When I was little, like every other little girl my age, I would watch the Disney princess movies. And as with all fairy tales, there would be a giddy princess, and a handsome prince who would find love and live happily ever after, no matter what. I would watch these movies and when they were done; I would go to my bed with a sheet covering the entrance to the bunk bed, my castle, and I would pretend that I was a princess. That someday I would find my prince and we could fly away and live in the sky. My happily ever after. That was the first time I had encountered this concept of love. Being the five year old I was, I had no idea what it truly was, and how much it could hurt. How much it could heal. But you don’t really need that then, you just needed the tiara and the horse to gallop away.

As the years passed, with my life the way it was I still watched the movies. Trying to cling and be happy with the happily ever afters. But no matter what, for the life of me I couldn’t just sit there anymore. Whenever the princess and the prince would find each other and break out into their typical ‘I love you’ song, tears would come to my eyes. I’d cover my face with my hair, so my sister, Sammi, wouldn’t see, and cry silently to myself. I was with my father that weekend, and in the next room he was playing poker with his buddies. Taking a couple back and smoking up a storm. How could someone believe in something like ‘Happily Ever After’ or ‘True Love’ when your dad dragged your sister across the carpet? It was hard, and almost impossible. That’s when I started really thinking about things. Would I ever find someone? Is someone out there looking for me like my mom claimed? I was eight at the time.

A little bit at a time, I would still go over to my father’s house. Three years had passed and he still wouldn’t change. Even though he would promise to put down the drugs and stop the drinking, it never happened. I still found beer in the fridge, I still found ash trays everywhere and weird smelling bags in his car. And nights when it would get really bad, we would go to my grandmother’s house.
If anything, that was worse than our father beating us.
My grandmother was…an interesting character, to say the least. All that mattered to her was image, if that meant shoes two sizes to small, poofy dresses, and 2 full containers of hairspray in my hair, then that’s what had to happen. Her vanity was all that mattered. And with this, came many disappointments. Well, from me anyways.
One day specifically I had asked Sammi to make her get us food. There wasn’t anymore in the fridge that she could find, and I wasn’t allowed to go in. As we all got into the car, my sister in the front, and I was in the back, we made our way to the quickest fast food place. Sighing I would look out the window until my grandma started talking. Saying things about my sister being much more beautiful than me, and how I would ever marry anyone would be a miracle. These words hurt me, even if her opinions didn’t matter and this just fed my hate for her. It still made me feel small. Especially when the next day Sammi came up to me and said the same thing. She wouldn’t stop saying it, and didn’t for years. With the constant repitition I started to believe this. I started to believe that love was pointless for someone has horrible as me, so why should I try for that happy ending?
I cried more at the movies.

Now older and out of elementary school, it was my 7th grade year. I still remember that year, my friend Momo had just left and given me a mission.
“Can you be his friend? I feel like if I leave him with no one he’ll get into a mess of trouble. Watch out for him, okay?”
I sighed. Oh god, that stupid delinquent from 6th grade. I thought I would never have to talk to him again. To make things worse he was in most of my classes. Was someone trying to make fun of me? Honestly,  maybe the cruel joke would end soon.
But then that night happened.
It was for a science project, a biome we had to make. We picked the tiaga, and we were going to go over to his house to work on it. I had gone home with him a couple of times during the school day but they weren’t enough. Instead I came over on a Saturday. We worked on the project, him teasing me and me trying to get work done while teasing him back. Same old him.
After a while, both of us being bored preteens, we made our way out of the house and outside. He knew a secret spot, he said, and he wanted to take me there. So I followed him. We were on private property, some creek, and I fell. Half of me wet and the other half dry. What did he do…he pointed in laughed. I stared at him in astonishment, how could he just point and laugh?!?! I was shivering!! That jerk! But he continued to laugh, especially at the faces I was making. Finally, laughter being contagious as it is, I started to laugh too. We sat there like that for a while until he took me back. His mom took my sweater, drying it off for me, and he took me outside again.
The sun was setting and he made me climb up to his tree house. What he didn’t realize was that I was a horrible klutz trying to climb a tree. Not such a hot idea. So he had to pull me up, me clinging to him for dear life. And we watched the sun go down. It was magical really, the horses down below coming up to us.  Him petting them in such a gentle and caring way. I really realized then that he wasn’t really mean or sarcastic, he really was caring. He was just putting on a show. Why he did it front of me I wouldn’t ever know but…he was really sweet.
We exchanged some words for a little bit and he made me mad. Fuming and fangirly as I was at the time, I got really close to his face and glared at him. Hoping he would understand that I was trying to tell him that he had made me very agitated. Instead he just looked at me calmly, and smiled.
“So what are you going to do…kiss me?”
I stared at him in astonishment. Kiss him???? No way! I quickly backed up against the tree, almost falling off. He caught me again and sighed. “I didn’t know I was that bad….” I just stared at him at the time, confused and bamboozled. Had that really just happened to me? It was just like on some anime when the guy says that…but then usually they would just kiss. What would have happened if I had kissed him?
After that outing, we didn’t talk as much. He had started hanging out with other people and we started to become distant. I had messed up again, I hadn’t wanted him to hate me but…it happened anyways. The sad thing was that after almost two years of thinking about it, I realized that I had wanted to kiss him.
But I was to scared.

