To Keep Them With You

The best compliment I can receive from a guest is something along the lines of, "You made it so special for her!" This makes me prouder than any specific praise of my hair or my stories or my general perky demeanor.  To have made something so special for someone else is simply the most satisfying and gratifying thing one can do and to have a guest tell me I have accomplished this for their princess means more than all my GSF cards combined (13, by the way.) This compliment sums up absolutely everything a Fairy Godmother in Training is supposed to do and, as this is my final post, I thought I should too.

We are supposed to make our princesses feel welcome.  We greet them warmly and excitedly, welcome them in to our chair, and immediately make them feel like there is nothing more interesting in the whole world to us than them.  When I moved in to my apartment I was hesitant for less than an hour about my living arrangements.  As a person who has had nothing but terrible roommates since moving out of my parent's house when I first left for college this is a tremendous amount of confidence.  I have never felt welcome or felt that I was safe and with people like me outside of my own family home. But my roommates, my Floridian family, made me feel welcome.  These five women and I created a home together that made us all feel safe, welcome, cared for, and infinitely important to one another.  I made friends.  I made friends with complete strangers from all over the country and I can safely say that leaving them will be one of the hardest partings in my life.  These girls are the friends I was meant to have all along and in the short time we have spent together we have formed a bond that will no doubt continue throughout our lives. Our princesses are in our chairs for 30 minutes and we make them feel like it has always been and always will be their chair.  I have known Sam, Andi, Courtney, and Melissa for 4 months and I feel that they have always been and will always be my real friends.

We are supposed to give our princesses magic.  From my first day at the Boutique I loved what I did.  From our beautiful dresses to the constant swirl of Pixie Dust there was nothing more wonderfully magical than being a Fairy Godmother in Training.  Pixie Dust aside, what truly made the Boutique magical were my fellow FGITs.  These amazing women brought the stories to life, made each day fun, and created the magical memories that aren't just for the princesses.  I have had the distinct privilege of working with some of the most charming, smart, funny, and genuinely kind people in the world.  I suppose everyone eventually encounters a group of people so very like you where you fit just perfectly and for me this group was my FGITs.  There is a type of person who is a truly good Fairy Godmother.  They are kind, gentle, open minded, funny, loud, creative, quick witted, fast talking, dramatic, selfless, and beautiful and I can think of no greater honor than to be counted among their ranks.

We are supposed to create something that lasts.  It is not enough for our princesses to feel pretty for a few minutes as they stare at themselves in the mirror.  As a Fairy Godmother our job is to transform our princess so completely that she feels beautiful from the inside out for years to come.  When a princess leaves my chair, and I am certain I am not the only FGIT who feels this way, I want her to feel so beautiful she can't stop smiling.  I want her to feel so perfect that her joy just bursts from her in squeals of delight and peels of laughter.  I want her to keep that feeling with her when she goes.

I had a princess recently who's mother asked me about the college program while I was doing her hair.  I explained how it worked and that I only had a brief amount of time left before I had to turn in my gown and my wand and move on.  I returned to my usual princess performance and had a truly wonderful time with one of my more delightful princesses.  I turned the chair, she gasped in delight, hugged me, and toddled off with her mom to check out and purchase more accessories.  It was when I was cleaning my station a few moments later that she returned.

"Princess, you've got a beautiful purse now!"

"I have something for you!" She opened her little, blue, satin bag and fished around until she pulled out a large, clear plastic gem.  "This is my magic jewel. It's for you."

I bent down and held the shiny plastic in my hand.  "Thank you, princess. That's so very nice of you!"

"It's for you for when you leave.  You have to give back your dress and your wand but this is for your powers.  To keep them with you when you go."  She looked at me with the utmost sincerity.

"Thank you, princess.  I was so very worried I would have to leave them behind."



To my friends, my family, my FGITs, to the Royal Photographers, to every Pittsburgh guest, to my Make a Wish princesses, to my Sleeping Beauty, to the entire nation of Brazil, to Princess Rose, every reluctant princess, brave knights, to the story tellers, singers, and goofy face makers,  to every princess who ever just sat down for a chat with me and every family who laughed at my jokes, to my readers who I know and love and those who only know me through my words, and to every princess, every Hannah, Sara, Elizabeth and Isabella, every Sophia, Ashley, Ashleigh, and Ashlee, to every Bailey, Hailey, and my ever perfect Emmas, to everyone:



You made it so very special.