Harry Potter and growing up?

I'll admit this: I'm a massive dork. I still watch cartoons (Spider-Man and Gargoyles being my favorites, for those that remember them), and even though I don't collect baseball cards anymore, I still love them. I also religiously listen to a podcast by two crazy guys that talk about baseball, and I'm better at schoolwork than just about anything else I do. What I'm about to say shouldn't surprise you.

I love Harry Potter. I always have. I don't know what it is about the wizard and his adventures, but I've always been drawn to J.K. Rowling's stories. I read the first book after checking it out of my fourth grade social studies teacher's classroom supply, and plowed through the next three in a matter of months. I came into the series at a perfect time, because my fourth grade year ended in the summer of 2003, the year that the long-awaited Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. Even though the sixth and seventh books were released on a bi-yearly basis afterward, movies three through five were released between 2004 and 2007, sufficiently whetting my Harry Potter appetite. The seventh book came out in 2007, marking the end of the series, which should have been more sad for me than it actually was. I figured, "Hey, the books are done, but movies will keep coming out for about four or five years, so I'm all good." Well, myself and all other Potter fans are about to reach the conclusion of the massive franchise. DH Part 2 (DH standing for Deathly Hallows) comes out on July 15th, and trust me, I'm excited. Without a doubt, I'll be going to the midnight show at my local theater (I do, however, have enough sense to not dress up) and I'm definitely going to be geeked up during the week leading up to it.

The headline of this poster is more fitting than WB realizes.

Its release date happens to coincide with my last summer before college. It's going be a weird three months. In all likelihood, I'll enjoy every minute of it, even though, at the same time, I'll dread going to sleep every night because it means I'll have one less day before becoming a "grown up." Trust me, I know college students are far from grown ups, but they're a whole lot closer to the real world than a high school student is. The end of the series, in a way, marks the end of my childhood. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. The Potter books take me back to when I didn't have to worry about ANYTHING except what I was going to do the next day. It seems fitting that the release of the movie happens to be when that mindset has to leave-- for good. Just like the Harry Potter series.