I have always been a frog. Yet, I am going to be honest, I have no idea why I am slimy and mucusy, with long legs and arms, and skin a weird shade of green. In time, I have grown to accept that I was born this way. I have grown up adventuring as a tadpole, always hopping about checking out the world around me from what might be considered a fly’s perspective. Unfortunately, I have come to find that most people don’t notice me, I mean realistically how could they? I am maybe two inches tall while the average human is sixty-five inches high, which in my blue beady eyes is like a towering mountain. Honestly, it took me numerous weeks to adjust to my body, but now that I am more comfortable, nothing holds me back. My adventurous nature leads me out at night where I hop up to a young girl’s window. She is quite the cutie, I have to say. Her name is Tiana and she appears to be maybe 5 years old with black hair pulled back in two little pig tails, on either side of her head, just above her ears, and she wears cute little green pajamas. Even though I know nothing about her, she intrigues me, so I watch her. It’s not creepy, I didn’t stalk her, I am purely observing. Day after day, night after night, I sit around in the different parts of her house where no one could see me and I watch her live, I watch her grow up. As a young girl, Tiana’s mother reads to her and her best friend Charlotte, the famous tale of the Princess and the Frog. Tiana absolutely despises the thought that a princess would kiss a slimy, mucus filled, green, squishy, squirmy animal, but she loves to hear the story. The tale makes her laugh hysterically as she imagines that a frog would kiss a princess in order to turn human. I get to watch Tiana and her father and their amazing relationship, an unbreakable bond. They love to cook gumbo together in one of the largest metal pots I have ever seen, and dance around the kitchen. He teaches her valuable lessons to never give up, never stop focusing on what is important, and that it is okay to know exactly what you want in life. Each night she holds the photo of the restaurant she and her dad hope to create, tight to her chest, and each night she leans against her windowsill, looks up at the brightest star in the sky, and makes a wish. One particularly cold, starry night Tiana finds herself admiring the twinkling stars. She suddenly sees me sitting there on the windowsill beside her, my beady eyes staring back into her enormously beautiful brown eyes, with her long eyelashes, her dark yet fair skin, and her silky curly black hair. She intimidates me so I decide not to talk to her, rather I gulp, puff out my neck, and ribbit. As soon as I do, she screeches so incredibly loud and instantaneously runs as fast as she can out of her bedroom. 

As the years pass and Tiana grows, her father is not around as much, he begins to work long hours and starts coming home later and later each night. But, no matter how tired he is, he always puts a big smile on his face whenever he sees his baby girl. In Tiana’s later teen years, her father falls ill and passes away and for the first time, in the twelve years I have watched her, I have never seen her more distraught than in those months after his passing. She lies in her bed, reluctant to get up unless she has to go to the bathroom, she is rarely hungry, and she just lies around and sobs for hours. For the first time in my life, regardless of my size, I feel helpless. Eventually, she begins to understand that life must go on and the best way to celebrate her father is to make their dream of opening “Tiana’s Place” a reality. From that point on, Tiana works day in and day out at the local cafe to save up enough money to buy their dream property. She is a simple woman, especially when she works. She wears her hair in this cute little loose ponytail or low bun. She doesn’t need much, but works incredibly hard for her dreams. 

As she matures and ages into a beautiful woman, Tiana and I, a lowly frog, become quite close friends. It seems weird to me at first, but we make it work. We are the type of friends that truly understand each other in a way that no one else can. However, as in all things there is a downfall, I share with Tiana my life’s desire of being a human. I have always wanted to see the world from both perspectives, to live in the body of a sixty-inch human, to be tall, feel the wind on my face, to drive a car, go shopping, all of it. It makes my tiny heart race out of my chest just imagining how it will feel to be human. Honestly, the best part will be if I am finally able to act upon my huge, enormous, gigantic crush for Tiana that I have had all these years. Since I am a mischievous person, I am guessing you have probably gathered that by now;  I devise a plan to turn myself from frog to human. My plan takes me back to the story Tiana’s mother used to read to her as a young girl. I remember that the frog kisses the girl transforming them both into humans, or at least something like that…and I say to myself, “I can totally make this work. I have myself, a frog, and a human girl, a princess, no problem.” At that moment, my small frog brain is confident that this will be successful and I go to Tiana with my idea. I return to her windowsill as always and see her standing there in front of me, she is looking into the gold framed mirror attached to the top of her dresser, brushing her hair with a wooden comb, blotting her face with some light powder, and applying minimal makeup around her eyes to make them appear a shade lighter, as well as a black wand on her lashes to make them pop. When she catches me out of the corner of her eye, sitting on the windowsill staring at her, she is not surprised at all. She actually seems happy to see me. I jump off the windowsill and onto the dresser where she is still getting ready and I begin to ramble on and on about what I believe is a wonderful plan I had devised, “I read all of the books, how it will work, the legacy and history behind why this is a good idea. Tiana girl,” I say, “you just have to trust me this one time, I promise I know what I am talking about here”. She just stares at me as I proclaim this, her large brown eyes looking into mine. When I am finally done she states with a huge smile on her face and a chipper voice, “Okay Naveen, I trust you, let’s do it”. At first, I was a little shocked. I was for certain that I was going to have to beg and plead and go on and on, convincing her to go along with my plan. Now, I realize it is easier than I expect, but I am sure there must be a BUT involved. So I question, “you are completely okay with this? You want nothing in return? You are purely just trying to help a friend out?” Tiana squints her eyes back at me as though I am asking a bunch of ridiculous questions yet she proceeds to shake her head in agreement. She puts her hand down on the dresser with her palm facing the ceiling. I hop on, and she holds me up so that my eyes are at the same height and aligned in perfect symmetry with hers. We both close our eyes and lean in. As soon as I feel the touch of her soft, smooth lips against mine, a spark goes off and I fall, for what feels like forever to the ground and smash my face off the wooden floor. When I sit up and look ahead, I see another frog staring back at me, the pile of clothes Tiana once wore lay underneath a set of green feet. It takes me a second or two to put the dots together, but once I do, we both screech louder than ever before. I begin to panic as I say, “holy... what...what...what...did I just do? OH MY GOD I just turned you into a frog. Are we now BOTH FROGS? This is not how it was supposed to go, Tiana you were supposed to remain human. I was supposed to become a human, we were both supposed to be human! OH MY GOD how did this happen? What went wrong?”  I am panicking, Tiana is staring at me with an incredibly angry and dismayed look on her face, she looks like she wants to hit me. I have never seen her so serious, frustrated, or confused at the same time. I am scared for my life. 

