Apart from being a whole exploration of the idea of Stockholm Syndrome, Beauty and the Beast was simply just… one of my favorite Disney movies. It was when I was a little girl, it is today, and it probably always will be. I could care less about some of the more controversial ideas attached to Beauty and the Beast, though. I identified with Belle a lot. I was a bookworm, misunderstood, and I longed for the time or place when I would finally feel like I belonged. When I was younger, I was told that would be high school. And when I reached high school, I was told that things would be different in college.
I guess they were. That’s when I first felt like I belonged and didn’t really have to worry about people making fun of me because of my CP or because I liked to read or, or, or… It was the first time I really felt truly accepted by my peers, and I guess that gave me hope. See, that was another idea I held onto from Beauty and the Beast – the idea that hope and love could be so much stronger than these other things in life that tried to drag us down. But college threw me for a loop. It contained some of the best days of my life, but also some of the worst. I realized as a young adult that sometimes, other adults could be worse, and even more cruel, than some children. And when it seemed that I continued to attract these kinds of people into my life, I began to lose a little hope – like I was watching the petals of my very own enchanted rose fall away, and I was just going to be stuck in this pattern. Lost.
It sucked. And eventually, I convinced myself that if I just smiled and nodded and didn’t make waves, things would be some semblance of okay… or at least I could deal.
And then I met some new people. I found people who accepted me from the beginning, who loved me for exactly who I was – flaws and all. They loved me for me. They cared about getting to know who I am, the things I liked to do. Their interest in me wasn’t related to needing something, or wanting something. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had people in my life who would allow me to let my walls down and actually be happy to get to know the person they found. I had hope again. And that’s… Well… Hope is such a strong thing. Friendship and love – the real stuff… that unconditional, not-necessarily-easy-all-the-time but still so worth it love and friendship… it’s rare. And even when I felt like I was losing hope, even when I felt so lost, I tried to hold on to that hope that I would find that one day.
That’s all we need sometimes for a little magic to happen I think… Hope.
Credits:
[Shape]mine
[Head][LeLUTKA]Avalon
[Body][The Shops]Legacy Mesh Body Special Edition (1.3)
[Skin][Eudora Beauty]Amber (Medium)
[Hair][Doux]Laurene
[Brows][A R T E]Rebel Eyebrow
[Lips][Velour @ Uber]Indecente Lips
[Dress][fashionably dead]May Dress
[Pose][Infinity Poses in SL|on MP]Protected (props included)
[Backdrop][MINIMAL @ Collabor88]Ivy Backdrop One
I Promise I Know What I'm Doing 