The Mermaid’s Tale

I can’t live with you,

You are the one with the legs

You can’t live with me,

You are the one without a tail

If I wish for legs,

I lose my tail

If you wish for a tail,

You will lose your legs

Then pray tell me how,

We can ever live together,

And forever

With my one foot on land,

And another in the water

With your hands on land,

And tail in the water

We can be together,

Forever and ever

Half of you comes to me,

And half of me comes to you

We complete each other,

Together, forever

Dear Reader,

In Disney’s little mermaid, Ariel exchanges her tail for legs to be with her beloved. In the process, she gives up her home, while our upright prince charming gets to have his cake and eat it too.

Have you ever wondered about how Ariel would have felt after settling into her marriage, maybe after a kid or two, a bit of boredom here and there, and then falling into the feeling of never being able to meet her father or her friends ever again?!

Imagine a situation where you had to give up the greatest things that brought you joy right through you childhood. And Ariel definitely had a joyful childhood. If we continued Ariel’s post-marriage tale, she would have grown depressed over the fact that she had lost her strongest childhood connections, including her father. Obviously, that very situation erases the age-old happily ever-after ending with glee.

What if both Ariel and Prince Charming sat down and sorted out the issue like the matured adults that they were? I am sure that, if they truly did indeed love and respect each other, they would come to a fair consensus.

I mean, just take a look at Hades, the king of the underworld. He kidnapped someone’s daughter, made her his queen, and yet, when his wife’s mother threatened to destroy life if her daughter was not returned, the king of the underworld rose to the situation to enable a peaceful compromise with his mother-in-law. In the end, everyone received a fair share. Despite his evil, selfish nature, Hades was a true gentleman.

I am not instigating that kidnapping and other evil things as right. All I am saying is that for anything to work between one person and another, whether it is between husband and wife, parent and child, one friend and another, one country and another, or even between Earth and us, there has to be a fair share of give and receive.

Here’s to living with acceptance of giving and receiving! Here’s to making relationships work!