of the work on Cinderella.)
Anyhow, about the spam thing, which you probably thought I forgot, well I didn't. I was just trying to picture how to fit it in. It has to do with the cinderella email address which was awesome as a name and something important to me, but I guess due to the cinderella part, it attracted about 30 spam emails a day. Oh, they ranged from make a million dollars at home in your pyjamas in a month, to win a free this or that (which you have to make tons of purchases online to even qualify for), "bad" photos, specials to enlarge this part or that part of you. My favorite one is from the many billionaires holding the estates of their late grandfathers or uncles in Uganda (that are in high positions in the government) and need your bank account so that they can legally transfer money to you and think you are the biggest stupidest sucker on the whole earth. Or that you won some lottery in the UK, when the email looks like a Gr. 3 did it with tons of spelling mistakes...
Then I thought about Cinderella, who had some life-changing events and then her happily after after in the magical kingdom of Disney. She had a totally fresh start, from rags to riches, or from cleaning up animal poop in the house to becoming a real leisure woman and princess. So too, I had wanted a tiny start to a new me and decided to back away from my cinderella email address when I had some positive life-changing events not quite a year ago. It was trying to be out with the old and in with the new. So then I slowly merged into thenewmaria which became like a reminder to me.
Sometimes, thenewmaria doesn't act or talk or think like the new maria that I should be and sometimes I do. Sometimes, there is one huge gigantic thing that happens to change the rest of our lives and we never ever forget or turn away. Mostly, it is a lot of little things through our whole lives that change the way we live, good or bad.
Right now, I am still Cinderella, but I am her in the later stage of the castle. The times when she remembers her father long gone and all the memories and laughs when she was little; the good times. The times when she is lonely and empty too. The times when she wonders and worries about the future. The real human Cinderella. She is not the perfect housewife, mother, friend, or daughter. And we don't have to be either. I have to remember time and again that we can't keep the weight of the world on our shoulders; there is someone to ask that can take off the weight and everything that you go through.
Even the fairy tale Cinderella had some type of hope despite her problems, and beat the odds.
God only knows my heart and if I happen to be really struggling and lost, not to forget that he is right there and only a prayer away, like they say. He is only a word, a whisper, a breeze, a ray of sunshine, a melody away. My goal is to not make you see him as an old-fashioned and cruel tyrant that watches your every step so he can pounce on you and make you suffer the minute you mess up. Or the one that is up in the clouds, like a fairy tale or a distant and unrelevant fable. Or even the one that will be your friend as long as you keep all the rules and do all these good things so that you can maybe get to heaven or just avoid hell, if that exists. can be his friend and get into heaven one day, hopefully.
In the middle of my bottomless pit, when sometimes it is all I can do to say his name, read a line of the bible, or just even think about God, he is there right in the thick of it all. I am trying to think more how he relates to us like a loving father (even if you never had one like that on earth). He loves us more than anything else in this world and tries to point us in every right direction time after time, but when we get old enough to choose, he is even more loving to allow us to pick between him and everything else that looks so much better and brighter.
On my own road to my own personal type of recovery, God is my loving father. Like when my own father was alive, he doesn't care as much about where you have been, but where you want to be going, your hopes and dreams, and if you want to include him in your life. And he is happy when I do.
