The magic is real!

I've written here before about my frustrations with people who don't understand the hype Harry Potter, but I'm going to write about it again.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the newest portion of Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, is now up and running, and it will have its grand opening on June 18th. Tonight NBC aired a half-hour special about the making of the theme park, and of course my whole family watched. Even though I'd seen most of the footage and heard most of the information before, I still cried. When I watched the videos (here, here, here, and here) that the PotterCast trio posted after their visit last week, I cried. I understand why some people think my fellow fans and I are ridiculous, but we don't appreciate being treated like we're immature or insane.

Imagine that somewhere in your imagination exists a universe that is the most beautiful, incredible, elaborate, thought-provoking, magical place that anyone has ever known. You've gone there to mourn, to celebrate, and to simply find refuge from the frustrations and fears of everyday life. You know every detail of this place -- top to bottom, left to right, inside and out. It represents most of the major turning points in your life, and it symbolizes the greatest good you've ever known and a triumph over the darkest evil. Beyond all of this, the most glorious part is that your best friends know this place too. It exists in their imaginations, and together you have explored it, analyzed it, excavated it and created new dimensions. You've wept, celebrated, and taken refuge...together.

Then imagine that one day, someone invents a way for that place to become REAL. You can go with your friends and physically explore it together -- see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, feel it, live it. It is the greatest fantasy of your life, your life-long dream and deepest desire come true.

This is what the Wizarding World of Harry Potter means to me. I won't make it there this summer, but I'll be there 401 days from now. I'll drink butterbeer and eat cauldron cakes, fly on hippogriffs, send owls, breathe in the steam of the Hogwarts Express, and have a conversation with a portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. I'll probably cry when I walk under the stone arch and enter the village of Hogsmeade, but I know I won't be the only one. I'll be there with my sister and friends who have become my family, and we will all, finally, be at home.