It occurred to me today, as I counted down the hours before the Harry Potter premier, that it might be time I grow up.
Jessica Finally Gets Potter-Trained
When I was eleven, the Harry Potter series wasn't just about magic; it was magic. It gripped me with the force that Eloise once had but failed to do in my pre-teen-angst-ridden years, it challenged me in a way that few books ever would, and it gave to my aching adolescent romantic what only the Great Jane ever could and only years later. Hermione was my feminist hero, Ron was all my future idiot boyfriends, and Sirius Black was my as-of-yet unknown but inevitable sexy prison-escapee love affair (more on this as it develops).
The last book's release didn't draw me to a bookstore at midnight (simply because I ordered it months in advance) but it drew me inward for a week while I tripped across campus and narrowly dodged passing cars in an effort to never take my eyes off the page.
And then, like every good thing must, it ended.
Tonight I'll go to the midnight showing, outwardly calm but inwardly shitting myself with excitement; I'll drink a beer but not enough to dampen the effects of anticipation and adrenaline. I'll go, knowing that I am an adult with bills, a job, expenses, and endless romantic failures; I'll go in a grown-up and immediately whip out a magic marker to draw a lightening bolt on my head.
Are my years of maturation and painfully real experiences undone by my love for a fictional character that shouts words like "Expelliarmus!" and lusts after a girl named Cho Chang (on the serious, Chang needed the boot around book 4)? Perhaps. Do I have any less authority over the children with whom I will gladly argue over the function of a Horcrux? Considerably. Will I ever stop saying "Alas, earwax"? Probably not. One has very little in her intellectual corner when she secretly has a desperate wish to ride a Hippogriff.
Perhaps it's time to hang up my cloak and let go of my wand (eh? eh? See what I did there? Double entendre!) and finally let go of my adolescence with a quiet dignity and grace. Maybe it's time to leave the magic to those who really believe in it.
Fuck that, I got a movie to watch.
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