My parents took me to Disney world once or twice. We drove down both times, stopping at cheap motels along the way, and stayed at cheap apartments a ways from the park. I had fun, especially when I went as a small child. I got my picture--a polaroid--taken with Minnie. The second time, I was a teenager (it was my mom, a friend, and his visiting teenage niece and nephew), but I don't remember being much more aware of the difference between our Disney adventure and that of the people who clearly weren't skimping. As a child (and teenager), a friend and I would hang out at the Disney Store, and elsewhere at Faneuil Hall, and at Copley Place. We enjoyed playing amid the ritz, window shopping and occasionally splurging on a loss-leaderesque, quasi-affordable souvenir. It was more wonder than aspiration. Then we outgrew it, at least the window shopping and longing for overpriced trinkets. I remained in awe of the business travelers at the hotels in and around Copley; I hoped to be like them when I grew up.
Last Sunday I flew down to Orlando for business and made my way to a chi-chi hotel. I could've gotten a cab reimbursed, but I opted for a SuperShuttle to save my employer some money. The first few rows of the shuttle were filled with tourists (and those staying a ways out). I looked at the guy in the back row with me--specifically, at the logo on his messenger bag--and knew he was going to the same conference. You know I don't generally start conversations with strangers, but the truth about introverts is that we buckle under small talk; we can handle real conversation. For the hour, hour-and-a-half long ride, we talked about a range of work-related issues. It was--especially to an introvert--a welcome sense of community. If anyone else in that van listened to us, they'd have hardly understood a word (that is not, if it needs to be said, a knock on them; merely a point of contrast: I was exactly where I needed to be). I don't know how I got to be someone who fit at the conference, who can hold my own with the technical people. I showed up feeling a bit of an impostor, but managed to connect with most of the people I talked to. By the end of the week, I was going to Disney Springs for dinner with my SuperShuttle buddy and his friends.
How I became that person is more of a wonder to me than how I became the person who gets dropped off at the chi-chi hotel close to Disney after the front rows of the shuttle empty out, at first at cheap motels and then mid-price hotels. All of them higher-end than what my family stayed at when I was a kid. I was always aware of it--every time I walked by a family staying at the hotel on their own dime, the kids dressed for Disney world--but not intrigued. I noticed the ornate granite counters and mother-of-pearl drawers but would have traded them for a better shower. I don't even prefer big, corporate hotels; I rarely choose them when I travel personally, and not just because of cost.
Some of the things we aspire to when we're younger are as satisfying as we think they'll be, every time; some become routine to the point we don't notice them anymore; some disappoint us. Some make us want even more.
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