Everything starts with a "so"...

So. Here I am sitting on the end of my top-bunk, twin bed at 3:30am. My "Writing Fiction" textbook facedown next to me open to the chapter I have been meaning to read since 12 hours ago. Listening to songs about Harry Potter and its fandom--correction, depressing, nostalgic songs about Harry Potter and its fandom--written by a person I know who has not texted me back in a couple hours. Listening to them with skullcandy earbud headphones that are missing the plastic cushioning things from them and hurt my ears because of it. My computer has 6 minutes until the battery dies and the cord is on the floor, which is far when you are on a top bunk at 3:35am. The question is, do I sleep, do I read my textbook with the booklight I brought up to my bed with me for that purpose, do I go get my computer cord, so I can continue listening to these songs by this person I know who did not text me back? Is there more than one correct answer? I feel as though I do not deserve to sleep having accomplished very little today. And above all else. I wonder. How do I make myself more interesting? These things in my life. This situation full of minor inconveniences that resembles the majority of my life more than I wish it did. How do I make that desirable information? (I just got my computer charger and plugged in my computer.) And more importantly, why do I want people to care?

Every morning, every week, every month, every year, I make goals for myself and at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year, I wonder why those goals have not been accomplished, and I reinstate them, hopelessly optimistic that this time, that these present moments to come will be more successful than the present moments that have past. Do I do it for myself, or do I do it for you, for myself?

Hmmm....and so on.

Happy 3rd Birthday Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

"It feels weird to be going home doesn't it?" asks Hermione as she, Harry, and Ron board the Hogwarts Express.

"I'm not going home," replied Harry, "not really."

Well said little buddy. Well said. There is this fantastic theme in the Harry Potter books, and throughout the fandom in fact, of searching for a sense of belonging. Harry, Snape, Voldemort, and countless others were children who had felt outcast and alone throughout their childhood. Until, of course, they finally attend Hogwarts, the home they had been looking for all along.

I think a majority of the people who became very invested in these books can relate. We were all outcasts and we found the story of this boy as an escape from the reality of our loneliness. The idea that there was a school, a school as fucking awesome as Hogwarts, that we could go to and just get away from all the pain and hell of real life was simply majestic.

I think for a lot of people Harry Potter still serves as that escape. That one place where they fit in. Personally, as an active member of the Harry Potter fandom, going to conferences and concerts, where I get to be surrounded by tons of people who love this book as much as I do, is the only time in my life when I have ever known what it means to feel "at home". The HP fandom serves as a kind of Hogwarts for me and countless others. We simply need each other to get by, and I love it.

I hope this never, ever, ends. Ever. I am not sure I could manage without it.

While I was at Infinitus this last weekend (and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter GASP!!), it occurred to me how alive and at home I felt, in comparison to the rest of 2010. HP Fandom, you ARE my home, my freaking life source. And so when people say they cannot attend this con or that con because of their "real life" getting in the way, I have to disagree. "Real life" is not the miserable muggle life that fills out forms and pays bills, all that is just filler space. "Real life" is when you truly feel alive. If you feel alive in the muggle world, then good job, but if you feel alive in the Wizarding World, then lets keep it going. Because I want to feel alive, with you, forever. (Well you know...until I am no longer alive? Haha. When I die I am going to the real Hogwarts, so let us just worry about the alive part. :D )

I could talk forever about Harry Potter and how it has impacted my life, but for now I will just say thank you and Happy 3rd Birthday to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The last enemy to be defeated is Death. heart.

Any HP stories? Opinions? TATTOOS? How are you celebrating?!?!

PS. What do you think about me getting a tattoooo? I am actually liking "The Last Enemy to be Defeated is Death" as a symbol of me never wanting these things to end... But I was thinking more along the lines of the Deathly Hallows symbol or the HP Alliance heart/lightning bolt thing. Eh? Eh??

Anchors Away, or The Need to Apparate

Sooooo...it appears as though I have been quite neglectful. I suppose I could attribute this to taking classes which allow...require me to regularly write down my thoughts elsewhere. But I do not see why I cannot go ahead and explore those things here as well...so here goes:

SETTING: So I drove home to Wyoming recently. I live in Seattle. (...is "live" even the right word? How do you define where you live? Maybe it is just wherever you are at the time...) But anyway. So I go to school in Seattle, but I am from Wyoming. I lived in various parts of Wyoming for about 9 years, and my mom was from there so it has always been a bit of a staple in my life, even when my family was living in Utah or wherever. But anyway. So I went back to Wyoming for a visit after being away for 6 months.

STORY(ish): The entire time I was driving back I felt like I was going back in time or something. Like I had never really left. Like nothing had changed. Even though it had. A lot. I was even kind of fooled that it might still be Winter there when I got back. And while I was there everything kind of fell into place. I drove the same roads, took the same paths, went to the same places. All out of sheer habit. Instinct. It was different there. But it was the same. I mean. I did not have a bedroom. Or a job. Or a reason for being there. But it still felt like home kind of. I still felt miserably trapped after spending too much time in that house... It still meant seeing so many people whom I love. Many not as often as I would like... What was different was that I kept getting confused about where I would be that night when I "went home". Like it was possible to fall asleep in my bed in Seattle immediately after saying goodnight to my friends in Wyoming. (Would that not be nice? Ha.) I suppose this is because they both kind of feel like "home" to me right now...

THE POINT: The point is not me. It is not Wyoming vs Seattle. It is home. It is "the reason for being there". It is about why people stay in one place or another. It is about an anchor. Which is something that I severely lack. I cannot live in Wyoming, because that would feel like failing (I will explain that another time). Also, Wyoming always feels so...trapped...but like being trapped in an elevator with your favorite people. Seattle has a lot of opportunity, but it is so far from so many people and so...industrial. I would like to move somewhere new, move all the time, explore the world, but the first few months after moving to somewhere new are always very miserable. (And bad for me. The first few months after all of my moves have just been a whirlwind of self destruction. I am not sure I want to subject myself to what all that instability does to me...) I am uncertain about so many things. But what I do know is that I have not found the place I want to spend my life in yet. I have discovered that everywhere is the same. No matter where you are you will have the same problems, etc. So the only thing that must keep people in one place verses another is an anchor. A job. A person. A house. For me, what I think I keep following/trying to find is an environment. I came to Seattle for the clouds and rain. But I also want thunder. And trees....forests. All around me. The smell of burning pine. And thunder. How I miss thunder... (Seattle rains, but it does not storm.) And less people. I want to live in a small town that is conveniently close to a big city (like two hours away or something).

The point is anchors. I do not have one. I am a lost ship at sea. Going anywhere and everywhere. But I do have an idea of the kind of place that I would like to be. The environment I would like to be surrounded by. Yet it is possible that I would give up on that environment if something stronger anchored me in another direction...

Do you have an anchor? Tellll me about it.

ALSO: In relation to the aforementioned classes which have been eating up all of my words, I am an English type/Creative Writing hopeful major, which requires me to write a lot of words. So...maybe if I am feeling brave, I will throw some of that up here for y'all to read, critique, whatevah. We will see...

PS: This is probably the closest thing to "freewriting" that I have posted here before. Usually I plan things out, edit, etc. I just wrote. Which turned out very bloggy and not as thought provoking as I would have liked...oh well...