A Dream 20 Years in the Making

On June 26, 2017, I arrived at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for the very first time.

But this story really begins when I was 10 years old, when my childhood best friend, Jackie, sent me a postcard from her family vacation to Walt Disney World. Who wouldn't want to go to Disney World with their best friend?

When we reached junior high, we decided we should go after we graduate from high school. We had 4 years to save, we should totally be able to do that, right? That only works if you actually have a job and money to go to college.

Needless to say our great plan of going to Disney World together never happened after high school or after college - seriously, who has money to go to Disney World after they graduate from college?

Life happened, we went our different ways. I got a job in Omaha. She got married and moved to Kansas City. I moved to Los Angeles. I moved back to Omaha, and she moved to Indianapolis. When we reconnected over the years, we picked up right where we left off.

Sooo 20 years after we first dreamed of going to Disney World together, we turned 30 within a month of one another and we decided this was going to be our year. Neither of us had kids yet, we could still do this! And miracle of miracles, the hospital where she worked was going to send her to conference for transplant nurses in Orlando on Disney property of all places. She called me, "so we're really going to do this?" "We're really going to do this! And let's do it right!"

And we did. We planned a trip to Disney World like only two type A, first born personalities possibly could. There were spreadsheets and conference calls. We read blogs and watched vlogs. We studied the app and watched the line waits. The first day she could, she was online at 6:30am making our dining reservations and reserving our fast passes. We finalized our daily plans and printed out our itineraries. She showed up with a Disney folder full of info. She's more type A than I am. :)

Don't worry, we didn't plan all the fun out of the trip. The planning was more like guidelines. We were doing this all across multiple states, two different time zones and her unusual work schedule as a nurse. When I landed in Orlando and arrived at our hotel, Coronado Springs, I hadn't seen Jackie in person for maybe 2 years. I can't even remember how long it had been.

I worried we might run out of things to talk about - I'm not a big talker to begin with. She handled conversation starters, and I kept it going. Deeper conversation than I'd had in awhile. We fell into relationship pattern we had when we were growing up. It was funny to watch that happen.

I worried we'd get frustrated with one another and our friendship would end in a heated argument at the happiest place on earth. That didn't happen. I got sick one of the days, she took care of me, and I felt bad she had to work on vacation. We both got hangry and wisely we both pointed that out and then kept our mouths shut in case we said something stupid.

We kept sane by taking breaks in the middle of the day (highly recommended) when the heat was at its peak and the rain was falling in torrents.

The worry - like all worry - was unnecessary. We came out at the end of the trip planning our next visit, and I was wishing for more time with her. I pointed out a couple old ladies riding around in those motorized carts, saying that's going to be us in a few more decades. She agreed, but said let's hope, we're in better shape than that. Hear. Hear.

All right Disney World, you better be ready for us in 2019, and that new Star Wars immersive hotel, better not cost $1000 a night.

I'll cover more of the specifics of our trip in another post if anyone's interested, but for now, I'm just going to be thankful that a dream that was 20 years old came true. I have a few more dreams with long shelves that I'm staring down next.