The very first thing I ever wanted to be was the mermaid from Hook. And not the blue one or the red one, but always the green one, the one with emerald hair so long it flowed carelessly down her back, brushing her knees as she swam. In the next few years I jumped to the yellow power ranger, gave serious consideration to becoming a senator, and finally settled on being a cosmetologist. The thought that my destiny was already shaped, and my path was chosen, that I was in all actuality a princess, never even crossed my mind. I guess my parents realized the crime they were committing, raising a princess and not even letting her in on it, because they devised a clever and ingenious plan to gently clue me into the fact that I was indeed the royal crowned princess of…somewhere.

Now, master plans cannot very well be carried out under a princess’s nose, regardless of whether not she is aware of her title. So in a political move that jeopardized not only my kingdom of Wherever but also the welfare of my people, they sent me and my siblings to grandma’s house. Very clever, I never expected a thing.
As my grandma drove us away I could not help but smirk, for I had bamboozled my parents. That’s right; I had escaped the castle without cleaning my room. True, it was a risky mission, but my sister and I had pulled it off without a hitch. We simply woke up very early, packed our bags before sunrise, and completely nonchalantly sprained an ankle or cut a finger or broke an arm whenever one of our parents ventured towards the door. Completely above suspicion. But what my sister and I were blissfully unaware of was that our parents were in the process of carrying out their own mission, and we were simply pawns on the playing field.

This is where things get blurry. I am sure that we really did go to Grandma’s house, and I am sure that we did all the things that make a trip to Grandma’s house complete; we watched Annie, and at least fifty episodes of the Rugrats. I am sure we went swimming in a lake of camouflage. I am sure we made the mandatory pilgrimage to Wal-Mart, each carefully choosing one toy with all the selectiveness of a FBI recruiter. I am sure we did all these things and the many other wonderful, insignificant, menial events that were the stuffing to our visits with Grandma, but I can recall none of them. All things about that week are completely lost to me, completely out shined by the memory of our return.
Somewhere between Marble Falls and Cleburne, once again tucked between siblings in the comfortable community of my grandma’s vehicle, the tiara that was my victory began to suffer some damage. When I realized that I would have to clean my room as soon as I got home, a diamond fell out. When I realized just how big of a mess I had left my room, it lost two more diamonds and a pearl. And when I realized just how ticked off my parents were going to be that I had deliberately disobeyed them, the whole thing promptly rusted over. I was now tiara-less and scared. Willing the gas tank to dry up, I tried hard to make myself as heavy as possible, in the hopes that with the extra weight the bottom of the car might just fall out. It did not work. My unrelenting Grandma pointed that mini van straight for home, blithely unaware of the fact that she was carrying her own granddaughter to her very eminent demise.
As my mercenary of a grandparent dropped me off on doom’s doorstep, I began to silently weep for all the birthdays, presents, popsicles and ice creams I was going to miss in life. Sure that my end was near, I grabbed Audrey’s hand. If for no other reason than to ensure we would die together, I grasped her small fingers tightly in my even smaller ones and pulled her close. Whatever our parents had planned for us, I wanted to make sure that she was going to suffer the first edition with me.
Trying to escape notice, we were led by our doomed feet to the threshold of our problems, the door to our bedroom. Thinking to quietly slip in and disappear into the acres of stuffed animals we had left littered across the floor, we silently pushed open the portal to our fate. Immediately birds began to sing, an ethereal choir started crooning, the clouds drew back to cue the sun and daisies began blooming in the window boxes. Softly glowing pink carpeting greeted me from its bed. Cuddling the window was a gauzy pink curtain, which softly spoke a mantra of grace and beauty that was repeated throughout the rest of the room. Our matching white desks had not only been cleared, but had been laid with shiningly new Lisa Frank desk sets, the epitome of fashionable décor.
My heart was filled with bubbles, my eyes with light, and my head with realization. As I gazed around at the room I had once called mine, my true fate slowly covered me life a soft Christmas-time blanket. As glee welled up inside me like an organ fills a church, I was hit full in the face by my destiny. Suddenly, in the midst of the swirls of shock and spirals of surprise, a small clearing of knowledge appeared. It was then that the enlightenment of my true identity fell upon me and in that second I realized that I was not a simple child any longer, I was a princess. For no normal child could deserve a room such as my parents had bestowed on me. For what other reason than to reveal my royalty could they have in presenting me with a room in which only a princess would be comfortable? So in this last year of school, while classmates busily quest for colleges and bow their worried heads over applications, my future is secure. For I know that whatever and wherever I am, I will always be the royal crowned princess of…somewhere. Well, at least to my parents.