By the time I was in 4th grade, I was a mistress of reverie.  He could be anywhere, I entertained - the dirty blonde head in front of me in chorus, singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or the lab partner with whom I gingerly dissected a fish.  Even Bradley, the class clown, had potential despite the smudges on his face.  Prince Charming would reveal himself in a folded note with a box to check yes and I would be his forever.

Even at five, as I held the sweaty hand of the boy next door, I understood that there were two breeds to the opposite sex - placeholders and the Real McCoy.  Resigned to be lady in waiting, I embellished my dream until it shimmered in front of me, a parallel dimension.

With my first steps, I traveled back in time and imagined myself in a castle. I invented my gown, its flounce and fabric strangely similar to the toile canopy above my bed.   In nursery school I played house, disappointed each time the game ended and my marriage had to dissolve.   As I grew, I shifted my attention to Captain Kirk and his Star Trek ship.   A fleet of potential princes who stirred my innocence awaited me.  All I had to do was beam up.

My bubble burst in the 7th grade lunchroom after a boy told me it was gross that I picked at my braces.  It was then that I grasped that no member of the opposite sex would ever be sophisticated enough to see the princess through the rags.  I reached for a panacea to encrust my ego.

By some aligning of the planets, my mother had just taken me school shopping at Orbach’s where she bought me a coat.  Maybe she couldn’t resist.  For this was no ordinary coat -it was a brown vinyl full length shearling.  Thick and curly sheep’s hair bordered the cuffs, lapel and hem and oozed through the toggle buttons.  A mod creation of the 70’s that enveloped me down to my ankles, this was my first suit of armor. Even though Indian Summer still hung in the air, I paraded through the bustling cafeteria in a spectacle of marvelous-ness, shouts of “Nice Coat!” showering me like confetti.

And so began my love affair with clothes.  I would be ready at any time for my prince, already dressed for the part.  I waded through my teens yearning to be seen.  Attention from others would stand in for Him.

In college I wore brightly colored vests and sang “Free to Be You and Me” in baggy purple pants.  My visage screamed liberal and creative and happy so loud it formed a force field.

Then I shed 30 pounds.  Guess jeans and a t-shirt replaced my purple puff costume.  I carried my body with the lean simplicity of a red convertible cruising the highway with the top down.  My hair was ready to blow in the wind, but there was nobody sitting next to me.

I reinvented myself yet again when my attire needed to reflect the bohemian nature of my quit-my-job-going-to-art-school-working-as-a-waitress-poetic life.  Clothes became my paint, my physique the canvas.  I wore rhinestone t-shirt dresses that I saturated in lavender dye at the local laundromat.  Even as I waited on the concrete curb careful not to soil my derriere, I was ready for the unnamed suitor who was yet to appear.

Then I fell in love with a boy. We married and tarried along the road to adulthood – we survived being newlyweds, then graduate school, near poverty and three pregnancies that bore beautiful children. To my surprise, life was more fact than fantasy.  Though I had dumped Prince Charming for my husband, his phantom lurked behind the bedposts, whispering sweet nothings in my ear.  I did all I could to stuff this diffuse longing back into its storybook casement.

 Twenty years, thirty pounds, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a penchant for melancholy brought me to the other side of my endless adolescence.  Though my dream was nothing but a fossil of a memory, by my 40th decade, I was wrapped in a toile comforter on a king size wrought iron bed in our French Normandy Tudor, still pining for some long lost locket from my childhood.

 And through it all, I dressed. The vinyl maxi coat of the 1970’s became the Prada coat of the 2010’s.  Black patent Mary Jane’s at birthday parties became Louboutin & Manolo heels at charity functions.  Though my closet remains overfed there is always that next level of fashion to don, the next self to reinvent. Could I, should I, attempt to surpass the pinnacle of beauty in Chanel or Valentino? 

Most children close the book and the myth ends. Me, however, it seems I have bankrupted a lifetime in pursuit of a glass slipper moment. I even own the right shoes - a pair of unworn size 7 Prada Lucite heels dangling with chandelier crystals!

My 50^th birthday looms.  And though I am still ripe for the majesty of a Cinderella Entrance, perhaps it would be enough just to be noticed on line at Starbucks.