More Potter Emotions

So this is how the last week has been (up to this point, anyway).

I cannot easily put it into words. Since my class finished (and I'd had about 24 hours to process the reality of where I was on the Grand Timeline of Life), I've been overwhelmed with emotion. It was this beautiful, moving moment at the London premiere last Thursday that it really started to sink in. I know the full emotions were experienced when Deathly Hallows was released in 2007--but at that time, there were still three movies that had yet to come out. Now, there's a loss of sorts; no real new and unseen thing left for us to anticipate. (Well, except Pottermore, but I'll get to that in a second.)

Part of my remembered childhood and the entirety of my adolescence was tied in some way to this series. I encountered Harry as a sixth grader, preparing to enter jr. high. The first movie came out when I was in eighth grade, trying to survive girls' basketball (the only time I ever went out for a sport). The fourth film came out when I was a senior in high school, and my first year of college was capped off with not only the fifth film, but the unforgettable release of Deathly Hallows. The sixth film came out a month after I'd been in England, having walked across the very bridge that is destroyed at the beginning of the film.

And now here I am, one year from completing my undergraduate degrees, and we are days away from seeing Deathly Hallows Part 2, the very last ever Harry Potter film. Somehow it feels appropriate--or I happened to time my exit from KSU just right--that it was released now. One could argue that it's even a kind of capstone to my adolescence, and adulthood is the next step. I've said before that I've accepted the knowledge that "all good things come to an end"--which I still believe, to be clear--but the other half of me is distraught. This is so much a part of me, who I have become. I have invested so much time in the expectations and excitement...now that Part 2 is (nearly) here, it's hard to imagine the mind state's absence.

I'm not saying that it's going to be one of those, "My life is over!" scenarios, because you and I well know that it is far from it. I am merely remembering how important it was (and still is) to me. What if I hadn't decided to put my name on the waiting list for Sorcerer's Stone all those years ago?

I constantly wondered in high school if people really understood what it meant to me, to be a part of this whole thing. The books, and then the movies, gave me something to latch onto. They helped me fight my internal battles. They gave me somewhere to escape to, to imagine somewhere that was a helluvah lot better sounding than school. When I told people how much I cried reading the last hundred pages of DH, some of them seriously looked at me and asked, "You know it's just a book, right?"

But it's not. It's the reason I'm majoring in creative writing. It was the reason I finally realized how much fun reading was. It was an example for how awesome (and beautiful) filmmaking can be. It gave me the damn pick-me-up I needed to get through my hellish adolescence. It encouraged me to think beyond the confines of the fields and Big Blue that surrounded my hometown. It gave me the experience of walking up to a random person in King's Cross Station to ask if they knew where Platform 9 3/4 was, only to receive a look of complete bafflement in return. It gave me memories that I will treasure forever.

And Pottermore is certainly something to look forward to; I still have few words to describe how exciting it is. It's going to be incredible. It's almost too much for me to process at the moment.

Remembering all those years of keeping up with movie news, going to releases...those were some high points for me. The film is going to be amazing. I can feel that bubble of happiness starting to swell the closer we get to Thursday night. But thinking about the actors and filmmakers--especially Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint--and how they have built up bonds after spending so much time making these films, films that we flocked to and quoted and loved and hated...so much emotion at the thought.

Ten years is a long time, but not in the grand scheme of things. This film is what they've been building to for so long. And I feel so blessed, filled with so much gratitude the actors, filmmakers, and most importantly J.K. Rowling, that I able to take part in it, even as a fan. You know, one tiny part of the Harry Potter Generation.