Nine years ago today, the last Harry Potter book came out and I was going through one of the worst periods of my life.
I remember thinking--I know what I'll do, I'll go to one of those midnight book release parties. I'll be surrounded by happy, smiling people and I'll feel better about everything.
I specifically didn't get any of the "save your place in line" tickets, because I wanted to throw myself into the chaos of the evening. I had read all the Harry Potter books, but I wasn't as diehard a fan as a lot of people, so this was meant to just be a nice distraction.
When I got to the bookstore, it was pandemonium. Okay, I thought, you wanted chaos as a distraction, here you go. I waited in line...and I waited....and I waited. Then the sadness I'd been wrestling with kicked in, and the little voice in my head started saying, "This is stupid. You can get one of these books some other time. Let's just go home and crawl under the covers for another two weeks."
I decided to compromise with the dark cloud hanging over me--we could leave the store, but I was getting a book that night. I had set a goal for myself, and for the sake of my own rapidly dwindling self-confidence, I was going to complete that one task--the one thing I'd asked of myself in over a month.
From just within earshot, I heard someone say that they heard there was another bookstore two towns over with half as big a line. I got out of line--to looks of shock and disbelief, I had already been there for hours, after all--and I walked to my car. I drove to the bookstore two towns over, but when I got there, they were already closing up.
Now, I was in a panic.
I started driving anyplace I thought might have books--drugstores, gas stations--it seems insane, but those of you around that night know the feeling--Harry Potter was everywhere. I wouldn't have been surprised to walk into a Taco Bell and see them selling "The Deathly Hallows" from behind the counter.
Finally, after striking out everywhere, I went back to that first bookstore, where the line was still pretty long considering it was long past 1am.
But I waited. And I got my book.
And it felt good. Or at least, it would have, if I wasn't so damn exhausted.
I drove to my mom's house where I was staying, and I collapsed at the dining room table with the book as my pillow. My mom woke me up to go to work at the library about two hours later.
When I got to work to open up, the first person to walk through the door was the UPS guy, and what did he drop off?
Copies of the new Harry Potter book.
I could feel a kind of maniacal laughter bubbling up inside me. It stopped bubbling and full on exploded when my boss handed me one of the books and said--
"They sent us an extra copy by mistake. Here, do you want one?"
It was like some sort of screwed up O. Henry story, and I had no idea what the meaning of it was.
Now that it's nine years later, I like thinking back on that story and that time, because it really did seem like a dark pit that I was never getting out of, and getting that book seemed like the hardest thing in the world, not because of the long lines or the massive crowds, but because it required me to start and finish something in spite of how much I just wanted to give up on everything and disappear forever.
Getting the book felt like I had achieved something huge, and receiving an extra copy the next day felt like life saying "Hey, keep a sense of humor about all this. It's not that serious. You'll see."
And from that day on, things really did start to improve. There have been up's and down's since then, and some of the down's have been way lower than they were in 2007, but I've never felt the way I did before that night, and I feel like I owe part of it to that book.
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