First, yes, it has been about a year. I recently went to a
Children’s and Young Adult book conference to reboot my extreme lack of
writing. I think it might even have worked. Only time will tell (ugh, the clichés
begin already). At least it means another blog post. I’m going to be ambitious
and try to do a month of fun days again as well (fingers crossed all). You
know, and write—as much as I possibly can.
And now for the worst segue into my actual post ever…
I love to travel, but I hate spending money on vacation. If
left to my own devices, I’m fairly certain I would talk myself out of any trip.
Good thing I’m rarely left to my own devices.
Chris & I had a very DIY wedding 5 years ago. Not
because we were trying to save money, but because that’s the way we both are. I
wanted to remember every second of the day and every guest who shared the day
with us. It was my day, and I’m biased, but I’m pretty sure that’s the best
wedding I’ve been to. And every bride and groom should think this—it means we
did something right. DIY weddings can be quite labor intensive. For some reason
I thought this meant we shouldn’t have a honeymoon right away. I was very
logical about it at the time, I’m sure. But Chris put his foot down. We were
going away right after the wedding—and that was that. He told me in no
uncertain terms he had plans of us going away every year on our anniversary.
Yeah, I know, my lot is rough—every once in a while there’s this incredibly
romantic side to my husband that always takes my breath away. 5 years later and
so far, British Husband and I have accomplished some sort of trip each year
around the third week of August.
It’s not easy. Every year I think of some reason we
shouldn’t spend the money or the time away. And they’re good reasons too—I just
lost my job, we just bought a house—totally legit reasons; and every year my
husband looks at me and firmly puts his foot down. Oh, I’m not complaining,
anymore than I complain about his desire to do all the housework or cook a good
portion of the meals; I mostly just sit around stunned by my good fortune in
landing this man. He comes with an accent, too!
Last year we headed to that happiest of happy places—Walt
Disney World.
Is this just hyped up consumerism? Hells no! Disney IS the happiest place on
earth, why would I want to spend Anniversary 5 anywhere else? The title of this blog comes from the signs posted everywhere at Disney World, and our interpretation of their meaning. Truly, no one wants to hear either one of us sing show tunes.
To be fair and for full disclosure, I—girl who spent a
number of my formative years working for Disney—may not be the best judge of
Disney’s plot to take over the world, or lack thereof. They got to me young and
my brain is thoroughly washed. Still, my form of Disney-itis is very minute;
trust me. I’ve seen, and met, and am quite good friends with many who have a
more acute case. They are reading this wondering what the hell my problem is; I
hadn’t been to a theme park in 5 years after all—that’s far too long.
So, in August, we went to Florida Tower of Terror
Blog-Time Over Share!
The first time I entered the Magic Kingdom
Already there’s a
side note: There are two events in my life that clearly shaped who I am as
a human being. Yes, sure, who I became as an adult; but somehow deeper than
that: Two events that defined my very humanness.
One – being in my high school marching band. (Mundane fact
#1)
The ages of 14–18 are pivotal in anyone’s life and having
a very large group of my peers during that period, an organization with a
purpose and lots of discipline – whacky rituals and more fun then most people
get in their high school careers. SO. IMPORTANT.
Two – studying abroad in college. (Mundane fact #2)
Everyone should do this. I don’t care when, where, or for
how long, but getting outside of your comfort zone and seeing the world is part
of the human condition in my book. A necessary part of building morals and
ethics and discovering what type of person you want to be, based on informed
decisions and the knowledge that not everyone is just like you—and that’s OK.
Number one taught me how to be part of a community, good and
bad parts; whilst number two taught me how to break down my egocentric world—get
out there and notice other cultures and how their communities may differ from
my own.
And now back to my first visit to WDW. It was the end of my
senior year of high school and it was also my last band trip. My last time
wearing a 7 LB wool uniform and marching in heat and humidity in the world’s
most unforgiving, chaffing fabric. There’s a reason I write the books I do—a
reason my protagonists tend to be 17-year-old females going through some sort
of transition. It’s not just because it’s interesting and there’s lots of
fodder there. No, I’m pretty sure it has something to do with this first trip
to WDW. I did something really cliché on that trip. I fell in love for the
first time (Mundane fact #3). Did I mention it was a transitional period in my
life? My last band trip, my last couple months of high school, my first trip to
WDW, the first time I fell in love, my first kiss with fireworks (Seriously,
there were actual fireworks! Every girl should have that happen…I only know 20
people this has happened to, so I’m not counting first love’s first kiss with real
fireworks as a mundane moment. Choose to disagree if you must). Oh, sure, I had
boyfriends, and basement make-out sessions, and flirting, and kissing, and hand
holding before—Um, I was a teenage girl at the time. The L-word had been
bandied about as well—I was in serious like with a number of boys: some
unrequited, some mutual, some forbidden; but that first love kind of smacks you
between the eyes. Especially when you are a senior and he’s a freshman.
I’m not sure you lot remember your last year of high school;
some of you haven’t reached it yet, but I have a very clear memory which has
been manipulated and twisted about to make it into my big box mystery novel.
The actual memory is me at the end of my junior year watching many of my
friends graduating and just being done—so done with all of it. I wanted to be
graduating too; I wanted to skip the transition into adulthood and just be
there already. I spent that summer with friends who had graduated, got a job,
my long-time boyfriend and I split, and I tried burying my head in the sand.
