I could ride any ride at any of the amusement parks and not get sick. I still have an iron stomach compared to most my age, but admit that the teacups would now do me in (I still love roller coasters though - especially smooth, fast ones!).
The Magic Kingdom opened the year I was born. And I have a favorite memory of something my sister and I would get each year we went - the coolest balloon with a colored Mickey Mouse shaped balloon inside, and a clear/transparent white regular balloon on the outside. I remember admiring those balloons, watching some of them float away from other children while I held mine tight (including my little sister's a time or two, I think). They looked something like this, although I don't remember the ones of my childhood being so transparent on the outside balloon or having the inner one with the print/design:
Would you like to guess what my favorite Disney ride really was though? It's a Small World After All, of course! Years later, riding it first in adulthood with my husband and friends, and then again at later times at least once with each of my children when they were young, there was something so comforting about that tune and the ride. Even if the tune does get stuck in your head for days and days... and days after the ride is over.
My daughter is at Disney World for the first time without us this week. The first time we took her, she was four years old. Wasn't that just yesterday? She is suddenly so grown up, so independent. And she's always been my more independent kid anyway. I miss the four-year-old who believed, just a little, that the Disney princesses just might be real. I miss the four-year-old, so sure she wouldn't like shows at Disney at all compared to the rides, and the look of wonder after seeing her first Disney show (The Lion King). She didn't complain about going to a single Disney show after that. I miss the four-year-old and her five-year-old cousin pulling us all through the parks, so eager to get to the next adventure. I turned around twice, and she grew up on me, but you may be tired of hearing me talk about that already.
Perhaps just amazing to me as my little girl being grown, is how small my world seems to get year after year. I know several people at Disney this week, the same time as my daughter. Two friends were kind enough to even send videos of my girl in her parade. One friend is one I still miss sometimes so much that it hurts, my next door neighbor in Lexington that I still wish I could have moved right along with us.
And, many years after my Granny has moved, and then passed away, we have family nearby in Florida again. Darrell's parents live in Florida each winter, and his aunt and her family just moved to the area last year. It is doubtful any family will see my girl while she's there, but at least I know they are nearby if she really needed them.
It is just surprising how often I know somewhere where one of us is going, how small the world has grown. Even moving here, a city I hadn't even visited in many years, we had people already we knew. And while I haven't seen them as much as I'd like, I know I have friends with history already here, and maybe already just about anywhere I'd go (at least in the US). The more we've moved, the more we travel, the more we reach out and connect with others, the smaller our world becomes. And I like it that way. I like it very much.
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