Dear Lisa:

In your last post you wrote, not necessarily in this order: “I work when I am sick, I work even though my knee feels like it is going to fall off. ..I am responsible…I pride myself on being intelligent…but I don’t feel my boss appreciates my intelligence… I am an artist but I… I am hurting my body and mind daily for very little money to just barely survive… no one wants to rescue me. No one cares that I am in pain..If one man would just talk to me. Make an effort then I would feel a glimmer of hope.”

Like Cinderella. The Cinderella story I know is about a girl forced into servitude, made to work day and night doing menial chores. She bears abuse patiently. One day, the Prince invites all the young ladies in the land to a royal ball, planning to choose a wife. Cinderella was not able to attend, and she cried in despair. Her Fairy Godmother who magically appears and immediately begins to transform Cinderella from house servant to the young lady she was by birth. She turns a pumpkin to a golden carriage, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman, and lizards into footmen. She turns Cinderella’s rags into a beautiful jeweled gown, complete with a delicate pair of glass slippers. She is warned that she must return before midnight, when the spells will be broken.

You know how the story turns out: Cinderella is rescued by the Prince and she gets to live the Princess life she was always meant to live.

Like Cinderella, you do menial work. Like Cinderella, you are meant for better things (being an artist, by birth perhaps, intelligent, and practicing superior ethics). Like Cinderella, your attributes are not recognized. Like Cinderella you are abused, mistreated. And like Cinderella, you are waiting to be rescued by a man.

Unlike Cinderella, you don’t live in a world where there are fairy godmothers, spells, and magical transformations. There are no Princes. Only humans.

anita