Practical Adventure

“I could run away from home someday,” I told Mom contemplatively when I was six years old. (I was not upset, we had just read a book about children who run away from home and live in a museum.) “No,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “You’re not allowed.”

“Oh,” I said disappointedly. That was the end of my plan to run away.

Laugh if you want, but I was born a rule-follower and a perfectionist. I find comfort rather than restriction in rules, criteria, and detailed instructions because they tell me what is expected.

Imagine my trepidation, then, when the professor of my advanced composition class announced that our final paper would have no assigned format, subject, or length! He suggested using a subject, style, or other idea from something we had been reading for another class or for fun and to “make it as long as it needs to be.” The only book I was reading for fun was about the longing that many girls have to be a princess and how that fits into a relationship with Christ. I really did not want to choose a subject so personal for a class where my writing would be critiqued and graded, but none of my class readings sparked any ideas.

The day for subject proposals came and I still had no other ideas, so I cautiously told the professor that I intended to write about the way I always wanted to be a princess when I was little. His response surprised me, “That sounds great! I overheard my four-year-old daughter talking to my son a couple weeks ago and she was saying, “I’m a princess, Colin. No, I really am!“”

My own princess story flowed onto paper, but I got stuck on how to end it. My first idea was something like this:

Somewhere along the way, I grew up and realized that not every girl gets to be a princess. In fact, very few are true princesses. I left the childhood dreams of fairy tales and princesses behind; what I thought could be faded into nothing more than pleasant memories.

My inner editor nearly screeched, “Seriously? That’s depressing, you can’t end it that way! Besides, it isn’t true.”

I tried again:

Years later, I began to understand that the character qualities of a princess were what I admired the most. To my surprise, I found that those same traits of kindness, adventure, and grace were growing in my life, too.

The inner editor rolled her eyes. “Why are you wasting time on this? You know how it’s supposed to end.”

I sighed… and then wrote the end the right way.

On critique day, when the professor critiqued parts of our essays in front of the class, I actually hoped that he would give me something, anything, that I could improve or correct before submitting the final copy. To my chagrin, he only pointed out positive features like the introduction and word choice. “Oh, well,” I thought, “At least he’ll put us into groups and we can give feedback on each other’s drafts.” Then he announced that we should review and edit our own drafts instead of working in groups! (Have I mentioned that I crave structure and instruction?)

I panicked just a little and asked no less than three friends to read and critique the essay. They offered a few minor suggestions, but I was still nervous the day we submitted our essays.

To be continued…