Mermaids

After many years of searching… I found it… a mermaid. Ok, not really.

But when I was a little girl I had one dream… to become a mermaid. As Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid was desperate to get out of her oceanic world, I was desperate to get in it. I would swim in my pool with my ankles crossed pretending they were fins, look for seashells and try to wear them as a bra (cause apparently that’s the correct mermaid attire), and grow my hair long, wishing it were red. I learned all the songs Ariel sang to Eric and I imitated that one scene, about a million times, where she lifts herself on to a rock when a huge wave comes up behind her, right at the peak of her song. Epic.

But alas, I have two legs used for walking more than swimming, realized wearing a seashell bra was not only ridiculous, but painful (you know you tried it), and came to terms with the fact that a girl who has a Chilean mother, will never have natural red hair.

Just like Ariel, I’ve come to grasp with my reality of where I belonged, her in the sea and I in New York City. **Side note: I wasn’t living in the city when I realized I would never be a mermaid. That would mean I held on to the idea of being ½ woman ½ fish for 25 years… Come on people.**

But whenever I come across an image of one, like this one a in vintage store front window on West 25th St, I can’t help but smile as I hum to myself the chorus of A Part of Your World.

I hope everyone is coping well with there post-valentines-day-sugar-withdrawal.