Home. 

I once found solace – refuge – in the love of my childhood. Allowed it to follow me into adulthood. The spark, though changed over and over again, is still there. A lifelong hyperfixation that brought about a sense of community, a sense of belonging, that I never could quite find anywhere else…not even in church, as frightening as it may be to admit aloud. There is nowhere on this earth that’s free from judgment, but the closest I’ve ever come is in Disney. My quirks may remain simple quirks, my insecurities seem so normal while surrounded by a whole array of differences, and people are generally so damn happy to be there that it’s palpable. Even while we’re all nearing heatstroke in the dead of summer, there’s a sense of comradery among the throngs of people everywhere you turn. People are softer in Disney. Tired, overwhelmed, excited. I get compliments on my weirdest outfits from people I’ll never see again, just because they want to. I can be social in the ways that come naturally, without condemnation. All the promises of church-life that I never really got to experience.

Call it blasphemy if you will, but it’s where I can be who God made me, unabashedly. It’s no secret to anyone who meets me that my love for Disney runs deep…hell, if the tattoos don’t give it away then it’s bound to come out in conversation soon enough. I fear I may be the epitome of the “Disney adult” stereotype on the outside, but I can’t bring myself to care enough to water down the passion. It’s been ingrained in me as long as I can remember, and it’ll always be a part of me in some way. 

But this isn’t a story meant to justify a lifelong passion (or obsession, to be more accurate). It’s meant to say: I clearly care deeply about Disney, so naturally I have had a lot of memories made there. Most good, but even Disney can’t erase heartache. Not fully. 

At 8, I was giggling as my Dad feigned dramatic fear over my erratic control of our flying carpet. At 14, my brother hovered over me in the wave pool to keep me safe. At 21, I held my friends’ hands in each of my own, moments before the first Tower of Terror drop – a drunken promise to face my fears.  

My ex proposed to me at the Polynesian Resort during the Happily Ever After fireworks. A good idea, in theory, that would eventually lead to the emotional ruin of two of my all-time favorite things in the world. I spent the year after our breakup averting my eyes every time I boarded the ferry to Magic Kingdom, so I wouldn’t have to look at the place I’d once loved as I passed by, the hundred other memories in the exact same spot quickly replaced with one Big Bad Feeling. I felt like I was losing my mind the couple of times I didn’t get out of Magic Kingdom quickly enough, suddenly surrounded by ear-splitting banging and the ironic lyrics “Reach out and find your happily ever after.”

But, over time and through a lot of exposure therapy, those painful memories faded into unfortunate stains on the places I still loved. Temporary setbacks. Eventually, my now-husband took me to see the fireworks again. He sat with me on the beach of the Polynesian and we ate Dole Whips, and he reminded me that no one was allowed to take away any more of me than they already had. I had my dignity, my time, my sanity, my security, my safety, so much taken away. I felt pain I didn’t know existed. I did things I never thought I would. I spent months doing nothing but drinking and hating God for making me so blind. For not protecting me. For not letting me have anything left to enjoy. But I learned how to take what was stolen back, including the places I once enjoyed going; the things that had love woven into them by people other than my abuser. 

The pain wasn’t linear – I will never be the same – but I can love the same things if I choose to. I don’t have to hate the things that brought me joy just because I shared them with the wrong person. 

So I returned to Disney. I returned to the Polynesian. I watched the fireworks with my husband and cried, not because I was in pain, but because I couldn’t believe how happy I’d become. I didn’t think of the hurt anymore, not with the most important things. Those things became my things again and they, in turn, became our things. Mine and my husband. Magic Kingdom and the Polynesian and the fireworks and all of it were ours. I finally got to share what I love with someone who doesn’t simply tolerate it. Or me. (Cue Tolerate It by Taylor Swift).

We had our wedding there, at the Polynesian. I think some people thought I was weird for that, given the history, but it was fully ours by that point. I have dreamed of a princess-like moment at the Polynesian for my wedding since I was a child and no one, according to my husband, was going to ruin that. My ex called me a princess when he wanted to mock me for caring about anything, but my husband calls me Princess because he actually thinks I’m the embodiment of a real-life Disney princess. Ridiculous, yes, but so endearing. We got married by the banyan tree. We took over-the-top castle photos and I wore a ball gown and by the time the ceremony began, he’d already given me the most magical moments of my life. We changed out of our regalia, and had a laid-back day at the resort with family.

