Can I, may I, have this dance?

“Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.” - Francoise Sagan

Imagine being six again. You’re a little girl, or a little boy. Ever experience is new and exciting, and life is just beginning for you. Nothing you want to do is impossible to fathom, and everything that you dream is possible. Insects, flowers, twigs, and dirt are the best toys that you could possibly ever imagine, and you are too innocent to realize the heartache that it will cause Mom when you come back to the house covered head to toe in mud!

We were all young and innocent at one point in our lives. I know when I was a little girl I absolutely loved dressing up in fancy, way-to-big-on-me dresses and dancing around the house. Then, in true six year old fashion, I’d go outside and jump around enough that the dress would be covered in dirt. I’d give almost anything to go back to those carefree days when heartbreak was impossible and the most hurt I encountered amounted to scraped and bruised knees.

These days, it’s so much easier to get hurt. Knees aren’t the only things that get cuts and bruises anymore, hearts do too. And heartbreak isn’t nearly as easy to clean up as a scraped knee is. A woman, the same one who once was a little girl pretending to be a princess, is now pretending to be other things. She doesn’t dance because it’s fun anymore, she dances to feel more secure about herself. She doesn’t dress up so that she can feel beautiful anymore, she dresses up so that she can feel beautiful when someone else tells her that she is...even when that someone else really doesn’t mean it. Sure, she’s a grown up, but deep down inside, I’ll bet that more than anything, she wishes that she was a kid again. All she wants to do, is be a princess.

Girls, let yourself be that princess, because you ARE one! Don’t let yourselves be bogged down by the world’s expectations, but be beautiful because you ARE beautiful, not because you have to be. Dressing modestly begins with the heart.