The Little Prince vs Chagee

Of all places, I met #TheLittlePrince here!

In #TheLittlePrince, the #Rose is the story's most quietly haunting thread.

She appears proud and fussy from the start — four thorns, an imaginary tiger, a cough performed just a little too casually, and all those small vanities that are almost, but not quite, visible.

#TheLittlePrince is young and unguarded. He doesn't understand what lies beneath her words. Her behavior unsettles him, and so he leaves.

Only later do we understand: her pride, her willfulness, her way of saying one thing while meaning another — these were never anything but the clumsy self-protection of a soul who didn't know how to say "I love you." 

#Rose was too young, too inexperienced. She didn't know any way to face her own vulnerability except to feign strength and pretend to be proud. She didn't know that the more someone cares, the more they fear losing it — and the more they long to be close, the less they know how to say so.

So she used her thorns to protect herself, and without meaning to, wounded the one she loved most.

#TheLittlePrince comes to understand it eventually: 

"It is the time you have wasted for your #Rose that makes your #Rose so important." 

A person becomes irreplaceable in our hearts not simply because the moment we met them was extraordinary, but because we spent time on them, gave them our sincerity, took on responsibility for them — and because of all the days walked together, they slowly became the one thing in this world nothing else could replace.

So love, it turns out, is not only discovery. 

Love is also creation — built moment by moment, through the time you give, the patience you offer, the responsibility you carry, the mutual taming and mutual fulfillment. Through all of that, someone once ordinary comes to hold an irreplaceable place in your life.

And the most heartbreaking moment of all comes just before #TheLittlePrince leaves — when the rose finally lets her guard down for the first time. She is no longer proud, no longer coughing, no longer hiding behind her thorns. She simply says, softly: 

"I have been silly. I ask your forgiveness. Try to be happy."

In that moment, the #Rose finally admits it: she had loved him all along. She simply never knew how to show it — and he, in turn, didn't yet know how to read it.

Sometimes, that's just how life goes. You may meet the right person and still love them the wrong way. You may carry a true heart, yet keep it hidden behind pride, silence, testing, and words that mean their opposite. And so, two people who truly love each other still drift apart; two people who cannot bear to let go still reach the end of the story anyway.

Perhaps love's greatest regret was never failing to meet the right person — but meeting them, and not learning how to love them while there was still time.

#Mikemoments