It Never Ends.

 

Today I was in the happiest place on earth. Upon arrival at the sea of cars in the parking lot, you can already see the light blue and wedding dress white colored Cinderella Castle on the horizon. This was my first time on Disney property, and I was 26. I could feel my stomach turning with excitement as my wife, and I waited for the famous futuristic white spaceship to take us to the Kingdom. The lines were moving as if today was everyone’s first day at Disney World, almost at a standstill to take in all the glory. We lined up at the emerald gates and waited for the clock to strike the hour. Can you imagine what it’s like to taste the sweat of the person next to you in this May heat in the sunshine state of Florida? Sardines. We looked like sardines packed in a can, it smelled like sardines, and the sweat of my neighbor tasted like sardines. YUCK. I quickly covered my reaction with a mask of a smile that I gave to Isabella, that’s her name by the way and preceded to watch the spectacular opening performance of adult men and women in gigantic, detailed, and furry costumes. In this heat. I already felt sorry for them. Thousands of us lined up at the pearly gates, waiting for this (what felt like an eternity) performance to end so we could trample into the happiest place on earth. As the characters danced and sang, I looked around at the faces.

Faces.

Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Grandparents, Sons all with enormous grins from ear to ear. I cannot believe that it took me that long. Months and months of planning. Purchasing flight tickets. Hotel rooms. Disney World tickets. Car rentals. Days off from work. Uber to the airport. 4-hour flight. The drive to Disney. Now don’t get me wrong. I love my wife. But at that moment as my eyes pierced the back of a boy on the shoulders of his father with Mickey ears on, it sunk in. Into the sunken place I went. Water poured from my eyes. In this sea of people, the colors, the music, the characters, my wife, it just felt heavy. I felt alone. Here I am wishing I was that boy. The gates opened and I walked in red-eyed to the happiest place on earth.

 

 

 

“how could you make this sentence flow in the same way as the rest of your piece?”

The only feedback I received for this first piece was to make an awkward sounding sentence flow better. I took to this well, it made me feel as if I had a perfect paper. That is not the case. I know that with effective feedback you want to focus in on one or two goals and be explicit. With writing, you can always go back and revise and edit continually. It never ends. That’s what makes writing amazing. For my next step, I felt that removing the section was what would work best. It was not needed, and according to the reader did not flow.