Middle Aged Fairy Tales (Continued)

I'm wrong about the fairy tales!  There are many folk tales about old people!  Most of them are funny stories.  Yeah, we get funnier as we age. Unfortunately, these stories (with the old people) don't deal with our modern preoccupations:  money, health or romance  (actually I think there are quite a few about finding money and treasures so remove money from the list.)   According to theorists, middle aged fairy tales deal with issues of maturity:  the ability to accept ambiguity, learn self-control and gain wisdom.  Most such stories also include an upsetting truth:  As we age, we tend to think more simply (which isn't really such a bad thing--but tell that to my ego.  I googled "Middle Age Fairy Tales" and when I found a psychological research project that focuses on the GOOD things about aging as explored through fairy tales across cultures and started reading through the stories that are analyzed, I realized that I've read many such stories--oh DUH!  It's just that those stories seemed to be about OLD  people before--now they are about ME!).

Acquiring wisdom might be antithetical to striving for money, romance and health.  (Oh why do I live in LA where you need so much money for the physical augmentations that might lead to good health and romance?)

Oh...such thoughts!  I should have called this the Nerdy, Neurotic, Insecure Divorcee.

Where are my tiara, ball gown and  glass slippers?!   I need to get up and get my glasses first to go  find them (that is, if I can remember the location of my  glasses--and it beats me where I left that youthful, fairy-tale costume--seems like only yesterday...well, you know how time flies...)

Middle-Aged Fairy Tales

I was wondering today what's happened to my Fairy Godmother.  This thought came to me because I had dinner last night with a friend who believes in spirit guides.  I don't know about that stuff--if there are angels or spirits here on earth with us, but I do suspect that spiritual belief and a bit of magical thinking unconsciously guide our life choices:  fairy tale as life template  (This is nothing new, there's all kinds of theorizing on this, of course).

I'd like to invent the quintessential fairy tale for middle-aged divorced folk.  I've not heard it or read it yet .  Where is it?   I've worked with kids for almost twenty years.  I don't ask the girls if they buy the meet-prince-charming-and-live-happily-ever-after story.  I don't know if I want to know what stories they believe in--what they tell me might scare me.  Besides, I'm old enough to be these kids' grandmother:  I want to find the great story of how to be my age  (a queen's tale, not a princess's.  I want to know the story of the kind queen--not the story of the red queen chopping off heads or the one about sending men to cut out a step-daughter's heart). 

My parents divorced when I was seven, so I grew up not seeing that fairy-tale fantasy lived out.  (In this area that is the situation for most kids.)  I guess that, since I didn't see the reality of family life, I must have really bought into the fantasy of fairy tale.  I also grew up during the 60s and 70s--the time of women's liberation.  That coupled with my family's worship of Brain had me thinking that I was supposed to be valued for my great intelligence.  

This was not an advantage for me:  I suspect biology is a greater motivator than intellect. I'd put emotion as the second motivator and rate thoughtfulness, mindfulness last.  (The first two require no work!)  So the princess and prince fairy tales make sense as a template for unconscious decisions made in youth.  Fairy tales, along with religious teachings fulfill the biological imperative to continue a species:  the stories help get people together to propagate within a prescribed social structure.  And in fairy tale times most people didn't live to middle age--no crisis!  No need to re-evaluate one's life--just live and breed and die young (and leave beautiful corpse--this conveniently cuts way down on plastic surgery expenses).

It's not fairy tale times.  So where is the ideal template for middle age? 

Actually, there is group of stories compiled by a woman psychiatrist--it's called Wild Women Who Run With Wolves (or something close to that).  It's about woman having power.  It's about women coloring outside the lines of trying to emulate sweet Cinderella.  But I don't necessarily want to be wild!  In fact, as the years zip by, what I long for more and more is tranquility, beauty and ease.

I woke up this morning feeling gloomy, like the sky and I realized that I've a touch of a cold coming on.  This is what happens when I need to slow down--I've no advice for anyone today.  I'm resting my body and filling it with vitamins.  Meanwhile, my mind goes wild.