I Have an Inner Princess!

I grew up in a time when retail was functional but not meant to entertain. I should say my inner princess was growing up then. Everything you needed was there but there was no glitter and lights. Or not that I remember. It just was what it was. We did not know enough to realize that we might be missing something. So my inner princess sat quietly inside.

There were no pink frilly things, no sparkly things in my memory. I did not know they were even out there if they were. So what happens when this inner princess, who has been repressed through years of working in the competitive world of business, while I made my way to Director with a major blue chip company, suddenly starts to communicate with the competent shell in which she has been hidden for so many years.

I realize that my inner princess is there when I pass by any store with sparkly or pink things and I am unable to comprehend my strange fascination with all things in this realm. Until recently I think the only pink thing I owned was a pink Iron Man T-shirt buried deep in my cupboard. (My dog wears it on Breast Cancer runs now!) The rest were varying shades of blue or black with an odd splash of red.

So how to explain the sudden infiltration of all things pink when I am about to turn 53. Strange sparkly sweaters that I have yet to wear and can no longer remember why I had purchased them. A lifetime of pent up desire or the emergence of my inner princess?

For Christmas we decided that we would not purchase gifts but would give things away to those that had no gifts. After Christmas I listened to some friends who were over talking about some pretty cool gadget gifts one of which was an IPAD and my inner princess cried. (Not really but she stamped her feet a lot!)

And then the day I had to clean the caulking in the shower might have been the day she died. I think she was buried in the caulking I removed. Certainly not a job that a princess would do. Note to myself: Hire someone to do that one next time!

Could this strange awareness of the possible existence of an inner princess actually be aligned with going back to a time when you knew clearly what your hopes and goals looked like. A time when you planned to do something and then you did it and then you made another plan. And you did that. And then life started rolling along seemingly by itself. And so you handled whatever life threw your way. You handled other people's priorities without a second thought too. Your inner princess is the child in you tapping you on the shoulder and saying "Remember?".

My inner princess has surfaced to remind me of a time when my life was my own and my goals and plans were endless and possible. This is the second act and could it be that my dreams are just as endless and possible.