Do you believe in magic?

A grown up Princess' take on why we do what we do.

When you're a little kid, anything is possible. You'll grow up to be an astronaut, a rockstar, or a princess. A colander becomes a space helmet. A tutu becomes a ball gown. With a change of costume, you change your life and the future is full of adventure or romance. I know. I was a little girl once.

As we grow, we learn things. We learn to count and to brush our teeth twice a day. We learn that there's not enough oxygen to breathe through a spaghetti strainer in space and that being an astronaut means years of studying complex math and astrophysics. We find out that princesses mostly live in far away places like a movie theater or the UK, not in the suburbs of the midwest. Sooner or later, little girls become young women and women who wear too much glitter "send the wrong message".

So we go to school and get respectable jobs in software, social work, retail or nursing. The stories we hear are not fairytales, anymore. They are headlines that instill fear, often sensational and shocking. Unlike the stories of our youth, they rarely inspire us to dream. Life goes on.

But life is funny. People are funnier. Despite the rules and lessons we are taught, some of us just keep dreaming. We look for chances to play and to pretend, for a chance to bring some magic into the world. And some of us find it. We become princesses, superheroes, fairies, and mermaids. Some people people think it's strange that grown women dress up in costumes and tiaras. What they don't understand is that we give away the magic we make, so the little ones can stay little a little longer. That's why we do what we do.

Tink celebrating a first birthday) - Princess Lauren

About the Blogger: Princess Lauren (Madison, WI)

Lauren hails from St Paul, Minnesota and joined the Princess My Party cast in May of 2019. She is a professional opera singer who studied at the University of St Thomas. She performed with the Minnesota Opera Company. She is also a professional mermaid who performed at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. When she's not wearing her tiara she is a Project Manager for a software company.