My Plastic Prince Charming

As a little girl with a BIG imagination I would spend hours playing with my Barbie dolls. We would play all sorts of games from hospital to school. The game that was played most often however, was the game we call life or back then "house". Barbie was always the perfect wife. Kids dressed, dinner on time and Ken always took her to the ocean on the weekends, just the two of them. As you can see I spent a lot of my time watching Knots Landing with my grandmother and then turning those episodes into Barbie's life moments ;-). Somewhere along the line Ken gave me the perfection complex. I grew into a young woman who somehow thought that Ken existed in real life and that my perfect family was but a Barbie isle away. I can hear young Candice saying, "I want to date and marry the right kind of person".....ugh! What does that even mean....the right kind of person? Hell, I am pretty sure I am not the right kind of person. I wanted him educated, handsome, smart, well versed in a number of subjects with a little spending cash on the side. He also needed to fit into a list that I recently published on Facebook of 75 things I needed in a man. 

I was delusional. Full of childhood dreams of perfection. The thing about only considering perfect people is that you miss the people with real life experience. The people who know what to do when imperfection creeps up to your doorstep, as it will do. I remember being in college and dating a young man who was anything, but perfect and I adored him. For all of the other people I dated up to that point I had to be this hologram of myself to get what I thought was their perfection. He changed that for me. He hated that part of me. He wanted the real me, not the everything is fine... life is peachy act I was putting on all the time. Behind closed doors I could tell him anything. There was no judgment and there was no holds bar advice. Dating him taught me that it is much more important to have someone who can love you at your ugliest than at your prettiest. Who can see the worst in you all while admiring the best in you. That kind of love is hard to find. 

So as I walk the road of life wondering where my life mate is, I am certain of one thing, where ever he is I love him for both his and good and bad. I will listen as often as possible without judgement and I will give him that feeling of being loved at his worst, because isn't that what truly puts us back at our best. 

Ken will go back in his box in the closest and from time to time I will pull him out and remind myself that there is no perfection even in my perfect Ken doll. 

Musical Inspiration
Song: Barbie Girl
Artist: Aqua






Peace and Love Candegirl