37 years ago today, my personal fairy tale began.

Actually, it began a few months earlier when a tall, dark, picture-book-handsome young man with shoulder-length sleek black hair had a fit of temporary insanity and decided he wanted to marry me. Before he could come to his senses and plead irrational exuberance, I had blurted out "Yes!" and begun measuring for the drapes in my dream castle.

I would find out later that the 500 square foot apartment-castle already had drapes, and my previously 20/20 vision inexplicably saw that little corner of the world as a mansion fit for my new status as queen of our own Happily Ever After.

My eyesight never recovered. More than three and a half decades later, I'm still married to that Knight-in-Shining-Armor with the jet black hair, even though our children tell me that it's his hair and not his horse that's white. My bifocals must need a good cleaning.

They also tell me I've reigned as Queen in a couple of dozen castles over these years, but it's a blur to me...I feel quite sure that my throne hasn't moved from beside his even once. The courtiers come, grow, and leave (and multiply), but things in the castle are still as shiny as the starry-eyed princess dreamed they'd be. The Nay-Sayers who claimed that Once Upon a Time never really becomes Happily Ever After have been banished from the kingdom and must bear their ignominy from across the moat. They will all be issued Royal Pardons on our Golden Anniversary...

Happy 37th, my love. And can you help me find my glasses?

Labels: The Papa