10 Years Later

Back in 2001, during the summer between my first and second years of college, I was bored.  This was the last summer of my life when I wasn't working or in school (yes, staying home with children definitely counts as working!)  In between making frequent trips back to Atlanta to visit my college friends, I did a lot of reading and a lot of movie watching.

This was the summer that I discovered Harry Potter.

I rented the first movie from Video Warehouse (you see, back in the day, you had to actually rent movies from a store, not online or from a kiosk.  In fact, it may have been a video...)  I laid down one rainy afternoon and watched it.  And LOVED it.  I immediately drove into town to Walmart and bought the first 3 books.  I read them all within a week, and waited impatiently for the 4th book to come out on paperback.  I remember that it came out during the week that I went with my family to Hilton Head.  I borrowed the car and drove to the nearest Target and bought it.  I finished it before we went home.

Photo by Rachel Baker

After that, I was completely hooked.  My friends and I made plans to see the movies that came out during college.  I bought the 5th, 6th, and 7th books at midnight after each hit the bookshelves, and stayed up overnight reading each one.

I read Harry Potter during a pivotal moment in my life-- the moment that I was becoming an independent adult.  I may not have been battling trolls, centaurs, evil professors, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but I was learning how to balance work and play, how to live on my own, control my own money, fall in love, deal with loss.  In the 10 years since I saw "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and read the first few books I have graduated from college, fallen in love, worked a few jobs, moved 1500 miles from home, got married, and had a couple of kids.

Photo by Angie Pratt

Last night I watched the final film.  I wore dorky 3D glasses and sat beside a friend, in a freezing, mostly empty theater, absorbing it all.  I cried when characters that I had watched and read for 10 years died.  I jumped when the snake struck out at the screen.  I cheered inwardly when Professor McGonagal brought the stone soldiers to life, and when Mrs. Weasley snarled at Bellatrix Lestrange, "Not my daughter, you bitch!" 

And then it was over. 

I got in my minivan, dropped my friend off, and drove home.  Home to my husband and sleeping kids.