Disney: An Introvert's Nightmare?

I know that as an academic, I am supposed to, as one stuffy ex-boyfriend of mine once put it, "hate all things Disney": the voracious capitalism, the aggressive marketing-to-children, and all of it hidden behind the smiling faces of fluffy stuffed animals.

But I don't. When my husband suggested taking a detour to Orlando while we were visiting my Cuban-American Miami in-laws, I jumped at the chance.

I'm not sure why. Just last summer, I spent three days in an air-conditioned hotel shaking hands with authors and scoring free books from the American Library Association Conference in Anaheim while my husband and his mother went to Disneyland.

Worse, I have so many memories of the sweaty heat and the standing in line for hours and hours during family trips to Disneyland as a kid. Unlike some of my very sweet students (at least one or two per year) who are absolute Disney fanatics (and I mean getting secret info. on unauthorized social networking sites fanatics), I dreaded things like a trip to Disneyland or, even worse, a family vacation.

My poor parents. They did everything so diligently. My dad dutifully drove us on the week-long summer vacation every year, which my stay-at-home mom carefully planned. And I hated every trip. Not because I was a bratty teenager (when you're a straight-A student who doesn't go out much, you can't be too bratty), but because I was an introvert and an OCD sufferer. At the time of course, none of us had heard of OCD, so, of course, I didn't know why I would spend the whole car ride worrying if I had left the curling iron on. I just knew bad feelings crept in whenever I would be plucked out of my regular routine, isolated with my ever-present worries, and prevented from doing anything typical of my everyday life.

For most people, ditching their everyday life is precisely the point of a vacation. But it is precisely what made vacations very stressful for me. Some of my reading on autism, though I thank God almost daily that I do not suffer as extensively as they do from disruption of routine and sensory overstimulation, has helped me understand why this might be.

So I should have expected that the crowds and the bright sunlight and the standing in line with nothing to do but feel anxious would catapult me right back to childhood OCD-on-vacation mode and make my morning less than enjoyable.

But as the day went on, I discovered that there are a lot of things about Disney parks that are quite amenable to the introvert. There are lots of shows, movies, and rides which transport you into an imaginative world and allow you to focus on that world. While this is happening, you can be with others, but you don't have to make small-talk with them.

I'll even risk ostracism from the cynic's club and the highly sensitive person's club to say that I even enjoyed the fireworks at Disney World's Magic Kingdom tonight. Yes, they were loud, but we watched them in an area where we weren't too crowded together, and, I don't know if this was intentional, or just because we were watching from a less popular location behind the castle, but the fireworks were not just in front of us or above us. It seemed that they were being launched from all directions: in front of us, behind us, and even, later, on the sides. As they made their sparkling, colorful trajectory around us, I thought, this is what it must be like to live inside a just-shaken snow globe. In short, it was awesome, and I proudly share with you readers the introverted, simile-inspiring moment that I managed to have in a very extroverted place.