Racing to Happily Ever After

For the past month, this has been the background on my computer:

If only the mice from Cinderella (in cartoon form, not costume, obv) were really going to be along the race course... Oh well.  I guess I will make do with the many characters that will be there...plus, running through Disney World should keep me from being bored... :)  Kidding.  There will be nothing boring about this race or this experience.  When I first heard about the princess half last July, I knew I had to do it.  Running a half-marathon had not really even been on my radar.  But I signed up right away.  I think somehow the Disney Magic effect had taken hold on me and convinced me I could do something beyond anything I had ever attempted.  Last July, this race seemed SO FAR OFF in the future...but now it's almost here.  Tomorrow, in fact.

I am so freakin' excited to run through Disney.  I LOVE Disney.  My family and I went to Disney World several times when I was growing up, and since my brother moved to Florida in 2005 we've done several one-day trips to the parks while visiting him.  I'm not much of a theme-park girl (give me beach and a book ANY TIME over waiting in a long line), but there is something about Disney that is just...magic.

I'm a realist.  I've never been in love, I'm pretty cynical when it comes to relationships, and I value my independence.  I'm not a girl who likes to be rescued or taken care of, or who likes seeing ANY girl rescued or taken care of.  I like it when movies have realistic endings where not everything works out perfectly.  I'm not a girl who should love fairy tales.  Yet for some reason, there is something about a Disney princess movie that just gives me butterflies.  And something tells me I'll be feeling those butterflies and that Disney magic all the way from mile 1 to mile 13.1.  Even if I'm crawling across the finish line, tiara (headband) askew.

Because in a "world" where an intelligent bookish girl can save her father's life and tame a beast, where a mermaid and a man can somehow cross all boundaries to be together, where a girl from China can impersonate a soldier and rescue her entire country,  where a princess can defy her father and marry the man she loves even though he is basically a homeless pick-pocket, where good ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wins in the end, and where dreams come true, maybe a girl like me who was never an athlete but decided to "dream big" for a change can run (walk/hobble/stagger/crawl) 13.1 miles.  In any case, I am sure excited to try.