I’m not a Princess and this ain’t a Fairytale.*

*From Taylor Swift’s White Horse, off the album Fearless.

I was belting this song out, singing along with the radio this morning as I sat in traffic on 35W, when it occurred to me that no, indeed, I am not a princess and this certainly is not a fairytale. (I cannot say “ain’t,” even when I’m talking to myself.)

I am a total romantic. Jane Austen stories, chick movies, a good love story, I’m a sucker for them. And I love to believe in the idea of fairytale love; romance and heroes and poetry and the kind of kisses that weaken your knees.

Real life is not that. Well, other than the kisses. Sometimes you get those in real life.

Real life is reminding your loved one to go to the dentist or having a spat over your mother-in-law’s intrusion into your life or cleaning up dog pee in the pre-dawn hours. It’s taking each other to the emergency room and cleaning out the basement and sobbing into his shoulder at a funeral.

And real life is so much better than the fairytale.

Because sunset walks are romantic, but after a miserable day at work, getting wrapped up in his arms and taking your first deep breath of the day is way better.

Jetting away to the Mediterranean would be glorious, but there’s something to be said for going to the park together with your fat little dog, laughing at nothing and just being glad to be near each other.

Certainly a knight in shining armor would be memorable, but I have a fondness for seeing the mister clamber off his mountain bike, a grin of pure enjoyment lighting up his face.

A hero will rescue a princess from a tower, but it takes a real man to hold back his wife’s hair when she has the stomach flu.

A quiet promise to love you forever sticks with a girl just as thoroughly as an overwrought proposal of marriage.

Of course, a romantic gesture or two wouldn’t be misplaced, but the everyday, normal relationships, filled with laughter and cuddling on the couch and him swapping dinners with you at a restaurant because you don’t like yours, well, they’re wonderful.

So, no, I’m not a princess and this isn’t a fairytale, and nobody is sweeping me off my feet, and that’s okay. Because I’ve got a man that smiles at me like he thinks I’m the best thing in his life, and that’s better than anything out of a storybook.

And sometimes, every once in a while, I find myself staring at him, caught up in how much I love him, swept away by how wonderful he is and how lucky I am to have found this, this ordinary, nonfairytale love.