Dreams

Dreams We should’ve seen it coming. I think something in us knew, when we walked into work that day, that nothing would be the same. But when you work at Disney World, somehow the troubles of the world don’t seem so close. Pixie dust can blind you.

We should’ve seen it coming, though. I was on shift when guests told us Disneyland had shut its gates. I had a cashiering shift, dressed in the red and gold stripes of Storybook Circus, wishing those guests who brought us unthinkable news a magical day. That day, my coworkers and I gathered in the break room spinning questions. Questions without answers.

We should’ve seen it coming, the closure. But we didn’t expect to be sent home. A few weeks off, we thought. Maybe. Disney World doesn’t close for anything. But, maybe, if it did, we could stay.

But we were college students. Our apartments were like dorms. Once that first bombshell dropped, we should’ve known we would be sent home. We would lose the dream we’d all fought so hard to get.

I know I had fought for it. Six years before, after a battle I conquered with suicide, I wrote one phrase, one goal, on a little whiteboard. “I will work for Disney,” it said. My goal to keep me going. For six years, everything I did pointed towards that dream.

And I lived it. For fifty-one days, I achieved my lifelong dream. But the Virus cut that short. I will never forget that moment. It is seared into my memory forever.

I was smiling before I got the news. I worked the register, proud to be in my Stripes and trading pins with children and adults alike. There is a joy at Disney, even when the world is falling.

There is a duty to be upheld as a cast member, to keep smiling, to help make magic.

I’m glad I was backstage when I got the news.

One of my coworkers rushed over to me. She lowered her voice, saying that there was something I should see. I felt a tingling in my body, like spiders crawling up my spine. A coldness, numb, as I knew something terrible was going to happen. But I followed her out, abandoning my post to another full time cast member.

I saw their tears before I saw the email. Two of my fellow college students, both in Stripes, and another in regular clothes, huddled around a phone. My heart dropped. I covered my mouth, not wanting to hear the words even as they were spoken.

“We have to go home.”

The physical pain I felt at those words cannot be put in text. It felt like being punched in the gut over and over and over. I wanted to scream, to protest. But I couldn’t. The email was right there, the one telling us our dreams were over.

Our leaders gave us time to process. Not a single face was dry that day, college program or otherwise. Disney is a family, even for those of us who had been there but a few months.

Backstage filled with sobbing interns, some taking walks and some crumpling against walls. All were making phone calls.

My first was to my best friend. For six years I had battled to get to this internship. For six years I had worked and studied and in twenty-four hours I had lost it. We didn’t know where to go, what to do. International students cried over the prospect of returning home perhaps even more than we did. But we had each other.

We didn’t know then what we know now. Disney granted us full completion of the internship with alumni status, as well as a few weeks’ pay. It was more than they had to do. But there, backstage as we cried and hugged and panicked over getting home, all we had was each other and our grief.