I picked up the Wall Street Journal Thursday and briefly mourned the loss of the old layout with its black-and-white standard before allowing the new colors to guide my eye.
The first thing I noticed was Princess Aurora - better known as Sleeping Beauty, of Disney fame - at the top of the front page. I guess the Journal changed more than I realized.
Was this a marketing ploy meant to attract young female readership to the newly revamped newspaper design and send them straight to the business section, hoping to hook them on this economically focused news source?
While the cartoon did serve to highlight the new colors, it led to a genuine business article. Turns out Disney is launching its beloved princess line beyond its target generation to women of marriageable age in the form of bridal wear.
I was immediately launched into sparkly daydreams of getting married to my own Prince Charming in one of the Cinderella ball gown wedding dresses.
The bubble was burst as I thought about the subtle irony of wearing a wedding dress based on the bride's childhood fantasy. By emulating a princess bride, is a woman taking one last look at childhood before starting her own family? Or is she clinging to childish dreams when she should be happy but down-to-earth about making a life-long commitment?
Or, is it part of an even more expansive phenomenon within the newly emerging adult generation?
As a college student, I have noticed the growing concerns of society with the transitioning of my generation into adulthood - or rather, the lack of evidence of that transition.
"Boomerang kids" has become a common term for young adults who have left home for a period of time and end up moving back in with their parents.
The U.S. Census results from 2003 show that 55 percent of men and 46 percent of women age 18 to 24 are living with their parents, and there has been an increasing number of college graduates moving back home over the years.
Statistics such as these are easy to brush off as almost an economic necessity given the recent decades of social change - people are living longer, marrying later, requiring more education to be marketable and accruing greater debt.
The extended dependence can put an additional strain on parents, however - parents who grew up in a time when the norm was for children to move out (and stay out) when they reached 18 to 20. While many of these parents are patiently putting empty nesting on hold, adults in the younger generations are still living their childhood.
Either that, or adulthood is changing.
I look around and see what were once symbols of childhood pervading my adult life. How many of the blockbuster movies in recent years were animated, produced by Disney, based on a comic or taken from a children's tale?
When I stroll through the junior's section of most department stores, I find Care Bears and My Little Pony merchandise - for teens and young adults.
The video game industry's greatest market share is now the over-18 crowd, and with systems like the Nintendo Wii, the idea is to expand the activity to all generations.
And of course, the most popular book series of our time features a boy wizard and finds its place in the children's section of the bookstore.
Looking in the mirror of society, we see children's faces looking back.
Maybe the natural changes in education and society require us to bum around with mom and dad a little longer.
Could be the animation and video game industries have just grown up with the kids and come into their own?
Perhaps the scariness of the world brought to our doorstep inspires many of us to look for nostalgic childhood comforts - good always wins in fairy tales, after all.
Or maybe we've just gotten over ourselves enough to realize that we're never too old for Disney.
I guess there are worse things than starting a new life with dreams of happily ever after and a dress that shows you believe it possible.
Reach the reporter at: francesca.vanderfeltz@asu.edu.
