Ice Princess

Hardly anyone knows her name, but they all do know her. She’s like a statement. Her hair is blue, her nails always pink and she wears the same pair of shoes all four seasons. And that’s ok! She’s got a rat named Marco Polo and rides a bike cycle that’s so old you can call it antique, though she rather calls it retro. It’s decorated with big yellow and orange flowers all over it, painted by herself. Just like the bags she wears to school are all self crafted. No one knows where she lives. She never blinks and she drinks an awful a lot of mineral water. And you know what? All these things are not the reason she is one of the outsider at her school. Even the fact that she’s 21 and still is in high school doesn’t make her an odd character. Now you may wonder what it is which separates her from all the other students.

It’s her behavior.

She is as cold as ice. Her answers always straight to the point not afraid to tell people ‘no’ and fully aware of the consequences. Picture your typical movie ice queen in your head. That’s her. Her face shows no emotion when she talks neither does her acting. And when you look in her eyes your body gets these shivers all over. She’s a feared person in the school society. Not hated! In fact most people admire her for her very unique personality. But this admiration has a boundary. As long as they don’t have to work with her, talk to her or even have to see her face to face people are ok with her.

Though she might be accepted she still isn’t loved. She has no friends, sits alone in classes and during breaks. For her it’s not an obstacle, or so you may think. Because observing her sitting in the cafeteria during lunch breaks she is always busy writing.

After searching her bag she pulls out this little notebook with a black heart on the cover and two pens. One colored silver and one colored blue. Then she starts writing, first by using the blue pen later on the silver one. Between the writing she only looks up to gaze into space for a few seconds, her eyes look emotionless. Then she continues. Like a sort of machine she writes word after word, Sentence after sentence and page after page. Until that annoying bell rings and people stand up, ready to go to their next course. She puts her little note book back in her bag and follows the rest out of the cafeteria. No one knows what she’s writing in her little notebook. Some people say they are math formula. Like a sort of mad scientist. Others say that she’s writing a book. This would be a logical explanation. But she isn’t writing a book and you wont find any math formula on her pages.

They are small poems inspired by things happening at the very moment. Sometimes she writes about happenings other times about persons. Even objects are not spared for her writing talent. But most of the times it are her own thoughts which she uses as an inspiration. She’s good. A very talented girl she is. It comes as no surprise that she wants to be a journalist. But that means she’s got to finish high school first. (And that was going to be a problem.)That choosing to go to college after graduating wasn’t the cleverest thing to do didn’t bother her at all. After all, she is the ice princess.

People always ask themselves why she is so cold and heartless. Some say it really is her personality but other says she is damaged. The truth lies in the middle.

The strange thing is that they always wonder what she is writing in that little notebook of hers but never wonder about why she never eats. And there you’ve got her little problem. She is anorexic. That slender body of hers looks very graceful in a model like way. But that same body is weak and very sensitive. The fact that being as slim as her is so unhealthy doesn’t seem to bother people.

It didn’t bother her either. In a life like hers there was no space for troubled thoughts. Anymore. She is an ice princess but the queen of denial. Truth be told, she was always so blinded by desire the word anorexic never even crossed her mind. But that was way back then. She still has the desire to fulfill her dream. And she still is suffering the same eating disorder as she did then. The only different now is that she gave up her dream and became a rebel. Because that’s what she is .A rebel to her own personality.

As a child she had this huge dream of becoming a princess. A fairytale princess. With long blond curly hair and a big puffy pink dress. While other girls her age were having the same fantasy, hers was slightly different. You see, those other girls were always dreaming about this stunning prince on a white horse ready to take them to a grand ball, just like Cinderella. But she, she couldn’t care less about the prince and his charms, or the white horse, or the grand ball. All she cared about was that beautiful little tiara. All set with little sparkling diamonds.

On a later age she found out that one way to earn this glittering tiara was to enter a beauty pageant. That’s where the story starts to write itself. At the age of 6 she entered her first beauty pageant. Soon after wards she won her first title. Tiny Miss USA. After that moment there was no turning back anymore.

Her mother encouraged her daughters’ passion and obsession. Never did she miss one single pageant. Mothers’ great enthusiasm was another drive force to keep her going achieving her dream. Of course you’d understand her dream was to be miss USA one day and after that maybe even miss world. It wasn’t about the glitter glamour tiara anymore, it was about status. To be the one that’s on top. The problem was there was no top. Your success could be endless if you did it right, or you could fade out like a shooting star. She was a shooting star.

At the age of 13 she was worn out. She felt as if she couldn’t compete with the other girls anymore. At this point losing weight was her strategy to get back in the game. If she could be slimmer than the other girls she had a shot at winning. Or so her mind was telling her. What she didn’t see was that she was not battling the other girls in the competition she was battling herself.

This was going on for 2 more years and then the moment was there when she completely broke down. She lost her battle and all control. That was the day she cursed beauty and all her strings. No glitter, no glamour, no tiara’s anymore.

She became careless about her look, careless about what other people thought. She simply became the ice princess. Even though she cut all strings from her past there was still one intact. It was her anorexia. A string she tried to cut countless times. But she knew from all the fighting that it would be attached to her for the rest of her life. A lifelong battle you may say.

All her prices, tiara’s, banners and other awards were stuffed into boxes and dumped in the attic, except for one tiara, one banner and a photograph. There was a secret box in her closet where she kept them.

Once in a while she opened it just to look at it and let it go through her hands. Sometimes she wore the tiara and put on the banner. Held the photo in her hands and looked at it for a while. “Jennifer Matthews Miss Tiny 1996” was the capture of the photograph. She might gave up her dream and cursed the whole beauty pageant world it doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss it. The dream is still there but she is not achieving it. Her destiny took a different spin but one thing is for sure:

This little girl was born with glitter in her veins.