I spin around and hop as fast as I can to the window,  I jump up to the windowsill and immediately off the balcony. At the same time, Tiana is bouncing after me, screaming and so upset. As I ascend off the balcony, I hear the party that is taking place within the palace. As I hit the food table, everyone dancing at the party freezes and stares. I hesitate for a second and then continue to run for my life, never looking back. Tiana continues to chase me as we make our way through the village, I enter each and every shop and alley in an attempt to lose her, but with no success. I finally find a good place to lie down instead because she is persistent, not giving up. After a short rest, I find a nearby entrance to a large pond and without hesitation, I hop into the water. I hop from lily pad to lily pad,  I can hear the splashing of water off of my toes as well as the splashing of water a ways behind me. I assume it is Tiana because who else would be hopping on lily pads right now, but hey you never know and to be honest I didn’t bother to look. By the time I slow down and take a second to catch my breath, I am in an area that resembles a jungle, with large leafy greens surrounding me, patches of land encompass the various pools of water. As I survey the area and take in my surroundings, I see Tiana. The sunlight hits her face in such a way, glistening, her body moves smoothly through the air with each jump, she appears in my eyes as an angel. Nothing else matters, I begin to stare, maybe even drool a little and it ends when she is sitting there face to face with me, poking my face until I notice her. I snap out of it and say, “hey, there you are, I was waiting for you, ready to go?”  She smiles at me because she knows I am daydreaming. She is nice enough to not bring up the incident, instead she says, “yea, I am all set, where are we going?” As I lead the way and we begin to hop along I say, “we are going to figure out how to change into humans” she appears slightly confused but replies, “both of us? Humans?”  I am set on my plan and so I say definitively, “yes both of us. Humans! It sounds cool to be human so I think how I am going test it out, ya know, test the water, give it a shot, go for it, take a chance, play it risky, be spontaneous, all the things I usually do”, she looks at me and I look at her and we both just smile. At this very moment, I realize that I love her. I mean I have always loved her, but now it is real, it is happening. 

I put my feelings aside until I am confident that we are able to turn back into humans. Together, we travel for days and days with minimal luck, spending the past couple weeks adventuring, dancing under the stars, working together to find food and survive. We find that we are quite fond of one another and it doesn’t matter whether we are humans or frogs, we wouldn’t love each other any less. We want to grow old together, spend the rest of our lives together, and continue to drive the other one absolutely nuts and so we decide to get married. It is a small gathering just the two of us and a few of our fellow animal friends that we have grown close to along our journey. Standing there staring into this beautiful woman’s eyes and saying my vows, with no script, because ya know who needs a script when you can speak from the heart, and listening to her list of all of the reasons why she wants to spend the rest of her life with a crazy, sarcastic, goofball like myself. We know deep down this is meant to be and so we both say without hesitation “I do”. Before anyone can even say I can kiss my bride, I am all over my wife. Ya know that spark I felt the first time we kissed, when everything went terribly wrong? Yeah, well, I felt it again, but instead of falling this time, I grew. I grew into a tall, lengthy, darkened featured man. Tiana standing there in front of me, just as shocked as I am. We didn’t bother determining why this miracle occurred, we just feel incredibly grateful it did. In the days that follow, we purchase Tiana’s dream property with all of the money she saved. We renovate, decorate, hire employees, and open her restaurant. I love this woman and even though I loved being a frog, I wouldn’t trade the life of a human with her for anything.