Diary entry by journalist Meredith Hale on the day of her divorce

Fairy tales, like shoes, come in all shapes and sizes. Frogs turn into princes. Princes assist ladies into glass slippers.

And now I’m back to shoes again. Shoes are comforting, right? They haven’t let me down, run around on me, or destroyed my dreams of happily ever after.

My husband never transformed into a handsome prince. He stayed quite firmly in the reptile family, a chameleon, perhaps? And I’m pretty sure that if I had ever lost a shoe—even if it were priceless, like a limited edition Manolo Blahnik—he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to find it. Why didn’t I see that he was never going to be my prince?

Modern fairy tales only exist in romance novels crafted by writers like Nora Roberts. For years, her words carried me to an enchanted place where love conquered all. And I bought into it—hook, line, and sinker. Now I need to set aside love and all of its false promises. It’s a messy business anyway.

So, I’ll…buy more shoes. No, scratch that—I’ll buy…La Perla lingerie.

I want to be a superhero now…like Divorcée Woman.

She’d know what to do after signing these papers.

Maybe an alter ego will help me regain my confidence.

After all, I already have plenty of shoes, and they’ve never helped me much anyway.