I’d Rather Be A Cautionary Tale Than A Fairy Tale

There are a lot of women who want to be classy. They wear heels–but not too tall. They wear makeup, but not too much.

They are never too much of anything.

Never too drunk, too loud, never inappropriate or inebriated. They don’t overshare or speak out of turn, they are politically correct and avoid controversial topics.

I could do this, but I don’t want to be loved for my ability to abstain from life.

I will always stifle a laugh at inappropriate times, I will be the first–and probably last–person on the dance floor and push shots on you until you join me. I’ll wear too much makeup, because it’s fun and because that’s my aesthetic preference. I will make imprudent decisions and be with the wrong people. I can’t live in a world watered down by my own omissions.

As Aldous Huxley wrote, “I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

It takes a lot of self-control and strength to be a perfect, classy woman. I will grant them that. Princess Di, Michelle Obama, Natalie Portman– these are classy women that you can’t help but respect. They’ve got a cache girls like Liz Taylor and Lindsey Lohan will never have. To achieve it, you have to value this whole idea of being ‘appropriate’ in the long run over what might be fun in the moment. You follow tradition without questioning it. You believe that other’s opinions are so important that they are to be feared–that they are a complete argument in and of themselves.

The real fairy tale, to me, is this style of thinking. That there’s a right and a wrong way to do life and the right way has everything to do with wholly accepting social norms the way they are. I think the women who are really classy don’t think of it as missing out. More power to them, they must have lucked into a set of beliefs that I don’t have. I can’t aspire to that.

I’m not a classy girl, and I never will be. As far as I know, this is the only life I get to live, so I just have too much to lose.