Growing Up With Harry

I'm sorry we haven't posted in a while. My mother has been in town and craziness always ensues with that occurs. I will attempt to make up for my absence by making a few posts this week (and continuing to work on the promised LEAKY CON CONTEST that will be posted here as well as on my youtube channel when the time comes, so keep an eye out for that!).

As a middle schooler picking up the first few books, I never really would have thought that this series would have impacted my life in such a major way. I discuss a bit of HP's impact in this video:

But there's much more to the story than that! I don't think I had a friend all through middle or high school that wasn't obsessed with Harry Potter. HP helped me make real life friends in addition to the friendships I forged through my forays online.

High school was a daunting prospect for me. Most of my eighth grade class was thrilled to be leaving and moving on to something “better”, but I was apprehensive. After the utter torment that was middle school, I wasn't sure what to expect from high school despite my parents' assurances that it would be the best time of my life (apparently their memories of high school were a little foggy). So when orientation rolled around, I sat in the corner completely silent, not knowing anyone because most of my eighth grade class went to public high schools or other private schools (though I wasn't exactly sad to see most of them go, my only friends were going elsewhere as well). I was attending yet another Catholic school after eight years at the Catholic elementary school. I literally don't think I said a word all through orientation until I saw the girl next to me taking notes in a HP notebook. I leaned over and simply said, “Nice notebook”. At first she looked apprehensive as if I were making fun of her, but then she smiled and we started a long conversation about the next book due out. We were friends throughout that year and a little after I transferred to a performing art school.

I discussed earlier about my friends who drew up complicated lunar charts to prove our algebra teacher was a werewolf. She was one of them. The other joined our HP crew a little later into the year after she stood up for me when someone shoved me into my locker and shouted “albino” at me. After she told them off, she spotted my Harry Potter quidditch magnets on my locker door and struck up another HP conversation.

Moving through the series, I found myself growing up with Harry. We faced “enemies” together (sure, his were bigger and badder than the kids at my school, but the were against us all the same, forcing us to be stronger than we thought possible and almost turning us into something we didn't want to be). We broke the rules together (him more frequently than I). We discovered and accepted our attraction to women together. We found love and suffered loss together. We went through all of adolescence's trials and more, and we survived.

Harry has brought so much to my life: an escape, countless friends, oodles of good times, a plethora of inside jokes, wonderful life lessons straight from the text and accompanied by other “gifts”, spirituality, self-confidence, self-acceptance, freedom, and countless others things. It has shaped who I have become (and that is most definitely not an understatement). He was always there for me, and I'll always be there with him.