The Heart Ride Home

Even trips to Disneyland eventually have to end.

The park closes.
The lights go dim, the noise subsides and the rides stop.
The fun, the adventure, the escape from reality comes to a close and the people are left to go back to their lives-outside of fantasy land.

Remember my Heart Ride?
Well, white horses don't always take us where we want to go.
Wise, experienced, mature ones, take us where we need to go.
Where we really belong.

The unsuspecting invite that had swooped me out of my routine, into another realm, and onto an unexpected white horse had changed my life.

Although it was as limited as a short "vacation" it had done what vacations are meant to do.
It had given me exposure to new experiences and rejuvenated my passion for daily life again.
And as with good vacations, it was cut way too short.
It also brought a familiar comfort from being in a place and with people who were part of my life, even though many years before.

You know, how sometimes you just yearn for an environment that you are well acquainted with where there is no need to be anyone else except who you you really are?
Well, that had happened for me.
It was a fun, wonderful place to be if only for a bit.

The "ride" exposed the rider and ridee to each other in ways that equaled those "back in time" romantic movies.
Feelings that had been dormant for years and had never totally disappeared, emerged from hibernation.
And yet like I had said, so had the changes we had each made as adults.

Those changes were clear reminders that yes, castles and occupants do indeed look different at mid-life than they did at eighteen and that expectations and dreams for those occupants change too.

It ended up not being a permanent place of residence for us.
But in the end, I believe, that good ol' Walt was onto something after all when he envisioned a place to imagine & experience dreams coming true if only for a short horse ride.  Because through all this I learned that sometimes a happily-ever-after ending, is only the beginning.