Disney

In my last post I promised a happy post about Disney. This is what I started writing on my phone on the tram on the way back from Magic Kingdom one night:

Disney smells like waffle cones and tastes like magic.

Coming back to the real world was like jumping off a cliff: you dread the inevitable collision the whole way, and when you finally hit the bottom it was worse than you could even have imagined.

I found myself envying the Disney staff. Surely here was a solid contingent of people who loved coming to work everyday. How could you not in the happiest place on earth?

I thought about Walt Disney: how his work and his vision has changed peoples lives and brought a rare kind of magic into a world that has forgotten magic so much in it's endless race of mundane. What must it be like to have a legacy that big? To be gone and yet have a thousand people touched by you everyday?

Can I even describe the magic of Disney? I think not. If you've been, you know. When I think about it it slips to the corners of my mind. The corners where I store things that are too good to be true. It is like that sweet that you hide from yourself and keep coming back to, only to say "not yet. Next time." I'm afraid to think too much about it because I'm afraid it will slip from my mind and the magic will disappear.

And yet I can't stop thinking about it. Of course I can't. I want to read about it and analyze it and sing Disney songs.

I'll admit, I was skeptical at first. I mean, how many times have I gone into something that people have raved about and been disappointed? Tons. So sometimes it's hard for me to believe that something can really be "as good as they say." And then we started off in Universal, and it was good and it was fun, but it wasn't magic. So I thought I had been right, that people had talked Disney up so much that I was going to be disappointed. But then we got to the Magic Kingdom. And there I found the magic I had been craving.

I feel, a lot of the time, that I am abnormal. I feel like I have the heart and spirit of a child while trying to live in an adult world. I'm responsible and I feel like I at least act like a grownup (mostly), but inside I sometimes live in this fantasy world. It's a hard place to be because these two aspects of my personality aren't really compatible. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Disney was a release for me. I could finally relax. It was a place where adults can live in a fantasy world too.

So, naturally, I didn't want to come back. It was super hard for me. I dreaded coming back like I've never dreaded anything before. Except possibly giving blood. That crap makes me want to vomit. I fought it and I cried. I tried to think of ways to stay and I refused to think about going home.

Obviously, I'm back now. It couldn't be helped. I have to be a grownup and deal with it. And it gets easier everyday.

Ok enough of that. Excuse me, I'm going to go listen to some Disney and eat chocolate.