Prince Charming is dead!

I don't know about other women out there but I have always held this version of Prince Charming in my head. He is the perfect man. Kind and caring and always chivalrous. Witty, funny, and always knowing when you needed a little something extra in the pick me up department.
I think society puts in your head at an early age that Prince Charming is waiting to rescue you on his valiant white horse. Thanks for nothing Walt Disney.

 There is a boy/man from my past that I always held this mental position open for. I hadn't spoken to him in years. We had "dated" in junior high and I have always held a torch for him ever since. He was the prefect blend of funny, artistic, good looking,a touch of danger, and had that certain mystique about him.

 After graduating high school, he stuck around in our hometown for awhile. He dated and married a girl from our school and they were together for about 20 years. They had moved to the coast and had lived there for many years now.

 This last winter, he contacted me on that lovely social network site, Facebook.
He hadn't up until this point been on any social site that I could stalk him properly from.
It seems that him and his wife had split up. He was looking up old friends. We talked, we laughed, we flirted, I was flattered that he still thought of me. We talked for hours and hours, reminiscing. A lot of sighing and what might have beens. Not always spoken but wondered.
Upon talking and learning about his life and discovering who he is, I figured out that I had in essence made him into someone in my mind that no mere mortal could ever be. This great prince with the silver tongue and robust zest for life turned out to be a just a normal man. Not much different from many many others I had met/dated/slept with/left behind before.

The image of Prince Charming that I had some painstakingly held in high regard came crashing to ground.

 I weep over the loss of this ideal and the hope that he may still be out there somewhere, pining like I did. But at the same time, I gather strength in the fact of what I really knew all along. I am stronger than that weakling little woman that needs to be rescued as I rescue myself and always have.