But band practice in August and the start of my senior year in September loomed
on the horizon; friends started leaving for college and I knew I was trapped in
that stone building with an old president’s name for another year. I sucked it
up and got on with it. And then I met a boy. A boy who made me laugh, made me
think, made me argue about my own viewpoint when he clearly didn’t have the
same ideas about anything—religion, politics, technological advancements,
authors—you name it. It’s possibly the first time I found myself floundering in
life looking for a lifeline. And I found one in Ben. It’s happened since then;
I’ve already told you my theory on not choosing your friends—sometimes people
do just show up in your life when you need them to (Mundane fact #4). By the
WDW trip our friendship was at a tipping point. All of those other seniors with
their raging teenage hormones and scary transitional lives sort of pushed me
over the edge, and straight into Ben’s arms. Looking back as an adult, I get
it. Everyone was going through the same crap in their own way and we were all
too preoccupied with our own stuff to really get a handle on anyone else’s
(Mundane fact #5).
Looking at this first WDW trip through my adult-filtered
memories, I finally realize just how much a few short days in the happiest place
on earth played a part—not in me becoming a writer—but, in what I choose to
write about. Now you’re saying any other trip could have done that. Maybe you’re
right; I’ve just said these experiences are not unique to the 17-year-old
transitioning into adulthood. Surely location has very little to do with it.
Then again, setting is an important part to any story; I think I have a case
for WDW being just the right amount of surreal and fantastical to stick with me
more than say the park down the street from my house, or the high school
gymnasium.
My first trip to Walt Disney World: I fell in love and left
feeling awesome and awful at the same time. I suddenly had a tragic love affair
on my hands (Mundane fact #6 through #12); we were both in love, but our parents
couldn’t possibly condone the relationship (to be fair, we never checked with
our parents on this); and now we had to leave the most wonderful place on earth
and return to reality. Which we did with tortured looks at each other across
the bus and airplane; both surrounded by our own groups of not-understanding
friends. (Another side note: Oh, the
melodrama! I’m certain Shakespeare made Romeo & Juliet so young because teenagers make everything so very dire. It really wouldn’t work with two
older leads. But, I digress.) I still have a little plush Figment—purchased for
me—to commemorate the trip.
Horrified by all the things in my life that were changing, I
back-pedaled and decided as much as I was done the year before was as much as I
wasn’t ready to be done with high school after that trip. Of course, time moves
in a forward motion for all of us—whether we’re transitioning or stagnant. (I’m
going to stop counting the mundane moments in my life story at this point, you
get it.) I graduated and went off to college. Chapter closed.
And almost exactly two years later I was back at WDW for my
second trip—this time with my mom and a co-worker and her daughter. My stagnant
self is currently amazed at just how fast things change when you are at a
transitioning age. I see trip number two as an end of the really drastic
change/transition into adulthood. I’d just finished my second year of college,
I proclaimed my major and minor and had all my classes lined up, I was working
a couple jobs to pay for school, I had different friends and was living with my
future husband. Disney World was different too. No longer on a class trip, I
could come and go as I pleased; and since I was working at the Disney Store, I
got into the parks for free and treated them as my own playground. It was all
new and different until I came across that little resting place in EPCOT; the
place that marked the kiss with the fireworks. I feigned sore feet and sat
there for a good 15 minutes, just remembering.
I went to WDW again, and again, and at least four more times
after that. I went with friends, I went with relatives, I went with perfect
strangers hauled from the Seattle airport when we couldn’t get standby flights
to Hawaii, I went with Chris—we took my mom for her 50th birthday
and dragged others with us, I went with my best friend because she said she
wouldn’t have any fun at a touristy, theme park and I had to prove her wrong (I
did). I became a walking guide at work and helped people plan their trips;
shared short-cuts and time-saving ideas gleaned from others. I got engaged (on
a plane flying over the French Alps, not Disney World) and realized I wanted a
small wedding so one of my London friends (since Chris couldn’t take time off and
I was going to go by myself) and I spent five days looking at all the places you
could actually get married in the parks—with the Munchkins in the Great Movie
Ride possibly the strangest—and looking through pictures of friends’ weddings
that actually took place in the parks. In the end, I got married in an actual
park in MN, reserving WDW for our honeymoon. Didn’t see that one coming did
you?
I’m one of those people who’s actually lost track of just
how many times I’ve been to WDW. Soon I’ll join the “Figment People” I’ve met
three times at EPCOT; I think they might live there. You’ll put me up there
with the illustrated Disney man—he has so many Disney tattoos I’m not sure
where he stops and his tattoos start.
My Constant Marriage
The most important thing I learned about my husband the
first time we went to WDW is his attitude about the spinning teacups. Watch
out! Vomit inducing spins and twirls will ensue if you get in a cup with this
man. Yet, I still do. I later learned, when my sister-in-law shared her similar misadventures, that this is a quintessential Whurr brother
trait. A theory recently proved when the last brother-in-law got married in April and honeymooned in WDW. This time my sister-in-law and I made sure to warn our newest sister-in-law what she was in for. True to form, Paul did not disappoint. Jillian sent a photo to my phone as they were getting on the whirling teacups and I knew she
was officially part of the family: Trial by teacup and all.
And there is that life moment again. I fell in love for the
first time at WDW, why not fall in love for the forever time there as well? I’m
not sure I can actually tell you when or where I fell in love with my husband,
but what if? Those teacups are crazy—there’s no way around it—I’d have to love
him to keep going on those things with him.
- Rockin’
Roller Coaster? My screams on the teacups are louder than any Aerosmith
song you’ll hear here.
I feel exhilarated but safe the entire time.
What more can you ask for in a marriage or in life?
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