New Year, Old Resolutions

As a part of our 2014 New Year’s Resolution, on December 31, 2013 we purchased a 365-days-access-to-distilled-family-fun pass to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.

It was our desperate, last-ditch attempt to force more fun into our intensely overworked, stressed-out, absolutely-need-more-margin, fraying lives.

We rang in the new 2014 surrounded by tens of thousands of complete-strangers-turned-best-friends, of every color, language, shape and stripe because of our shared desperate, above mentioned need. 

But also our shared love of fun and family.

Desire for a positive, fresh start.

More joy and laughter!

A refreshing escape, no matter how temporary, from a bad news filled world. Even during Christmas. Especially during Christmas.

We were all equally eager to capture our delightful experiences on our phones and cameras so we can share them on Facebook around the world and relieve them again and again as they recede into our usual run of the mill existence.

In line for Minion Mayhem we chat with a middle-eastern family from Canada like we’ve known each other forever.  When they hear we are locals, their eyes grow really big. 

You actually live here??! 

Yep. 

We savor the moment because for once, in somebody's eyes we've become that picture-perfect-Facebook-wall turned-real family!  We decide some illusions are best left untouched. 

We scream and laugh, and laugh and scream like teenage girls along with a group of tall gay guys from Netherlands as we ride Hulk together.  Then we do it again.  And again. 

We toast cold butterbeer to a band of Brazilian tourists surrounded by a leaning wall of shopping bags bursting with overpriced happiness. 

.

We watch our resident Harry Potter buff  in those first magical moments of entering Hogsmead, where imagination inside a woman's head and her black-on-white words have gone viral and been translated into pinch-me-so-I-know-I'm-not-dreaming reality.  We look at each other, and we know we hit a jackpot.

The pure magic lasts well into the first hour of New Year. 

Dizzy with excitement and full of hope for the coming year, we leave the park in the company of all our thousands of new best friends. The moment we got to the parking lot, it is clear that the magic is over.  For the next few hours we are simmering in a hell of a traffic jam, trying to leave like everyone else, surrounded by the ear-splitting sound of car alarms, honking horns, tired screaming children and their tired screaming parents. 

Suddenly we are not friendly any more.