Like the Boy-Who-Lived

Everyone knows what it’s like to live in a world where at least one person knows your past. And for some, that past isn’t bad. For others, it’s awful. For most, its normal; mixed with both light and dark.

For me, mine is normal. To others, at least. As the first chapter of my life comes to a close, and another one is soon to open, I am determined to get away.

Let me explain why I am like the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry Potter grew up in a world where his greatest faults were exaggerated, lied about, and spread everywhere. Everyone knew who he was and their opinion of him was not likely to change. He yearned to escape. He yearned for change. Harry yearned for a place where no one knew him.

I’ve lived my life in the same small town, where all of my friends know my past. That includes all of my mistakes and faults and bad habits. And it is hard to change their preconceptions of those things. I hate my past; I hate how I used to be. But I’ve come to accept that who I was helped me come to who I am today. An open-minded, determinedly cheerful, perceptive, intellectual Potterhead who scorns ignorance and is terrified of spiders.

I am a potterhead. Harry Potter, as it has to many people everywhere, helped me to accept things about myself, let things go, explore things about myself and my world, broaden my mind and actually allow myself to think about the future. It gave me hope, courage, cleverness, inspiration, and belief. For the longest time, I believed that I loved Harry Potter so much because of the future it opened for me. But now, so close to the new chapter of my life, I’ve come to the realization that the true reason I loved Harry Potter instantly was because of the companionship I felt with Harry.

Going from “the freak”, the unwanted relation charity case, to the “Boy-Who-Lived”. The Great Harry Potter. Not a single person in this new world did not know his name. No one cared about his past; no one knew his past at all except for his infant triumph. He was able to start anew. He had already learned from past mistakes and faults and bad habits to be a stronger person in this new life. The new mistakes he made, the faults he gained, and the bad habits he established weren’t as bad because he was already adapted from the past. And the new friends he made, the new family he gained, viewed him from those new ones and not the old.

I never knew that I yearned for that until, as aforementioned, my new chapter moves ever nearer. I applied far away, thinking of new experiences. I said firmly that my first Christmas away I would not return, thinking that it would help me in my settlement. I looked with joy upon the distances of those colleges, and the opposite weather climates they held. And I began to observe my friends and family more closely, so as not to miss anything in the few precious months left.

It was immediate, my understanding of my irritation every time my past was brought up. My mother telling stories of my toddler days, not a new practice of the last eighteen years. My friends laughing over past mistakes and teasing me about them as friends do. I absolutely, irrevocably hated it.

Why do I hate my past so much?

I was a bully. I was ignorant, stupid, cruel, and loathe to anything healthy. I was greedy, spoiled, and a cheater. I followed the crowd and I was one of those children most adults wished were far, far away from theirs. I don’t even know how I became friends with the ones I have today, but somehow I did and that at least proves I had some good in me back then. When I read Harry Potter, and saw his change, I thirsted for the same and so I did it. I changed. I discovered a deep love for reading and for learning. I found a way to use my ugly competitiveness with intellectual pursuits so that my meaner, darker side wasn’t so close to the surface. I adapted my personality to the parts of fictional character’s I admired most. Humility, bravery, compassion, open-mindedness, love, laughter, kindness, cleverness, ambition, charity, subtleness, sensitivity, leadership, courage, determination, and flexibility. I continued to make mistakes, however, but not as catastrophic as before.

And no one seems to see all of those wonderful changes. Yes, I still flinch when I think on my past mistakes. Reminiscing about it makes me curl up on my bed; my hands cross over my chest as if to cover the cold feeling that presides there. I tell myself the shame, humiliation, and regret has no place any longer because I am not that person anymore. I have moved on. That I have, in a sense, gone to Hogwarts and started anew.

Now I realized that I haven’t. I haven’t had that great door burst open before me and the move from old to new. I haven’t taken that train and I haven’t put on that hat.

I haven’t. I haven’t!

But I will. I now understand why I am going far away. I want to know who I am without constantly being surrounded by who I was. I want to return from that experience, changed and altered and hopefully happier, and see what my past thinks of me.

What will my mother, who refuses to know me as a teenager and think only of my time as an infant and a toddler, see?

What will my best friends, who refuse to let go of the past, horrible versions of me, see?

More importantly, what will I see?

I don’t expect some fantastical adventures full of sorcery and prophecies and evil dark lords. I do expect adventures of magic and friendship and loss, of snarky elders and arch-nemeses, of crazily unique people and people who have yet to come into themselves. I expect life, nothing more.

Each year, I focus on a single quote to be the base definition of my experiences and who I am for that time period. Last year it was “As weak as we are divided, as strong as we are united.” Because my friends were splitting up, love come and gone, and family crises. Everything was falling to pieces. I needed that quote to remind me of the strength of together. This year, my quote is “It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” By Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. I chose it because it is my senior year and the rest of my life is basically darkness and unknowing-ness. I feared it very much.

Now I embrace it. Because I don’t know it. And it doesn’t know me. Not one lick. Nothing will be taken from my past but me. Of course, those in my new future will come to know it. But they will know the new me first and only see the transformation from old to new as I view it now.

So, in the end, Harry is my alternative, ever-cooler, fictional persona. Pasts that we’re not too proud about, and the chance to start anew. Like a Phoenix. They must burn up in their old lives and are born anew in the ashes. Ashes which are easily blown away into the air to become nothing. I wouldn’t have realized it if it weren’t for Harry.

Thank you, Harry. Thank you for being the awkward boy under the stairs and still becoming the great wizard and man you are today. Thank you for making mistakes and moving past them. Thank you for the friends you have and the mentors you learned from. Thank you for the virtues you discovered. Thank you, most of all, for being you and not letting anyone else change that. Thank you for teaching me to be me.