dixiblog

A Harry Potter movie is on…I like Harry Potter. I read Bailey’s copy of the books when my ankle was hurt. I like the castle they’re in for the movie. Hogwarts, you know.

But the movies always make me sad, too. Harry Potter always makes me think of Alex. And not just because Harry’s a dead ringer for Alex. Although he is.

We weren’t around the kids when the books came out. I heard later Alex really loved them. And it’s not a wonder.

I mean, what is it? The story of a boy, taken from his real family and put in the middle of some buffoons who didn’t get him? Feeling like an alien, until he found out he had special powers and people that got him?

Gee. Not only is that every kid’s disgruntled fantasy (You’re not my real parents. They are magical. You are just dumbass muggles.) It was also his life. He was taken away from his magical family who loved him, and ended up in a pit of insanity. Intellectual and emotional darkness. His Disruptor mother got custody and sucked the life out of everything that got within life-sucking distances.

 And you know…there’s nothing I could do about it. Or can do about it now, for that matter. ‘Cause he still ain’t coming by Hogwarts, man.

But it’s okay. My kids are grown now, pretty much. So now, I figure I’ve done what I can. My job now is to love them, whether any given one at any given time gives a rat ass about us or is speaking to us or not. To love them when they are kind and sweet, and when they are assholes alike. I don’t have to invite any of the craziness my kids may have inhaled into my life, but I can love them the same, be they sitting next to me or be they a million miles, a few years of therapy and several ephiphanies away from me. I miss seeing them that way, but I don’t get any drama on me.

And to enjoy my own life. That I can do. And I can even enjoy the movie, too. The movies are usually pretty happy, in the end. And I hope my kids’ lives end up like that. I’ll have to wait and see what they script ‘em into, I guess.