The Princess

I can't remember being many other things at Halloween other than a princess. In fact, I remember, and I must have been about four, having a Cinderella costume. Well for anyone who had the privileged of being born prior to 1980, you probably have the recollection of going to the store and buying your costume from a stack of boxes! Yes, with the plastic masks! Oh those were the days!

Realistically, you couldn't see out of the masks. I remember going trick-or-treating and my dad took our masks and cut the eye holes bigger. Okay... I get it. It is only as an adult that I remember the faces on the people who answered the doors that night. See we couldn't see ourselves in our deformed masks.  (It makes me laugh now.)

But one year Mom decided I should just go without the mask. So she did my make up and she put a beauty mark on my face with a eyebrow pencil. The love of the glamour of the princess was born!

I still have my dress she made me when I was five. I'm sure I wore it until the seams popped. Every year she'd make me a tin foil crown and a wand made from glittered pipe cleaner. Yep, I rocked the princess.

Even today, at the age of forty, I searched Disneyland for a Merida sweatshirt in my size. I stood in line to meet her until my boys gave out on me. (Okay... mommy gave up after 20 minutes and the line didn't move. I couldn't see forcing them to stand there so their mommy could have a picture with the princess...but they would have.)

Costume in a box

I only have boys, but oh, to dress up a princess...that would be a dream come true. So to my boys I apologize in advance. Your daughters will own every Disney Princess outfit out there, even if they don't want it. Sometimes you just have to let your mommy live out her dreams.

So I'll go about being the Princess in my house (because Queens are usually old and grumpy.) I will still dress up when I want to be glamorous and pretend I'm Princess Diana, Grace Kelley, or Kate Middleton. I will walk in parades (usually in my karate uniform) and I will wave as though you've all gathered to see me in my pretty dress...um black belt. I will still put the crown on top my Christmas tree, call myself a Warrior Princess, and live happily ever after with my very own Prince Charming. And this summer, on my forty-first birthday, I will still search for a Merida sweatshirt, and maybe by then they'll have them.

Until then, I'll keep digging through all my old, unsorted pictures until I find some of me dressed as a fairy princess and I'll remember my Cinderella mask with the eyes cut out.

Happy Halloween!