Princess Never After

I remember fairytales. I remember stories. I remember my mother reading me the story of a “Very, very handsome” prince falling in love with a “Long lost princess” who got separated from her parents when she was 5. I especially remember the story of Cinderella, a princess who just happens to conveniently fall in love with and flatter a prince with symmetric facial shapes. 

I distinctly remember how in every story I’d ever read as a child, love just happened to click between two people who were in every way you could think of, “perfect for eachother”. They’d both always have some royal connections, complementary personalities; and Ooh one fun fact, they usually had to compromise NOTHING for eachother.
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I remember poems, I remember the women in my life. I remember falling(hard) for this girl back in 6th grade. Not exactly -“I’d cut my wrist and write a love letter with chicken blood” - kind of falling for her, but definitely the first time I had reason to be nervous around some girl. And I remember convincing myself that the two of us would somehow end up together because “That’s how all love stories are supposed to end.”
I remember dating my first girlfriend right after my 10th grade board exams. Although I wouldn’t exactly call what I had for her “Love”, but I definitely cared for her as much as my sexually frustrated 17 year old ass would let me. Somewhere in my heart, I remember hoping to myself; that somehow everything would work out absolutely brilliantly with her. And the way I treated her and the way I held myself around her wouldn’t affect my chances with her. Because you know, “You always end up with your soulmate.”
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Somewhere around the time when I was about 5 years old, I had convinced myself that you always end up with the one you love. Some mythical creature called “The One”. That some sort of higher entity had the absolute perfect partner picked out for me and was hiding her away in some corner of the world. I believed that I wouldn’t have to compromise things, and there was no way in hell that she’d end up with someone else because, you know? “Made for eachother”.
The problem I had was, my early-20 year old brain still hoped for this, “miracle-lady” to jump out of a bush somewhere.
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So I started doing a bunch of calculations. Basic, advanced statistics, high-end calculus and what not. And I came up with a conclusion.
Imagine you had someone picked out for you as your soulmate. Some randomly-assingned person at some corner of the world just waiting for you.
What an absolute fucking nightmare that would be. 7-thousand million people in the world, and you’d have to look for “the one” with basically nothing but your eyes. That’s like installing some horrible form of Tinder where you have to swipe left 7 billion times to get a match.
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Some people can love you more in a year than anybody else could in fifty. While some other person can love you for fifty years straight and you would never feel un-loved, unwanted. Does that mean anyone of these people who love you is more important than the other?
No.
Who are we humans to qualify/quantify other people as our soulmates or “the loves of our lives”?
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People love, and are loved back. That’s what we remember them by when they’re dead.
“Here lies Mr. Abdul Kuddus Pleb
Born: 1960
Passed: 2015
He had a wife and three children who loved him.”
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I believe we are given the power to love more than once in our lives. And I believe love is absolutely unconditional. I believe we choose if we ‘want’ somebody enough to call them a soulmate. No, this isn’t to say that our partners don’t matter. This is to compliment the effort the other person has put in; to make us feel wanted and loved. This is to say “Thank you, for you’ve done more for me than I could’ve imagined and made me feel emotions I haven’t felt before”. Who are we to downplay their significance, to rewrite their memories, to alter the ways in which they’ve changed our lives because some higher entity chose them as our “Soulmate”?
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Sometimes, and I’d say most times we don’t end up with the one we’ve always loved the most. But I’d like to believe that our partners deserve more from us than we’re willing to give. I believe in loving someone to the fullest, because you can never know if anyone can ever love you more than your partner does at this very moment.
Cupid is a fucking jerk. And the chemicals in our brains don’t look for social statuses, financial stability, facial symmetricity or if the feelings are mutual or not. Life and love is all about appreciating it.
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~Dhrubo

The copyright of the image belongs to John Fernandes and his estate. Image taken from Pinterest at the link:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/195977021269117135/