Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The release was amazing. I worked an eight hour on Friday, checking groceries, eagerly awaiting the evening...when I got done with my checker shift at 9pm, I went upstairs and changed into my Ravenclaw gear (yep, went ravie, even found my old theatre glasses!), and came down stairs to work the Harry Potter event at our store. We had a bunch of people, making crafts and watching movies and waiting for midnight.And it was so much fun--I mean, I loved talking to all of the people there, and really, of the five employees flitting around, on staff just for the event, I was the only harry potter nut. I mean, HUGE. and they knew it. I can never return to my former status...they all think I'm a bit nuts now, how excited I got...

At eleven fifty-five or so, I got to help bring the books out from our lock room. The manager on duty even opened a box then (even though he really shouldn't have, legally) and pulled aside a book for me, in case we sold out (we didn't get our full shipment, so that was a possibility..). I got to hold in my hands the final Harry Potter moments before the rest of the world (or atleast, my time zone!!)--I felt so privilaged, and it took everything in me not to rip it open and read the first page. But the first book at our store went to the winner of a Harry Potter trivia contest and drawing...and as he showed up to our event before it even started, technically, I am very glad he got the book. Handing it to him rocked, because I know how he felt--overjoyed, thrilled, and even a bit sad, because it was all ending, and he knew it.

We then entered the crazy task of getting books out to the hundred and fifty or so in line...two checkstands going, with myself and another employee carfully opening cases of books and handing them, one at a time, to the fans that had been there all night, waiting. By the end of the hour, everyone had purchased their treasure. Half had rushed off immediately, the other half was cluttered just outside the store entrance, reading. I didn't get that luxury yet, though. I forced myself to put my book with my bag and help clean up the event.

It wasn't until after buying a late dinner, driving an excuciatingly long twenty five minutes home at one thirty AM, and procuring a quiet place to read that I got to crack the cover of the book that I had anticipated for about a decade.

But I will certainly not spoil it here. No. I love the other fans way too much. (I may put something on my journal, but no worries, it will be in all white text!)

I could not be happier with the way it came out. (okay, a few deaths bothered me, but still...) I sit here thinking about it at (now) nearly 4 am, and I want to cry, almost, because it is over, but I am so happy about it all that I couldn't even dream of crying. It's hard to explain, but I know you all probably understand....