Terminus, part one: Immediately after the fact

So, it is currently 9:30 pm on Monday, August 11, 2008. And I can’t believe I’m still awake to be honest, because I’ve been getting an average of 4 hours of sleep a night, and I got much less than that last night. I haven’t even finished putting everything away and my bed is covered in clothes and souvenirs and I’m still organizing pictures. But as long as I’m this awake and willing, I really feel that I need to document my thoughts upon coming back from Terminus. And later I’ll probably go through each day if I don’t do it now.

I’m so upset that I’m home, to be honest. While I was at Terminus, suddenly, I was around people who understood me, who loved Harry Potter as much as I did, who enjoyed my eccentricities, who wanted to hug me and talk to me, who made plans to hang out with me, and who were just as sad as I was when it ended. These people, more than anyone else in my life, LOVE ME. The love in the Harry Potter fandom is the most freaking amazing thing you will ever feel. Almost every time I walked somewhere there was someone waving at me and saying “Hi!” and running to hug me. And unlike at home, these people love my eccentricities—we had so much fun doing just about everything. The Harry Potter fandom is a beautiful place—people I’d never talked to would just come up and hug me, and I was perfectly welcome to do the same to them. We’re a loving, accepting community, something I’ve honestly never felt anywhere else.

It’s pretty much impossible to pick my favorite thing that happened these past five days. I mean, these have been the most freaking awesome five days of my life. EVER. Although I definitely loved the Ball last night. It was the only dance I’ve been to where I felt absolutely like the people in the room wouldn’t judge me at all…and every single person I was dancing with made me feel welcome. We had the most amazing time!!! We made up a bunch of dance moves to look like Quidditch, and everyone else at the conference started catching on to it. We requested Muggle songs that had Wizard Rock parodies and all sang the Wrock parodies at the top of our lungs. My friends and I (only about 10 of us) started singing a new “Draco’s Mom” song during Stacy’s Mom and by the second verse, almost every person on the dance floor had caught on to the lyrics. I danced almost non-stop for 4 hours (with Alex Carpenter at one point!!!!) and when the music ended, we all kept singing: first The Leaky Song and then The Weapon we have is love. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world, to have such a gigantic group of people united over the love of one thing.

Other amazingly awesome things? Well, god, I have to be honest, there wasn’t anything that wasn’t awesome, really. Listening to Cheryl Klein talk about editing the books? AWESOME!!! Totally fangirling Sue, Melissa, and Lisa? AWESOME!!! Dancing and singing along to The Whomping Willows and Draco and the Malfoys Friday night at the North Star Live? AWESOME!!! The Squee Chat coffee with all of us on about 4 or 5 hours of sleep? AWESOME!!! My Luna and Neville Intersection with some pretty awesome close friends who loved me for who I am? AWESOME!!! Going to a bunch of roundtables and discussing Luna and the trio and Dumbledore’s Army and Wizard Rock and Neville? While having everyone in the room genuinely interested in what you’re saying? AWESOME!!! My first ever Live PotterCast? Definitely AWESOME. But even more awesome? Getting to participate in “Guess that Book” (hopefully it’ll be on the podcast!), getting the answer right (squee!!!), getting my PotterCast shirt signed by all four….Oh my geez, I love PotterCast, and they were all so amazingly friendly! More awesome that night? Definitely dancing to the Mudbloods. =] Listening to Melissa’s reading of her book and almost crying, and then talking to her for about an hour and a half afterwards about it. Then, having genuine discussion during my presentation Sunday and finding out that people actually liked what I did? FREAKING AMAZING!!!! And a definite favorite late night activity: making fun of the Harry Potter movies in ways only us HUGE Harry Potter fans understood and laughing hysterically.

There’s just so much stuff that I’ve done in the past few days that have changed my life. I never thought I’d make such close friends in the short period of five days…friends who love me more than people who’ve known me for 10 years. Suddenly knowing now that there are people who want to talk to me and enjoy being around me and understand the inside jokes I make…god, LIFE CHANGING, most definitely. I mean, if you don’t know the fandom, you can’t understand, but everyone in it is just so amazing about talking to you and being genuinely interested. Everyone at Terminus that I talked to was genuinely, honestly nice to me. And, can I just say that Melissa, Frak, John, and Sue are AMAZING?!?! They were so friendly to me after the live PotterCast. And, all the wizard rockers? SQUEE!!!! They adore their fans so much!!!

Honestly, I somehow managed to hold myself together during the Departure Breakfast and the goodbyes this morning, but once I got home…The tears started. This has been so awesome (I know I’ve used that word a lot…but we’re MADE OF AWESOME, okay?) And I’ve had so little sleep the past few nights that it really just feels like one really long day with a couple short naps in between…every once in a while I took a shower and maybe ate some food. (But to be honest I didn’t eat much at the con because there’s NO TIME!) I got about 3 hours of sleep last night and even though it’s almost 11:00 body time, somehow I’m still awake. The energy that is radiated by all my fandom friends is still with me.

I just can’t believe it’s over now. It just zipped past, and I won’t see any of these people for a long time. Most of them live in Jersey, though, so I’m going to try to go out there during Christmas and wrock out with them. =]

It’s just so different not being at Terminus. I’m somehow even lonelier than I was before Terminus because now I know the true feeling of NOT being lonely and having people around me all the time. And no one understands me nearly as well outside of the fandom….I mean, when I was walking through the airport in my PotterCast shirt and Ravenclaw tie and butterbeer cork necklace and wand and all, everyone gave me the weirdest looks, and it made me feel automatically sad to be away.

I suppose it’s like the Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls song, though, right? “I'll keep on smiling, From the times I had with them.” =]

To all of you who were at Terminus:
I love y'all so much I can't even really put it into words.
Thank you so much for all the fun times, the laughs, the inside jokes, the discussions, the staying up until 3:30 in the morning, the having coffee together and squeeing on 4 hours of sleep, the breaking chandeliers, the dancing, the wrock, the making fun of Harry Potter movies, the hugs, and the awesome LOVE.

So stay in touch, everyone. Our love is never-ending. And…Wizard rock: It’s chandelier-breaking awesome!!! =] I love y’all so much and I miss everyone so much already! *hugs*