If you follow or interact with me on Twitter, you may know that I have suddenly and unexpectedly found myself in the midst of a divorce. It’s been an intensely painful experience, an exercise in finding your life completely different one day than it was the day before.  This isn’t a personal blog, though, and I don’t bring this up to air dirty laundry or to seek sympathy from a largely anonymous audience. I bring it up because I’ve had to do some soul-searching about a blog whose entire premise originated from a relationship – and later a marriage – whose good times revolved in many ways around the fun we had together – together – visiting WDW. We worked hard in our respective careers, relishing the downtime and often the childlike fun we could have within the confines of Lake Buena Vista. We planned our trips together, scheming about restaurants we wanted to try or off-property excursions we wanted to fit in. We were truly two nerds in wonderland, and now there is only one. Left instead is a void, a million questions, and a deep sense of loss.

I’ve often said I am a child of Disney, but a difficult stint on the college program – plus the eyes-wide-open results of a college education at a liberal institution – soured me on Disney for many years. Through my relationship, I learned to love Disney again. After a particularly difficult 2008, we took our first trip to WDW together, staying on my family’s DVC points and doing everything on the cheap. In the ensuing years, we’ve visited together a dozen times – onsite and off, club level and not. We took tours and attended parties and people watched and rode Big Thunder at night more times than I can count. I found a Disney community online that is as smart as it is funny, and – sometimes – truly maddening in a way that I adore. I learned to embrace not only the intellectual and social/cultural engagement with a place like WDW, but I learned to be a kid again. I learned to be a kid in a way that I could never actually be as a child. And having someone I loved experience this with me…that was magical. Truly.

As I’m sure happens to many people in this situation, though, the end of my relationship has been accompanied by many hard truths, one of which is that I was perhaps more alone in my love of Disney than I knew. I was humored, accommodated – whatever you want to call it – all while I thought I was engaging in and with a place that was meaningful to both of us. Or maybe she did love it all along, in spite of what she has said – it’s something I will never really know. But what I do know is that we had talked excitedly of DVC, of learning Japanese to see Disney Sea and stay in Tokyo, of travelling the world and seeing new places all while returning to the familiar comforts of our WDW home. Now, I find out, that excitement might have been something I carried alone.  And in any case, it’s now a place I will experience alone. So as if losing a relationship wasn’t bad enough, I was forced to consider the question: could I get through this and still love Disney again? Could I bury the painful memories of so many Disney trips that now seem ill-fated, and somehow create new memories that could bring me some measure of enjoyment?

The answer to this question is…maybe. I think so? I hope so. When I first got the divorce news a few weeks ago, I didn’t think it was possible. Indeed, many photos of us in WDW went straight into the trash. My interest in Disney news and blogs and rumors went down to nearly nothing. I thought about taking down every trip report I had ever published. As time has worn on- and as friendships made through shared Disney interests have proven invaluable – the love has started to creep back in. If I have faith that I can recover after an 11 year relationship that suddenly evaporated, then I can also have faith that a place I once loved – and, let’s be honest, sometimes loved to hate – can be loved again. That’s my hope, at least.

Thanks to a job that routinely takes me to Florida in the winter months, I have the ability to dip my toes back in, slowly. Next month, I’ll try out a couple of WDW weekends around a business trip, with no agenda or dining reservations or expectations. In January, I’ll spend a few days there with my family, with those that nurtured in me a love of Disney all those many years ago. And also in January, a conference in San Diego is proving to be a great excuse for a relatively impulsive trip up to Disneyland, a park we never visited together. After that, who knows.

Which takes me back to this blog, something I originally started to chronicle the “Disney side” (yes I went there) of two New England uber-intellectuals who had a secret love for Disney. I may have done most (all?) of the writing, but the thoughts and experiences were very much shared, both on our trips and after. So the future of what I’m doing here remains somewhat unclear. While I was never a routinized nor prolific blogger, I fear I’ll be even less so now. I just don’t know what to say…at least not yet. I’ve not really experienced Disney unrefracted through another person, and so how to approach it alone remains vexing to me.

So this post is both an explanation and a thank you, to those I know and especially to those I don’t. Thank you for indulging me when the personal intrudes into the Disney, and vice versa. Thank you for understanding that I don’t even know if or how I can really love Disney again like I used to.  That I really don’t have a lot to say that isn’t related to my current situation. Thank you for good humor, pictures of adorable animals, trip reports through which I can live vicariously, and late night insomniac chats on every subject under the sun. Having a good job and wonderful colleagues and terrific family and friends has been a godsend during this nightmare, but it’s pretty profound when a group of people you may know only virtually can lend support in ways you didn’t even realize you needed. And for that I am truly, truly grateful.

Now with 50% less magic. (What can I say: humor is a coping mechanism.)