Weddings, by nature, are a disaster. No matter how simultaneously chill and meticulous of a bride you try to be, things will go wrong. No matter how kind and accommodating and open-minded you try to remain, you’ll be tested. Your feelings will get hurt. Family will be selfish, friends will show their true colors, and if you don’t have a good planner you may end up sitting in your mother’s car a half hour before the ceremony starts hysterically laughing because you don’t even know if they actually set the damn thing up. That’s a story for another time, but even with the difficulty, there will be good. There will be people who support you, who know your heart, who love you loudly. The person who loves you wholly, standing at the end of the aisle, is the best part of it all. 

So much of our wedding day was pure chaos, even downright disaster. As grateful as I am for what we ended up with, and as much as I love Disney, I am in the majority of brides who walk out of the experience thinking “Damn, we should’ve just eloped.” Or, at the very least, wishing we could do it again knowing what we know now. But despite all that, I can’t look back at our wedding day and not be joyful. 

Last week, I wanted to revisit that place. I wanted to go back and see it again, just because I can. If you’re a die-hard Disney fan or if you’ve been to the Polynesian recently, you may already know where I’m going with this. On our one year anniversary, we ate nachos at Captain Cook’s and shared a Dole Whip, just like on our wedding day, but it was late and we still had to drive home so all we did was eat and leave. I knew my yearly waterpark trip with my mom was coming up soon, and as our officiant, she wanted to revisit the big banyan tree as well, to relive the best parts of that day; to get sappy and sentimental and think about how much has changed.

Arm-in-arm we walked on the boardwalk, laughing and full of energy, when I turned the corner and all the joy got sucked out of the both of us. The beach, the alcove, the beautiful tree, was all dirt. Rubble. A grey slab of concrete in its place. 

I knew the truth, I knew that mass of concrete was sitting right where I was headed, but I refused to accept it. Laughing, nervously at this point and probably looking like a lunatic, I picked up my pace until I found the pathway I’d walked only a year and a half ago, bouquet in hand. Construction noise, hard hats, go-away-green walls, and a very confused cast member stared at me as tears rolled down my face. My mother hugged me when I realized it was really gone; all of it turned to dust for the sake of another building we probably didn’t need.

After my abuser left, I couldn’t shake the thought that God was bored and I was His toy. That’s how it felt – that no matter how much right I tried to do or how much I praised Him, He was never going to let me keep a good thing. I haven’t had that thought in about a year, but I was reminded of that same twisting pain in my gut that day. I felt betrayed.

I know that I am not some special force for divine change. I know that God isn’t targeting me and only me, but that sense of betrayal is harder to fight than anyone prepares you for. No one signed off on this project with an evil grin saying, “I will destroy the place Gabrielle loves. She doesn’t deserve nice things!” I don’t think I deserve pity. I got married in Disney World to my favorite person, for Pete’s sake. We have a house and life is good and I am finally content…I have no reason to believe anyone is out to get me. But that didn’t stop me from staring out at that construction site wondering why life isn’t ever simple, crying like a child, frozen in place. 

It felt like a cosmic joke. It felt like my abuser won, in some way. I thought my husband and I had both been through enough for a lifetime…or at least a little while longer than this. Sometimes, you let your guard down and you’re once again unprepared for pain, despite telling yourself you’d never let it surprise you again. Sometimes, you just want a win. Sometimes, you’re tired. Sometimes, you want to feel like the things you love aren’t going to be inexplicably torn away from you.

Oh trust me, I know. I know it’s not a sign that everything I love gets ruined or that we don’t deserve nice things or even that God is an angry father figure I can’t seem to please. I tell myself I know these things, because logically I do. Trees get torn down everyday, especially in an ever-changing environment like Disney. It was a lesser-used half of a very popular and very expensive resort, and I even think the tree itself is getting moved to a different location. Times change, places change, we move on. “Keep moving forward,” as they say. But I’m a sucker for nostalgia, for both the greater history and my own. Some things deserve to be preserved. Maybe on a grander scale, this is not one of those things, but on a totally personal level it is. For every other couple who stood at that beautiful banyan tree, it is.

Maybe one of those couples got divorced and there’s a man or woman out there saying “Thank God, it’s gone.” I was surely happy to see the fireworks show get replaced for a couple years, despite the amount of sentimentality it must’ve held for others.

Maybe it doesn’t have to mean anything at all, to anyone. For now it does, to me if no one else. This feeling of loss and frustration is not unique, but it is extremely specific. In all honesty, I don’t know what to do with it. I’m not even sure what the point of talking about it is, but some things in life manage to turn a grown woman back into a little girl, crying over something insignificant, knowing deep down it’s not actually insignificant at all.