The End

--No spoilers for Harry Potter follow. None.--

Oh, man. I've been so busy lately with all this...um...math. I've been doing math...and other grown-up things. I've been, you know, paying bills and taking meetings.

Oh, I can't lie to you, blog. I've been reading Harry Potter. I read most of the seventh and final book over the weekend and then spent an agonizing day at work on Monday while 250 pages of the last of the unread Harry sat at home, all its secrets and revelations practically shaking its binding with the effort of remaining undiscovered--or at least that's how I imagined the book while I tried to concentrate on working.

I was like a hawk--no, the opposite of a hawk--all day. I strove to have the senses and world perspective of a mole. I avoided any internet sites I didn't absolutely have to visit for work, and I didn't even read the news. I needed groceries, but the fear of some loud-mouthed preteen at the store yapping on their cell phone about the ending of the series drove me straight home after work.

The bittersweet moment came, I turned the last of those pages, and now it is done. And I have to say I'm glad. Those damn books made a tool of me, and frankly, I've had it. Upon the release of book six, I sat on one chair in my mom's otherwise empty house, reading for two days. And that's what Harry has done for me: revealed who I am when no one's looking. When there isn't anyone there to cast a look as they pass your completely immobile body at all hours of the day; when there isn't anyone to see the stains on your clothes from food you finally forced yourself to eat, evidence of failed attempts to balance a 700-page book and a plate of macaroni and cheese; when no one is around to watch the shower go unused or to finally ask, "What's that smell coming from that chair?" then, I say, you meet your true self.

So I think that, like people who discovered these books much earlier in their lives, I, too, can say I've grown up with Harry. It took real maturity to turn out the light on Sunday night, set the alarm, go to work Monday.

And now it is time to get on with my life...

...and, I have to admit, most likely find some other series of books for adolescents. But you know, until they label a section at the bookstore "Old Adult Fiction with Whimsy," I'll just have to remain a young adult at heart...and in posture.