Princess Lessons

It ought to be my dirty little secret, but I owe these books too much to hide the truth.

I love the Princess Diaries. All ten of them.

I'm quite certainly too old to be in the demographic that the books target, but I remain a sucker for happy endings and I credit them immensely for their significant contribution towards my social and emotional development.

Why deny it - I've learnt more about myself, my friends, and everything that goes with being part of the cell phone, iPod, pop-culture, consumerist generation, from TPD.

Other books have real conflict. The heroes and the heroines have real problems - war, poverty, no family, evil witches.

It's all very well that that's inspiring, but that doesn't really help me in my cushioned existence now, does it?

Just because I have nothing but love, friendship and comfort at every step, doesn't mean I'm going to give up on having some drama in my life.

Me and Mia, we like the drama.

It's my right to have problems. Loads of them. Nobody has problems bigger than mine and I'm convinced that my world will end.

So it's an extremely grounding experience to be reminded in rather amusing literary style (full of smart contemporary pop-cultural references that have for too long been denied the recognition deserved in fiction) that none of my problems are problems at all.

That every nobody-understand-me or nobody-cares-about-me situation is a been-there-done-that-so-get-over-it for every other formerly self-pitying teenager (and 20-something to be fair).

That happily-ever-after is only what I make of it. And hence, there's still hope for happily-ever-after. After-all, everyone needs the fuzzy feeling of a happy ending :)