100 Days of Wonder – #89

Do you ever do the thing where you’re tired and should really go to bed but you don’t because you want to hang on to the feeling of something or because the day has been too people-y and you need you time. I don’t do it often, when I am tired, I go to bed and I sleep. But I do it sometimes and it is usually because there have been people around me all day, often but not necessarily staying at our house, and I need the quiet time when everyone has gone to bed. I also often do it on my birthday. It’s a balance on my birthday because I can’t stay up later than midnight because then it’s not my birthday anymore but I also like to linger with my own thoughts. You know by now that I need no invitation to reflect…

So today I am thinking about my last rotation round the sun (it’s been a pretty good one) and what the next might hold. I am thinking about creating my bubble in which I can just be, about who I am, who I was, who I want to be and all of those big questions. That reflection and sitting with those thoughts are restorative to me. They help me re-charge my batteries. I was thinking about this earlier and wondered why the solitude, quiet and reflection that I often crave in the late evening on my birthday has the same effect as being at Disney – re-charing me? Thinking about that I was drawn to the memory of a particular Disney experience – dinner at the California Grill at the top of the Contemporary Resort. And in particular watching the Magic Kingdom fireworks from the balcony. The picture is from the fireworks in January 2023 and even though the balcony was full of people, standing there, shivering slightly in the cool air, listening to the music through the restaurants speaker system and watching the night sky light up, it felt like it was just for us. And that feeling is replicated again and again with so many experiences at Disney. We are perhaps familiar with the saying that you can be surrounded by people and still be lonely and that’s definitely true but at Disney I can be surrounded by people, immersed in huge crowds in a way that would just be anxiety inducing anywhere else, and I can feel the same sense of just being me as I do in those rare moments of complete alone time at home. It seems its not about who else is there, it’s about a particular feeling and state of mind but one that I only experience in those late evenings when everyone else in the house is already asleep or at Disney World.