Girl Talk on Tuesday – It’s about girl stuff. Because I spend all day around machine-loving, beef-jerky-eating, Military-Channel-watching guys.
It’s early morning on a July day in 1981. I’m rapt by the event unfolding in front of me on the television.
It’s a fairy tale. Only it’s not a fairy tale, because it’s real.
There’s a real queen, a real prince and a real princess. A princess who is beautiful like the ones in storybooks. Her dress looks like it was conjured up by the Fairy Godmother herself.
I drink it all in. Then I spend days afterward wrapping myself in sheets and old curtains. Fashioning tiaras out of tin foil, pretending to be her.
I was only six, but I remember the wedding of Princess Diana to Prince Charles like it was yesterday.
Princess Diana captured my imagination like no one else when I was a little girl. She was the stuff of dreams, and dreams did come true.
I followed news of the royal family ever after that. I was saddened by the divorce, saddened by her death. Saddened by the tragic details of her life and marriage.
I she died the summer after my senior year of college. It was another early morning. Watching again on the television. Only it wasn’t festive this time.
Ironic that the woman who’d captured my childhood dreams passed away just as I ventured out into the reality of full-fledged adulthood.
Being a princess didn’t guarantee Happily Ever after all.
Still, I’m intrigued by Princess Diana. She is frozen forever in my mind as the lady I watched walk down the aisle that morning to her Prince Charming. The woman who lived the dream, however fleeting, of so many, many little girls all over the world. I can feel even now the wonder and awe I of that morning.
And that’s why I am giddy with excitement over news that the Grand Rapids Art Museum will host a Princess Diana exhibit later this year. We only live about an hour from there.
The dress — THE DRESS– will be there! Along with over a hundred other items from her life. I can not wait. It’s months away, and I keep checking the website to see if tickets are on sale yet. I couldn’t bare it if they sold out, and I missed it.
I know, I know. I’m almost 35 years old. It’s silly for me be dazzled and starry-eyed over such things. But I can’t help myself. It is such a fond memory from my childhood.
I will go to the exhibit. I will stand in front of the wedding dress. And for a moment I will be again the little girl who knows fairy tales do come true.
Did Diana capture your imagination too? Did you have aspirations of being a princess when you were little? Do fairy tales really come true? Talk to me.
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