Aurora's Blog

The story has been sufficiently told, but there were two little things I forgot to mention, so I thought I’d throw in this post.

Because public transportation in L.A. is the way it is, I had to leave my house around 11pm to catch the last buses going to Disneyland. (The first ones in the morning didn’t get there early enough.)

I was walking through Downtown Disney around 1:45am. It was surprisingly calm and pretty to be strolling around Disney at night when barely anybody was there. I love walking around through fun, lit-up places at night. It’s always exciting to find a new one I like (especially since all the ones I currently like are in New York).

I found that sweet LEGO dragon in my fun, nighttime walk. And I saw a few super happy cast member stragglers walking out of the park. Either it’s not just an act and everyone at Disney is always that happy. Or, maybe they were happy that the day was done and all the tourists were at home. Either way, it was nice to see people just being joyous and enjoying being around each other when nothing was going on and no one was watching (well, except me, I guess).

I then went and sat in the lobby of the Adventureland tower at the Disney hotel. I figured that maybe if I  was dressed like a runner with my official Disney runner plastic bag for bag check; they’d think I was a guest who got up early and was dozing off, instead of riff-raff sleeping in their lobby. I looked as put together and “runnery” as possible. I opened up an Entertainment Weekly to make it look like I was accidentally dozing. Sure enough, no one bothered me. Success!

After a couple of hours of half-asleep sleep, I officially woke up, walked to the starting line with Wendy, and did the race (which I’ve already talked about).

And there was one thing I forgot to mention in the race report. There was a woman holding a sign that said, “It’s your moment today.” For some reason that really hit me, because I think we have a tendency to celebrate silly moments in our culture.

For instance, we celebrate birthdays… We didn’t do anything special on that day, yet that’s “our moment.” We often celebrate weddings as “the bride’s moment.” (Not all weddings are this way of course, but far too often, they’re not about celebrating love. They’re a day for a bride to dress up as a princess (and be “given away” from one man to another man – don’t get me started on weddings).)

But this really is your moment today. And I’m not just talking about half marathons. I’m talking about any day where we actually accomplish something. The day you climb a mountain? That’s your moment. The day you get a 2400 on the SATs? Your moment. If you’re Cory Booker, every day is your moment because you’re being a constant hero.

I thought it was really great to have someone reminding us, “It’s your moment!” (Thank you, kind stranger.) I encourage all of you out there who ran today, or learned something new, or helped a fellow human being, take a second to pat yourself on the back and enjoy your moment.