prince charming, winning the lottery, and luck spells.

While I gave up on prince charming long ago, I buy my lottery ticket religiously and am not above casting a luck spell--especially right before they pull those lottery numbers out of their hat.

I hate that little girls are taught that they need Prince charming, or his equivalent to save them from drudgery (cinderella)  eternal sleep (sleeping beauty) dragons, distress, poverty, powerlessness, victimization---you know--everything bad that can go wrong.  I do understand it, though.

While we watch, vicariously through the paparazzi, beautiful or rich or famous or powerful women or men as they live big, beautiful, rich, adventurous, risky, romantic lives, we look around our own little neighborhoods at the lives our children see us living and are underwhelmed.

My big adventure this week was taxes.  I still owe money I don't have; not a lot and not forever, but the 15th came and went and I couldn't pay it all.  Where is my fairy god mother when I need her.

Why do so many of us find ourselves in situations that could use a little help.  Not  "standing on an off ramp with a sign" help, but not "life is going fine and  I have everything I could ever wish for" either.  I do understand gratitude and thankfulness and staying positive and working hard and patience and hanging in there.  I am a survivor and there has never been any doubt about that.  But survivor is another word for a person that has suffered some really crappy breaks.

This is not about me whining.  It is about people that spend a lifetime with no hope more realistic than winning the lottery.  It is about trying to not become hopeless when you can't even see any possible way to pull yourself out of the latest problem. 

Who goes looking for Prince charming?  Young girls, even if they are pretty darn old at the time, girls that see themselves as homily, uncharming, unattractive, and also powerless and incapable of building a life without someone to help them find their own strength and beauty and value. 

Who plays the lottery?  People that have been struggling and struggling and realize they are treading water.  They can't ever change jobs and do better, they can't start on their bucket list, they have as much chance of  helping their loved ones as they have of winning the lottery.  So they play--buying a little hope every time they buy a ticket.

And luck spells? 

I've met lucky people.  At my work, the same people win the raffles and draws all the time.  I've known people that doubled their money every time they went to the casino and bingo players that always won at least one game.  I've known people that find money on the ground routinely, not pennies.  I've met people that ran into their prince charming in elementary school, married them, got rich, and lived happily ever after.

Luck, good fortune, call it whatever you want.   Some people have more of it than other's.  I haven't noticed positive thinking being the same thing.  I can't really tell the difference between the effects of positive thinking and the effects of being delusional.  I realize that being so negative you give up, lose hope, throw in the towel can guarantee failure.  You can't win if you don't play.  You will never succeed if you don't try.

So I skip Prince Charming, He is a girl's hope, really.  And I buy my lottery ticket, dream of how to make the most of the winnings, and light a candle to Fortuna.

Good luck to all of us survivors..