When I was a young girl, I was often told about a fairy tail , you know Cinderella, Snow white to name a few.
Then life begins, and depending on your upbringing and your class status, things don’t always work out the way you plan them in your mind as a teenage girl, or even a grown up women.
I used to believe truly there was a prince charming, a man that would come and sweep me off my feet, and we would live happily ever after, he would treat me like the princess I thought I was.
Life at this point has been a very sobering wake up call considering the many paths I have taken, the heartbreak’s I have endured.
I have only been a bride’s maid once, and it was like default. I was the one never even asked to back up the bride, go figure.
I have seen and read stories that appear as though fairy tails do indeed happen for some women, although very few. On Quora I have witnessed someone who is a graduate of an Ivy League school. There is a picture of her at her wedding dancing with her new husband, what a grand picture indeed. She looked happy like a princess. She was blessed with a life very few of us are blessed with. She claims to suffer a mental illness, however when she does speak about her depression which is a mental illness she has never identified what type of depression she has. You see there are many forms of depression and she vaguely discusses at length what type it is, but instead uses the label as a writing tool. People mentally ill don’t just vaguely and randomly claim the label of which she has yet to give the exact label. Perhaps she does not suffer depression at all. She may have the wrong diagnosis, at least that is my opinion after reading a few of her post.

I was first married at age 14, not because I was pregnant, hell no, I was careful I did not want to bring a child in a world were confusion and contradictions seem the norm. I married Brandon Lee Stevens. He said he loved me. I can still remember that moment. Leaning against his 1985 Monte Carlo car. He held me, looked me in my eyes and said “I Love You” ……my response at age 14 was less than desirable for him. I said nothing in return. He left that night without validation of my love for him. Even at a young age of 14 I knew love was not a word you just casually throw around. Love is deeper, eternal in fact.
Two days later I said I loved him as to not hurt him further, after all he offered to marry me in order to get me away from my severely abusive mother. I saw this marriage as a away out, and in so doing I married for reasons of leaving an abusive relationship between me and my mother, not for love of him. That marriage turned out to be abusive too, in regard to me using him and him abusing me.
I was simply to young.
Then at age 20 after spending 1 year in jail I was introduced through a friend to a family that would take me in to start a new life away from the town where I was involved with drugs. It was there in church that I met the man I am currently divorcing. I believed at that point I was in love and I may have been. buy at age 20 you are still a bit young, looking back I can’t truly determine that answer. The family I had come to live with in McComb Ms were going to be moving back to the town I had left after my stint in jail they were going to move back to Houma Louisiana. The place where I had left, the place where ecstasy was my God, where I was arrested for distribution of ecstasy. Out of  fear I accepted the offer of marriage from my soon to be ex husband who I married a second time, but that is another story. This would allow me to stay put in McComb Mississippi instead of living to Houma La, where the road to excess and destruction would await me due to tremendous temptations, to many lose ends and connections were there in Houma and I knew enough about temptation as I did about love at that point, that love does not come easy, and neither does growth. Temptations are very powerful once ingrained in you. especially in regard to my love affair with ecstasy.As Well as believing in Fairy Tails.

So back to the fairy tail….There was a time I used to think I would have the big wedding in the church, with bride’s maids’ at my side doting on my every decision catering to my every need and he would have best men who would assist him with the stress and Planning the bachelor party. Of course this never happened.
I had a simple ceremony the second time at my ex’s sister house where justice of the peace married us, just as the one did in Mobile Alabama in 1984 for my first marriage, but there it was in a court house. Yeah, I was married in blue jeans at age 14 in a court house in Mobile Alabama. A quick exchange of vows and BAM I was the Mrs. Nicole June Stevens. I never liked that name, never rolled of my tongue right.

I felt the same thing about my name after marrying my second husband. The name Nicole Raley did not sound right to me. The second marriage was different. Like stated previously we were married at his sisters house, I had both of our Mom’s arguing and making my experience a living hell. I was so pissed and tired that I actually walked ahead of my Dad holding hands as he trailed behind me, bless his heart.
I did not understand things of wedding nature and I will never forget the time I saw someone from the church in McComb Ms in a grocery store parking lot, they stopped me to ask me where I was registered. I was like ‘what is registered?” After all I was a down the bayou Cajun girl that had not seen much of the world nor had I been educated in the social norms of how a planned marriage would work. Registered to me sounded like the place the wedding would take place.

So here I am 23 yrs later and now I know  it means you go pick out things you and your future husband may need to start your new life. Go figure.

And now here I am, all grown up, no fairy tail that’s for sure, No big wedding with catering and assigned seating. At this stage of life it is a reality that I can see never happening, and besides I am not to keen on the whole politics of union due to marriage, I am not saying marriage is wrong, oh no……..I just can’t imagine it ever happening to me like that, never say never right?
I can just picture Me at the Macy’s registering for gifts or at Target Hahaha. Yeah well I used to live by a philosophy. That Philosophy is “Never Say Never” but for once in my life I feel that rule may just apply where this area of my life is concerned.
Besides finding someone who would love me flaws, mental illness and all. This calls for a very strong man, a man strong enough to be a man  stronger than me in all regards; I have not encountered any who could ever fill those shoes.
The inspiration for this piece came after watching the movie “The Big Wedding” I realize now in life that the motto “never say never “may apply to certain aspects of one’s life, and for the first time, I think I am ok with that. What I am not ok with is not having my son.
Either way some things may never be, but where my son is concerned he is back in my life! Now maybe my soul mate/kindred will enter into my life too. I’d be ok with that, what about you?
~NJM~
Not for reproduction~