The Fairytale

Beautiful. Oh, so beautiful. That is what the life Ihave led for the past eight months, has been like.

Ever since I left university, really. Ever since that day when I sat that last exam. It was upon that day when I felt the yoke of stress and pressure being lifted from my shoulders - a pressure born entirely out of my fears of failure, and not being good enough - to be replaced by a freedom like nothing I had ever felt before. A freedom so sweet, I wanted to draw and draw on it, like the bee sipping on the lily's delectable nectar. It flowed along every channel of my veins, filling me with a new vitality, a new energy that I had never felt ever before. And this marked for me the beginning of a what could only be described as a sort of fairytale.

Because what happened since that day allowed my life path to take on a sort of fairytale like quality. First off there was this freedom. I was enabled to do the things that I had been unable to do for what felt like a lifetime. I was able to relax again, to do the things I loved again, to laugh and know that my eyes were shining with true and unfeigned joy, unlike before. And then there were the things that happened; the experiences I had. There was Barcelona and the adventures that unfolded for me there. There was the summer at home afterwards, in which I indulged in the sweetness of that freedom and the knowledge that I had overcome my greatest fears in leaving to work abroad. There was going away with my best friend and knowing what it felt like to have a proper girly holiday, no strings attached. I can still feel the buzz of our excitement that first day, still hear the sound of our laughter floating gaily into the slate-grey skies above Scotland.



There was that unforgettable, surreal day when I received my exam results, and realised that I had achieved the degree which I had lost blood and sweat and tears over, for five long and grueling years. And then there was October, upon a damp and seemingly non-descript Thursday, when the rain filled the gaps between the cobbles of Trinity and the cherry blossoms seemed to droop with the weight of the water pressing down upon their leaves. It was upon that day that something happened to me. It was upon that day that a girl fell in love.

From then on the fairytale continued, unfolding and unraveling itself to uncover moments so infinitely beautiful and sublime, that they, truly truly, did not seem real; rather, they seemed totally surreal, even magical. It was just like I had stepped right into the world of my own creation - Morokia; a place where goodness and beauty still prevailed; and in which persistence and bravery, in the face of relentless struggles and suffering, would in the end be rewarded in the most unexpected and beautiful of ways. But most of all, in Morokia existed something I believed for me did not exist in my own world. That being love; for ever since I became ill all those years ago, every part of me believed that there would never come a day when I would meet the one.

Because that one did not exist, I believed. How cpuld anyone ever fall in love with a girl like me - with my history, my past, and my current and ongoing relationship with my clinging, deadly nemesis?

But that's where I was wrong.



However, following a heated discussion yesterday at home, the joy I experienced in such intensity only a few days ago has now rapidly disintegrated into tight, icy fear. Its fingers claw into my brain, scratching and writhing, alongside the words that were exchanged yesterday.

 You need to get a job, Emmy. Not just a short term thing like Lapland, or Barcelona. A real job. You know you can't stay here forever, don't you..?

It feels like...it feels like the fairytale is reaching its end. But that's the thing, of course; life was never meant to be a fairytale in the first place. I just stupidly, so stupidly allowed myself to unconsciously fall into the illusion that it could be like one. And now I feel more afraid than ever before. As afraid as I felt when I stared down the page at those dreaded essay titles. As scared as I felt when I sat in the exam hall and waited for the superintendent to give the signal to open the booklet lying before me on the desk.

I don't want to leave. I dont want this life to end. I dont want to leave behind those I love and care for. No, I don't want the fairytale to end.

But now it seems so fragile, so delicate. That any minute now it will fall and shatter spectacularly into a hundred million jagged, broken fragments.

And it shames me to write these words but to deny it would cause me more shame as I know full well that this is true.

That no, I don't want the fairytale to end. But I know that it has to. I know that somehow I need to learn to survive in a place much scarier than that of the darkened woods or the perilous mountains of the fairytale. Monsters may loom there but they're tangible and can be beaten back with a sword. But the monster in one's head is a different thing. The monster in the head is a more difficult thing to kill.

I am doing well. I am doing more well than I ever have before. But will I be able to keep up the fight when the fairytale ends?

But it is not that fact which upsets me the most; which makes me want to cry into my pillow, which makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide myself away from the world's judging, critical eyes. It is the fact that, unless I find something here, I might have to leave, properly leave, for good, this time. And, in doing so, leave behind all those who I love.💔

And suddenly the road ahead appeard so bleak and frightening...😢