I was now in 8th grade. More confident in myself and with tons of friends, I felt better. Who needs a boyfriend when you were in STUCO, the Book Club, Band, Publications, and the top of your class? Uh not me! Sure everyone called me a lesbian but it’s not like I cared, they were just jealous that I wasn’t dumb enough to screw myself over with the jerks at our school. But then they came..
There were two people in my life at that time, one a tragic prince and one a knight in shining armor.
It was interesting how I had met my prince. The year before, Sammi’s friend Jami had told me about the site deviant art. I hadn’t ever written and I wasn’t all that creative, but I made one anyways.
As the year progressed I met some interesting people including my prince. He was charming, sweet, romantic, and easy to talk to. He told me everything and I helped him. He needed a friend and I was there for him. But as I continued to help, I also found myself falling in love with him. His charming words and his romantic tendencies made it to hard to hide it anymore. Instead, I told him how I felt. Shocked but also happy, he told me that he loved me too. And that’s how I met my first boyfriend.
My prince would write to me everyday on DA, write me poetry, and I even called him. He was like a dream come true for me, until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He didn’t want to live with his stressful parents, his depression, or anything else. Life was to hard and he wanted to get away.
So he wrote me, ‘I’m sorry but tonight I’m pulling the trigger. I can’t stay here anymore, but know that I love you and I will always be with you.’ I found this when I was at church and held back my tears. I couldn’t let other people see, so I hid them till I got home, calling the only person I could think of…Momo.
“Merrmmmhmmmerrr-sooob-”
“Kim what’s wrong?”
“mmhmmerrrmerrmerrmhmmHe…wahhhh”
“Do you neeed me to come over there?”
“MhmmermmmYess..”
After that she had ran to my house in five minutes and I cried for two straight hours in the field. That day had been one of my most awful experiences of my life. I thought I had lost the one person I loved most in the world and that I could never see them again. I thought no one would ever love me after my prince had gone, that he had been the one. Thankfully, my prince mailed me again saying that he was fine and that the gun wouldn’t fire for some reason the first time, and not wanting to do it again, since he was scared, he put it away and went to sleep.
We continued to date a little while after that, but I eventually had to break up with him. I knew that deep down by nurturing him this much he wouldn’t grow up on his own and be the man that I knew he could be. So I let him down to hard, I pushed him away, until about 3 months later he called me and said that he was okay. He was out of the depression and he desperately wanted to be friends again. How could I refuse?  But even so. I couldn’t help but remember that day, knowing that even though he said he loved me and needed me, he had left me all alone. Just like my dad had.
The knight was short, really short, but his hair was a beautiful blonde, covering his face and layered. His bright blue eyes were confident and strong, his gentle features and sweet smile all drew me into him. I was shy though, and couldn’t talk to him. It wasn’t until my best friend practically forced me that we actually spoke. He was hilarious, smart, fun to be around, and a strong Christian. All making me like him even more. I was falling hard for him, and finally it seemed that he might be liking me too.
He took me to his sister’s wedding, we went out on a date with his mom there. Everyone seemed to be talking about us, how much he liked me, how he wanted to ask me out. I was ecstatic! I had been waiting for almost two years for him to ask me out. And when the time came, he said he couldn’t, ‘We’re not strong enough Christians’ he said, “I want to be stronger in my faith.”
Okay well that wasn’t to bad right? It’s not like he was just ditching me for no reason right? But then after about a week of that he told me he liked some other girl at his youth group….. Oh…so he was just like all the others. There wasn’t anything special about him, he was just a jerk too.
I couldn’t help but feel that I would be trapped in this cycle. I had never dated anyone..was my sister right? Would no one ever like me?

