
Among all the various princess dolls that we own and their movies - over and over - The Girl has been drawn to Alice.
I haven't watched Alice in years - and only during our trip did I curl up with her and watch it. I forgot how beautiful the animation was - Alice actually looks like a girl and not an odd computerization of a female face like current Disney stars. C'mon... don't tell me you haven't noticed that there's not much difference between Ariel and Belle... lolol. At least Tangled was different.
Anyhow..... I forgot how truly lovely each scene was and how many different stories are within Alice's one journey - Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and the clams, and The Queen and The Cheshire Cat. As we followed Alice going into small and smaller places chasing this white Rabbit and instead getting herself into trouble and more trouble.... I couldn't help but see myself in her shoes.
Follow me here..... Alice is oblivious and sweet, falling asleep in the flowers and suddenly she's chasing a white rabbit down a long, dark hole..... a bit like how I've felt: there I was happy and oblivious and then I suddenly found myself chasing my own happiness down a dark hole.
Each turn felt like it got small and smaller, my chest felt tighter and as the truth of Yoga Girl came to the surface with each text message from her.... it got harder and harder to breathe. As though I could be standing outside in the wide open air... and yet be struggling.
Like Alice, every character in my own story brought with them a new version of the truth and then suddenly - I would discover even more darker,troubling 'truths'.
Truths that would almost have me sooner believing in talking flowers, cookies that made me magically taller or smaller... than accept that my best friend could betray me and our children as he did.....
The part that made me giggle the most was The Mad Hatters Tea Party. Of course, the children think The Mad Hatter is hilarious, they love his songs and his goofiness - especially The Boy. He's naturally goofy already.
For me though, aside from the songs and the whimsy, it's when The Mad Hatter say's, "Clean cup - Move Down!".... it was like my own teeny-tiny personal "ah-ha" moment.... THAT is what we've been doing for months - clean cup - move down!
It's not like I haven't been trying to deal with things, with our emotions (mine and the childrens) - and I got our divorce handled and sold the house... and yet, I feel like things are so "un-finished".
I feel like WE are "un-finished." We've just been moving down to the next 'clean cup'.... but if you watch the movie (at least the Disney version) - the only guest at the tea party who actually gets a 'clean-cup' is the Mad Hatter himself. Everyone else keeps getting a dirty cup.
That's me. Surrounded by chaos, I keep moving and moving... but I still end up with a dirty cup.
Which means the kids end up with a dirty cup, too.
I'm not sure that's any kind of 'Mad Hatter' to blame perse - the situation is just what it is. And... it's chasing the what 'was' and the dreams of what could have been that have gotten us at this table, in this cycle of dirty cups.
So it comes down to me to stop listening to the Cheshire Cat in my head and stop chasing the elusive 'white rabbit' that represents what my family was. I have to ... ignore whatever other 'truths' are out there (in terms of El Capitan and Yoga Girl and stuff.....) - and I have to just *stop*.
I have stop sitting down to dirty cup after dirty cup.
In an even more twisted way..... *I* am becoming a 'white rabbit' for the kids... there they are trusting me, following me through the doors that get smaller and over the crooked floors - until they are sitting next to me at their own dirty cups - and don't they deserve better?
The Girl is the prefect Alice.... sweet, trusting, beautiful..... and unlike that white rabbit in the story - I'm not "late".... I don't need to hurry - because I'm already "here". I'm already where I *need* to be.
I just need to get my own clean cup.