20 Years of Magic

I’ve led a lot of different lives over the last 42 years. I assume its the same for a lot of people. Different eras. Different “you’s”. But if you wanted to simplify it, my life can be bifurcated into two parts. Pre-Disney and Post-Disney.

The first 22 years of my life were… unpleasant. When I was 20, I started seeing a therapist. She wasn’t my first, but she was the last good one I ever saw. One of my biggest problems was an inability to relate to people; a problem I still suffer from on some level. After about a year of her helping me, I decided that I needed to throw myself into the deep end of the pool.

I signed up for the Disney College Program.

This was my diploma after graduating from the Monorail Pilot training program.

The DCP was a paid internship at Walt Disney World. You work at the resort in one of a huge number of possible jobs. You live in dorms they provide with roommates they choose. You can take classes at Disney University (yes, its a real thing and I have a Ducktorate in Leadership). And the rest of the time you do what people in their 20s on their own in a new state for the first time would do. Which was largely, act stupid and have fun.

Me with 2 of my friends after DCP Graduation.

January 15th, 2002 was a momentous day in my life. It was my first time living without my parents. It was my first time living in a new state. It was the first job that I got without anyone’s help.

It was also the day I met my best friend.

I instantly disliked him.

At Pleasure Island. This picture of us is awful. Obviously someone else took it.

At the time he was a typical New Orleans guy. Very loud. Boasting to people from literally all over the world that he was from the best place on Earth. When he overheard me admit that I was from New Orleans to someone in the crowd, he all but high-fived me. To him it was exciting that a fellow Nola native was there. I, on the other hand, thought “I came here to get away from you people.” This isn’t meant harshly, but I joined the Disney College Program to experience the rest of the world.

We were waiting in the housing line. After a while, he grew bored of me and started talking to another really loud guy from Buffalo, New York. I silently hoped that would be the last I would see of either of them.

Of course we all ended up roommates. Along with 3 other people.

Names withheld to protect what I can only loosely describe as “the innocent.”

Call it God or Fate, but someone out there has a sense of humor. I benefited greatly from the people I met in that line and the other people I met that week.

A trip to Ormond Beach.

We went on adventures. We laughed. We fought. I had an unrequited crush on a girl who had a crush on my best friend. He had a crush on her roommate. It was all very dramatic. I had my heart broken. I won’t name any names.

There were several girls with whom I developed close friendships. One of the girls essentially saved my life after I had the second most severe asthma attack of my life.

This is her.

I developed my love of photography there. I thought I had an eye for it. I did not… not then anyway. But you have to start somewhere.

I think most importantly, I made friends. I related to people. People from all over the country. People with vastly different lives from mine. I grew to love many of them. And though I talk to almost none of them now, I still love them after a fashion.

Out with the girls at Citywalk for one last dinner.

They were so important to making me a real boy. I wish we had another chance to do it all over again, if only briefly. To this day, when I walk through the golden fields of Walt Disney World, I can still hear the echoes of my youth.

And 20 years later, I still have my best friend. We’ve lived through a lot since then. A lot of pain. A lot of laughs. And a lot of adventures.

Family

There isn’t a moment I would take back.

…not even that period of time when I almost exclusively wore sleeveless shirts.

I’ll never apologize for this. You can’t cancel heroes.