It was a year later and high school was here. New classes, new life, and sadly new school as well. I had to leave behind all of my old friends and I was all alone. Temperamental and emotional I felt like I had no one, and then I met Taylor.
He had been in the long line of people freshman year that I had liked and had totally crushed me. It was the same old story with all three of them. They said they liked me, wanted to go out with me, but when the time actually came or when they were already there. They realized they had no real feelings for me, but instead just lead me on. With this I was totally crushed, even by one of my best friends. They called me ugly, they called me emotional, a downer, and not fun to be around. How could I look at myself in the mirror with all the guys telling me I was horrible. One even saying my sister was ‘10 times hotter than me’. I couldn’t take this, I wanted to just throw something at my mirror and give up. I didn’t want to find someone anymore I didn’t want to be with someone anymore. I just wanted to break down and cry.

That summer I was still dating one of my three crushers, my best friend. But there had already been a rift between us without his knowledge, and it wasn’t just his words.
I had started to have feelings for someone else.
The name of this one is the genius. If you ask anyone who knows him, you would know why.
He was a brilliant writer, composer, debater, crafts person, and friend. He knew exactly to say, when to say it, and how to say it well. He was extremely opinionated but not in your face. Sure he was kinda a dork, when I first met him I thought he smoked pot with some hippys and waved lighters in the air listening to Pink Floid, but boy was I wrong.
I hadn’t even known it  but he had completely swept me off my feet. I would talk about him almost constantly, telling his jokes, reading his poetry to my class, and talking to him when I knew my teachers weren’t looking. I admired him like someone would a big brother, and he was like my big brother just…now that we had known each other for almost 2 years…I wanted more. And I wanted him to know that.
So even though I was still dating Crusher number three, I told him how I felt. He was shocked, just like the prince, but he didn’t believe me at first. Saying that no one could ever really like him even though he had just gotten out of a relationship. I told him that I really felt like this and that I maybe wanted to date him. He was scared I could tell, the distance bugged him and for good reason. It wasn’t like with the prince how I was only a couple of states away.
He was an ocean away.  
He didn’t know what to do, so we just talked. Flirted probably much to much on both our ends.  But eventually after a red head and a couple of months. The genius decided to ask me out. December 17th of 2007 I said yes to him, and we were officially a couple.
I was so happy, I could have screamed, and I think I actually did. I had actually found someone that I could talk to and be with who wanted to be with me too! But this security didn’t last long.

My family was on the brink. My sister was crazy, my mom stressed out and wired, and my step dad seemed to be fine. After so many years of him not caring, leaving us notes on the steps so we would shut up and he could sleep he actually seemed like a parent. He was calm and someone I could depend on when the rest of my world seemed to be crumbling. He told me I was the only sane one, and that he liked talking to me. But what he also told me, and the rest of my family on March 2008 was that him and my mother were getting a divorce. My broken family that had stuck together for almost nine years of my life. No…15 years of my life, was ripped away from me in an instant. Nine days after he told us this he was out of the house and gone, never to be heard from again. My mom panicked he left us with no electricity, crappy furniture, a crying sobbing 8 year old, and no house payment.
We were going to be homeless.
It was then, that even after so long have having faith and waiting, that I finally realized why I was so sexist. That even though I tried my hardest, all of the ‘men’ in my life would leave me. My father, the delinquent, the prince, the knight, all three of the crushers, and now my step dad. I had no strong male figures in my life and I couldn’t rely on them. I was doomed to forever be heartbroken and stepped on by the male species.

Until again he came.

The genius was still there for me, to dry my tears. He called me, at 3 o’clock in the morning, quieting my sobs. He mailed me, making sure I was okay after everything. When I had no one sane to turn to he was there for  me and always constant. No matter if I changed no matter if I said no, he would wait for me to come back. And I always did.

Through all my years of heart break and tears through the male population I have come to realize that you cannot rely on other people to build you up. You can’t wait for love to find you like in those Disney movies, you have to find it, and fight even harder to keep it. But I guess the best part of all of this for me is that now when I sit down and watch Disney movies with my little sister, I don’t cry when they sing the love songs. I don’t want to stand up and scream at the princess telling her that the prince will cheat on her that he’s a liar and he will leave her. Instead I sit there, holding her, and I just watch. Sure life isn’t like Disney, but it’s not that depressing. At least there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, and a love song waiting to happen when you find your prince charming and hug him for the first time.