I was planning on writing about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for this week’s blog post. (Don’t worry, though–no spoilers here.) It seemed like the obvious choice. I knew I would finish the book by Monday at the very latest.

I may try and write about it another time, but the thing is, I just couldn’t write about it this week.

There’s a lot I liked about it. Really. But there were a lot of things that bothered me and that I found disappointing. AND I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. I haven’t figured it out yet.

However, anytime I saw a kid with the book, or read about all the excitement, it made me smile. As crazy as 2016 has been on a number of levels, it makes me happy to see this phenomenon. It feels like a throwback to 10+ years ago…a “return to normalcy,” almost.* (I kind of like the feeling that an obsession with Harry Potter  is the natural human state.)

Maybe it’s just nostalgia. I very heavily associate Harry Potter with my childhood (well, adolescence, really), after all. But mostly I think it’s the simple happiness that comes from being able to lose yourself in something that you love.

What can I say? People love to love the things they love.

*Side note: “Normality” is a waaaay better word than normalcy (I mean, even aside from the fact that normalcy isn’t really a word), so I don’t know why it ever became a thing.