3AM

My sister is listening to a Disney station on Spotify (or Pandora, I’m not sure) and the Little Mermaid’s song “Part of that World” just played. This song always evokes a bittersweet ache in my chest, along with a sense of nostalgia. I used to love this movie as a kid, but now it can be a bit painful to watch. In the Disney version, Ariel lives happily ever after with her prince, but in Andersen’s original fairy tale she (Marina in the old cartoon adaptation) is unable to make the prince love her and so dies, becomes foam on the sea’s waves as angels take her soul to heaven. To me, these two versions of the Little Mermaid’s tale are like life, childhood and adulthood, a dreamer exposed to reality. Of course, I don’t hate the story, in fact I love it. I admire Marina. She killed herself so she wouldn’t have to kill the one she loved, she chose to die so he could be happy with another. I don’t know that kind of love, I sometimes don’t believe in love at all, but I’d like to believe in it. I’d like to know it.