There is a song by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs written in 1966 with the lyrics, "Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are looking good, you're everything a big bad wolf could want."
When I was young, dating was a very, very important part of my life. Living in North Dakota, my image of romantic dating came more from books and movies than from real life experiences. I mean the farm boys just didn't have the hair, the attitude, or the body moves that we saw in the movies, and since life in ND was really boring while our hormones were racing our fantasies were always somewhere else than the boy across the street! Let's just say I was a green horn! A Little Red Riding Hood walking into the forest the first time.
It was the era of The Bad Boy. And all the girls wanted to be the one that pulled the flag down as their boyfriend raced the other gang’s car down a dusty road. Even though James Dean died in 1955, his Rebel Without A Cause told of teenage disillusionment. That was still a theme for us girls and all we wanted was to do was run with the wolves.
In many of the Fairy Tales a young untrained person, longing for maturity has to go through the woods or the forest to encounter the trails (trials) and fears that always seem to happen in that dark place in order for them to come into the light of growth and knowledge. A hero's journey as Joseph Campbell would call it.
For some it happens quickly as in Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, for others like myself, it was a l-o-n-g journey of misfortune, fear, mistakes, and retrials.
I won't bore you with the details of the men I've met and interacted with along the way, the Daves, the Dans, the Arts, the Mikes, wolves in the woods that helped me come to the understanding that before anyone (including myself most importantly) can mature into a true love story, one must love oneself first.
As I came out of the forest – thanks to years of therapy, friends, and twelve step programs – the one thing I want to share is the need for self-love. And so the stories I pick and tell almost always have that theme as a basis. It just seems so appropriate in this age of the #METOO movement that one voice can light a candle and spread some light to the world. And so I say as Grandmere said in the second chapter of the Little Red Riding Hood story written by the Brothers Grimm when the wolf approached . . .NOT THIS TIME!
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