Our life was like a book.
It had introductions, problems, solutions and endings.
We could always have a “once upon a time”,
but not always a “happily ever after”.
It seems fate chose the characters, and everyone fit in.
Some chapters ended as soon as they began,
and others were a hundred pages long.
Even though it wasn’t in a far off place,
and not so long ago
there were gallant knights, an evil queen, and a joker to entertain her.
There was an enchanted forest
with trees that changed in the fall
and frogs that didn’t always turn into princes.
Sometimes we laughed
and sometimes we cried.
Our story was one
where the good didn’t always defeat the bad
and the youth lost their innocence.

Last night, I went through a box of old photos and mementos to organize and put into photo boxes. You know… instead of keeping them in shoeboxes we’ve had them in collecting dust under the bed. I came across this poem, and I wish I could remember where I got it from. I know it was from high school, and it’s written on a piece of notebook paper that is torn and tattered from how many times I’ve read it. I think it spoke to me at that time because I was growing up and starting to feel things more as an adult. I took this as a realistic fairy tale where there aren’t always happy endings to your life’s story, but the beauty is everything that is in between.

(photo flickr via super bomba.)