The Day the Music Died

The Day the Music Died

Authors Note: The following is a guest post from my wife, lets call her, KareBear. After reading the series I put together about My ABDL Journey, she wanted to write a post from her perspective after learning about my ABDL side.

I do not recall the words that were said the night my husband told me about his “little” side. I have no desire to try.

I have no desire to try, because it really doesn’t matter. My emotions were alive and yet I felt dead inside. Life as I knew it, was over.

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There are many interpretations of the American Pie song lyric, “the day the music died”, but the one that resonates with me the most is that it refers to the day the American Dream and Freedom died.

As a young girl I was repeatedly wooed by society with the dream, the fairytale, of “true love” and riding away into the sunset with Prince Charming to live happily ever after. The prince of course is a strong, manly man. He is dashing and brave, confident and a leader, but most of all a savior to the love of his life.

I was taught from a young age that these Prince Charming traits are what I should seek in a husband.

For me the day the music died was not the death of the American Dream, but the death of a little girl’s dream.

You see, until the day the music died, I was living this dream. I was one of the lucky few to have found Prince Charming. All these amazing traits in one man… and I was married to him. And yet on the night my husband told me, I learned I did not marry Prince Charming the way I had imagined.

I learned about this other, previously hidden, side of my husband that seemed to contradict the traits of Prince Charming. After all, who thinks of an infant as a leader, dashing and brave, and savior to ride off into the sunset with?

It was a stunning revelation. An unexpected twist in my fairytale.

It felt like my whole world had crashed down around me. This dream, this fairytale, I had been living was a lie.

As humans we have remarkable defenses capabilities to handle intense emotions. This ability shields us from collapsing under the tremendous onslaught of emotions resulting from the unexpected and oft times unexplainable events that happen to us, good or bad. With some of these defenses, we often don’t recall the mundane actions of life in the midst of these events and sometimes even after. We become numb and disconnected. Like a person at the sudden loss of a loved one or the surprise of winning a prestigious award you weren’t aware someone nominated you for.

We survive these events, but we are not really alive. There are so many jumbled emotions that we can’t even begin to describe them, we feel them and, yet we don’t feel them, all at the same time.

This was how I felt after my husband shared his story.

Now, years later, after the emotions have settled and the numbness has worn off, I can process through my emotions. I more clearly see what I couldn’t at the time.

I can’t claim I embraced this newly revealed side of my husband. I didn’t.

I can’t claim I wasn’t disappointed and heartbroken. I was.

I can’t claim that I even tried, honestly tried, to understand. I didn’t.

I can’t claim that I didn’t think about a life without him. I did. 

However, now I can see that some of the traits I cherish most about my husband are driven by this other, “little” side.

A typical infant is extremely sensitive to the emotions of others. Infants seek love and give it freely. They often reach for and accept their parent, no matter how that parent is feeling. They are inquisitive and view the world through innocent eyes. They enjoy touch and like to be cuddled.

My husband almost always knows how I am feeling.  He knows when I am deep in thought and when to ask, and when to leave well enough alone. He’s accepting of me even when I am not accepting of myself. He always seeks to learn new things. He sees the best in others and his view never seems to be clouded by the unjustness in this world. He happily hugs me and holds my hand no matter where we are. These amazing traits are like those of an infant.

Had I given in to the initial shock and emotions generated because of Prince Charming expectations drilled into me as a child,

I, not my husband, would have destroyed my fairytale.

I would likely have acted on the jumbled feelings of anger, frustration, and disappointment. I would have walked away from a man that makes my life whole and makes me a better person. And that would have been tragic, not only for myself, but for my children as well.

For these traits that I cherish in him, I also want my children to have. Who better to teach and demonstrate these traits for my kids than a man who embodies those traits in his daily living as a result of a “little” side I wasn’t aware existed?

Even more compelling, the often praised bravery and confidence traits of Prince Charming were clearly on display the night he told me. It is not for the weak of heart to expose such a vulnerability to a person with the most ability to lay waste to one’s life.

While I felt for a time that he had laid waste to my life by sharing,

A new dream, a new fairytale, has emerged, like the mythical Phoenix that rises from the ashes. And although music died that day, new music also began.

This new music has a richer fuller sound, more honest and sincere. Instead of a common piano tune, it is now an orchestra playing an original symphony. A symphony with greater complexities of sound which encourages stronger emotions and, ultimately, results in deeper satisfaction. It is moving and courageous, ferocious and yet gentle. This music allows you to immerse yourself in a place where fear of rejection, heartbreak, and apathy dare not reside.

I still cannot claim to understand. I likely never will. But unconditional love does not need to understand. Unconditional love is the love an infant gives. It is the love my husband gives to me.

It is the love I am learning to give to him.

In the words of REO Speedwagon’s classic 80’s ballad Keep on Loving You, “And I meant / Every word I said / When I said that I loved you I meant that I loved you forever.”

My dream, my fairytale is far from a lie.

My fairytale just has a Prince Charming with more depth than I was raised to expect. My life is richer with this new music and my fairytale has much greater possibilities than just riding off into the sunset.

Much as women sometimes say that their child saved their life, so too has my Prince Charming saved me. And isn’t that the dream of every little girl?

I would challenge society to recognize and embolden the next generation of Prince Charmings to nurture the “little” traits inside of themselves.

Because regardless of whether that man identifies as “little”, these are the traits that make Charming a true Prince.

Without these traits, remarkable symphonies of music really may die and, with their death, take the Prince Charmings little girls don’t even know to dream of.