I started this over on instagram. I got verbose, so you’re getting it here instead, hashtags & @ signs included.
You guys know I am a #disneygirl for life. @Disney has been steadfastly in my life for over 40 years. It has been there for everything, big and small. Before I launch into this article of a post [hah, I wrote that first, who knew? Apparently my subconscious!], I do want to point out I am more than pleased we went a month early to celebrate our #20thanniversary and as @fishink_tattoo said to me, “I didn’t realize 20th was the plague anniversary”.
It made everything a little bit too real, when the place I go to avoid the real closed its doors.
When I was a child it was the only place that went out of its way to be handicap accessible in an age before the ADA so my sister could have (nearly) the same experiences everyone else did. We would load up in the BigBlueVan™ and trek the roughly 925 miles down I95 from home to Disney. It was the bane of my existence because every. single. birthday. was spent there, but only because my birthday fell during a school break and it was a convenient time to go. As a child I resented not spending my birthday with my friends. As an adult, I cherish those memories because two of the people I celebrated with are gone. I keep going back because making new memories is penultimate in my life. Right now, I feel like all many of us will be left with is memories. I peer at my @timehop every day. I take a lot of photos. I remember every one of those moments.
Disney turned into my (and so many others) happy place. Nothing bad ever happens there. When I moved to SoFl in 1997 it didn’t take long to get an annual pass. We’ve had one more often than not. I joke it will be my dads holiday gift to me in perpetuity – I will absolutely set money aside from his estate to be labelled “Disney Money” so all of us always get our pass. (I’m also making a squirrel-fund, thanks Shameless!, so we can always pay the property taxes LOL PS – everyone here is healthy)
Morbid humor aside, Disney is still where I take my kids. It’s where I’ve taken them for their entire lives. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, you name it, we’ve celebrated it there. I was there celebrating my 13th wedding anniversary when I got a call my gram had died, so it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but somehow nothing bad ever happens at Disney. It’s where we go to forget we have to worry about bills or medical problems or just daily stress.
The day Disney announced it was closing I think I just didn’t think about it. In the days following, when photos started popping up of nearly empty parks, when the last fireworks show was finished, of an empty Main Street USA, I kind of went into shock. Something that has always been there is no longer there. I am admittedly more upset over this than other things I should be more upset over (like my meager stocks taking the biggest shit ever) because it’s touched me more personally than thousands of faceless people. I am NOT saying they are not important people. Please don’t read that into my words. What I am saying, really all I am saying, is, this is huge. Something that has been an integral part of my life is just gone. Snap, Gone. I was sad when Robin Williams died. I was sad when David Bowie died (and relieved he left us a parting gift!). I am something bigger than sad right now. Something I can’t really put a word to. @Sarawithnohh keeps telling me to get the sad look off of my face when I read a Disney article or whatever. I don’t think I have a sad look per say, maybe forlorn? Something snapped inside of me, made so much more, but at the same time so much less, sense when Disney announced they were closing. It made everything a little bit too real, when the place I go to avoid the real closed its doors.Â
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