My first Personal Narrative Essay

Thilakawathy Subramuniam

EGL101

Dr. Richard Caputo
MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM
RM008

After Happy Ever After

  As a little girl, I have always grown up watching Disney princess movies. I have grown to love the concept of playing the damsel in distress and be swept off my feet by a handsome Prince Charming. Being the little naïve girl, I believe that life concluded like that. I would someday be twenty-something, find a nice man who is financially stable, loves me for who I am and we would move in together and eventually settle down with triplets! In an alternate dimension, that is my reality. The picture I had just painted out is happening live as I write this essay. Unfortunately, the fairytale life isn't as simple as what it appears to be. There are no unicorns, rainbows, sugar, spice and everything nice. All these depictions by cliché chick flicks and fairytales are mere illusions created by a hopeful mind. A mind that craves and longs for the good in everything and leaves no room for the bad and the ugly.

  However, life as we know it is a concoction of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the scarred. A personal belief of mine is the philosophy of yin and yang. The belief that there is good in every bad situation and there is bad in every good situation and together, a harmony and balance is created. Film makers indulge in their guilty pleasures through their films. It is as though they have a created a filter for their audiences’ eyes in hopes that the audience would walk in the shoes of the film maker. Moreover, almost every film created ends on a good note. Almost every other film has a "Happy Ever After". But have you ever wondered...  What happens after, happy ever after? The contrast between reality and fantasy makes you question the "what if's" and "could have been's".

  For instance, girl meets boy, they fall in love and a beautiful love story unfolds before them. Music is in the air, birds are chirping and the sun shines ever so perfectly on their delicately sculpted features and the story ends there. Full stop. The story does not tell you what happens after the doors have been shut to their beautiful white picket-fenced bungalow down in the suburbs. They continue to live the American dream where the husband, dressed in his Giorgio Armani suit and tie is a successful businessman and his beautiful trophy housewife with luscious blonde curls and bright blue eyes is the mother of their two intelligent offspring, who would eventually secure a spot at Harvard once they graduate high school. Little do they know; their household is about to slowly disintegrate. The successful businessman finds himself going on business travels to foreign lands across the ocean. The restrain and sexual frustration begins to build up inside of him from being thousands of miles away from his wife. He will slowly begin to question his loyalty and the temptations will tease him.

  Meanwhile, back at the bungalow, trophy wife seems to have difficulties dealing with her eldest son. The absence of his father messes with his rational train of thought. He can no longer differentiate between right and wrong. That is only but an excuse. He chose to take the dark path, he chose to mix around with the wrong crowd, he chose to get himself involved in the drug world. The youngest son is puzzled. He tries to comprehend everything that is happening. He tries to decipher the screams of his mother that is being flung on to his brother. All he does is sit in the corner of his room by his safe spot and glances over at a picture of him and his father in their baseball attire from their last baseball game together. Instead of missing his father, he blames him for not being enough of a father figure to his children. All that time spent during his father’s absence turned into rage and disappointment.

  As expected, the respected businessman decides to remove his wedding ring and engage in the forbidden and put his wedding vows on pause. Nothing remained the same ever since. He comes home only to find out that his eldest son had run away from home and his youngest, estranged from their father-son relationship. The missus finds herself confused because she is rejected by her husband who does not want any form of intimacy. She soon finds about the affair that her husband has been having while away on his business trips. All she feels is shattered. She reminisces her wedding day, the elegant Vera Wang wedding dress she wore and the man that she found truly immersed in love and affection with.  All that has vanished. The continuation of after “Happily Ever After” isn’t so happy after all.

 Nevertheless, not all after “Happy Ever After’s” end in a bad way. The timeline that we

are given to live our lives consists of ever changing phases, emotions and actions. What 
we may have today, we may not have tomorrow. The biggest truth that every individual
will grow up to uncover is that “happy ever after” is not the ultimate goal. It does not signify
the end of the finish line. It is okay tobe suspicious when you realize everything is
going better than planned, it is only normal to have human instincts and that “gut feeling”. 
After all, after,happy ever after may not always be what you expect it to be. You can plan out your future from A to Z but keep in mind that the Universe has something better in store for you, far better than the plans that you have planned out for yourself. The only full stop to your fruitful life your living is death and not "happy ever after".