End of an era
I’ve just now finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, almost exactly 48 hours after getting it from the very same Barnes and Noble where I purchased Order of the Phoenix a month and four years ago. I think I should be feeling like something truly significant has happened in my life, having completed the entire series, yet I feel more or less, like I do after reading any other book. It was a good read, though I found some errors: they misspelled Hermione’s middle name and there was a randomly capitalized word somewhere in the later chapters. The ending and epilogue did come across as a bit trite, but I liked it, though I’m not sure if I liked it more because the whole thing was over, than enjoying the writing in general. I think I am just satisfied having the plot revealed to me as I read instead of learning about the ending from television or the internet or from some miscreant shouting out the ending to me.
What got me writing however, was not the subject of Harry, but something fascinating that I realized about myself over these past 48 hours: in just two years, I’ve become an utterly different person. It’s astounding really, that I could still be me, yet so different at the same time. Two years ago, Harry Potter was my world and I spent many hours of my day, devoted to something Potteresque whether I was commenting on Potter forums or simply reading the books. I was always doing something relating to Harry Potter. Book 6 changed this. I was so frustrated by what I read that at one point I actually threw the book across the room. Many, and I do mean many, of those same frustrations came about in Book 7, however, there was no anger, real anger associated with them. I just sort of rolled my eyes and kept on reading. I give all this change to Jesus. As an obsessive-compulsive, I had placed so much “faith” in Ms. Rowling’s abilities that, had I remained so OCD over HP as I was two years ago, at this point, I would be ready to collapse, having nothing to ease me from my compulsions. I would be sitting here like, “well, now what do I do.” God, knows me, and knows when it’s time to move me along from one thing to another. Now, more or less, it’s all on him.
I made a decision today that showed just how much I had changed. Actually, I’ve made several this weekend, but today’s was the most…beneficial, I suppose. There was a four o’clock service today at church and I had a choice: I could either go, the way my heart was telling me I should, or I could just go home and read Book 7 all day. I went back to church and I made the right decision. I’m glad I did too, but I’m still just so amazed by how different I’ve become. The obsession is over and I, for the first time in my life, feel like a young adult instead of an overgrown adolescent.
…she’s forever wrong about Ron and Hermione though…