it’s over. it’s really over.
so i watched the final HP movie tonight. i had been wanting to see it in theaters (i have developed a terrible habit of watching everything online. fo free. but this was different) but my darn impatience got the best of me. so i got onto my favorite site and began watching it on my computer. i knew as soon as it began that it was going to be rough. i immediately regretted not waiting to go see it on the big screen, but at that point i was already sucked it. despite the lack of acting ability that daniel radcliffe has, he actually pleasantly surprised me for the first time in this movie. i cried when snape died. i cried when harry watched his memories in the pensive. i cried when he told hermoine and ron what was going down. i cried when the snitch opened up and produced the resurrection stone and he conversed with his parents and loved ones that had died for him. i cried when he died and was talking with dumbledore. and when neville killed nagini. and most of all, i bawled like a hormonal housewife at the season finale of the bachelor when it showed all of the characters when they are grown up and sending their kids to hogwarts. it broke my heart and destroyed my world (in a good way) to finally see harry and the gang have the lives they always deserved but were always denied.
the story itself just killed me, and to see it in moving picture and not just the image i had in my head from reading the books so many times was very moving.
and then it hit me.
it’s over. it’s really over.
i started reading harry potter when i was in jr high. and i remember i would have to sneak them because my parents didn’t approve (as many parents didn’t back then) and i would put covers from other books on them and read them over and over. i had never enjoyed reading until then. i was never one of those kids who was completely obsessed and went to every midnight premiere ever, but it was a big part of my childhood. i have never connected so deeply with a character or with a world like i did with that one. i was as connected to the magical world of harry potter and hogwarts as i was to my own. eventually my parents grew to accept my reading the series and i proceeded to read every book at least 5 or 6 times. when the movies would come out i would be outraged at their inaccuracy and i would actually get angry and be fuming for days at the injustice done to the books. it was incredibly ridiculous.
ultimately it boils down to feeling like i’m ending my favorite book in the series of my life. i am not one of those people who wishes i could go back to being a little kid or go back to high school because things were “just so much simpler back then,” but i do wish i could go back to the way it felt to spend my weekend locked up in my room all weekend buried in a harry potter book. i miss the feeling of laying on my bed but being in a completely different world and having no worries. no bills, no work, no homework, no responsibilities. all there was in the world was my imagination ignited like none other by words on a page.
goodbye childhood. i grew up fast, not wanting to be a kid but it wasn’t really until now that i appreciated a part of it. your mind is really and truly an amazing thing. imagination will always trump reality. i just have to remember to exercise mine a little more. i’ve missed it. and i am going to miss the thrill anxiously anticipating the next part. it was wonderful while it lasted, but everything comes to an end sometime. it’s like reading that last sentence in a book then listening to the binding creak as you close that back cover and that moment when you debate whether you should just turn it over and start back at the beginning.
unfortunately this particular wonder has now come to an end. tears are still streaming down my face as i attempt to cope, but sometimes you just have to realize that you really are grown up. that last piece of my childhood that i had held on to is now gone. it is a beautiful memory and i know that these are stories that will be passed down through generations. bring it on.
