Thirty-four years ago I decided to take a Spring Vacation. It wouldn't be fair to call it a Spring Break, since I had already graduated from college by that time. I was an adult making choices based on rhythms I had picked up back in my youth.
I chose to fly out to California to meet up with an old friend from high school. Actually, she wasn't that old. She was two years younger than I was. Our relationship went back more than a decade before that, and we had stayed in touch, including a very pleasant reunion at a mutual friend's wedding the summer before.
I did not know it then, but I was about to embark on a life-changing trip that would take me far outside my beloved comfort zone and put me on a path toward actual adulthood.
This began with a trip to Disneyland.
To emphasize just how patently naïve I was, my trip began by flying into San Francisco. My friend had asked if there was anything in particular that I wanted to do during my stay in the Golden State. I chose to go to the Happiest Place on Earth.
Four hundred miles away. Down an Interstate Highway that locals referred to as "The Five." This was not the only adjustment I was going to make during my stay.
We woke up early that first morning and piled into my host's car. We drove through the rain and eventually into the relative sunshine of Southern California. Just inside the gates of the House of Mouse, we met up with my old college roommate, his friend, and my younger brother. We spent the day doing those things that visitors to this theme park had done for decades: we waited in lines. We ate junk food. We went on rides. We waited in line for junk food. We waited in lines to go on rides.
And somewhere in there I fell in love. Not the mild infatuation that had led me to make the trip halfway across the country in the first place, but a deep and abiding connection with this person who (spoiler alert) would become my wife.
A week later, after having spent nearly every waking moment with this woman, I had quietly made up my mind to figure out how we could spend our lives together.
Some people ask why I continue to visit Disneyland.
I tell them this story.