The most beautiful thing I saw all week at Disney World was not in any park or on any ride, it was in a swamp we came across walking early this morning on our last day, before we headed to the airport to come home. It was a beautiful thing, I was enchanted by this swamp. It also helped me see how my world has changed,  how I have changed. Vacations can help you see yourself more clearly if you are paying attention.

On our trip, looking back on the week, it is interesting that we were drawn again and again to the animals of the Animal Kingdom, we watched the gorillas and the bats, we scoured the grounds for silent green paths. We remember little of the trip, it was intense and rich, but we remember the animals, the quiet times on the beach, the walks in the quiet spaces, the ride on the water. This, I thought, is what I love, these are my favorite places.

Loving someone can also change perspective, you can see yourself clearly through the prism of someone you love, you can figure out who you are by who they see. Maria and I have often done that for one another, and I am still struggling to figure out who I am, what it is I really love and care about it.

We had a great time at Disney World, the weather was good, so much to see. But I also learned a lot about myself there, I took some large steps towards knowing who I am, something that is important to me, I was so lost for so long. Looking around Disney World all week, I told Maria that I could not see us anywhere, could not find us anywhere in the vast throngs of people swarming through the parks and crowding into the ferries, buses and trains. A friend called to say he saw me dancing in a line, he was glad I was having fun, but I could not, he added, have looked more out of place.

For most of my life, I avoided the quiet places, kept some distance from the animals, stayed away from nature. That has changed, I am finding myself, coming into the life that is the deepest part of me.

I am grateful for this trip, I enjoyed it very much, we both did, it turned out to be a gift to me in more ways than I imagined.

Maria asked if I wanted a Minnie Mouse doll, but I didn’t want a Minnie Mouse doll, I told her I don’t need Minnie Mouse any longer, I am not eight years old, and I have the real thing, a better thing. Then she asked if I wanted to have my photo taken with Tinkerbell, and I said no, I didn’t really need that, but she didn’t believe me, she said she could see in my face that I wanted it, so I did pose with Tinkerbell. It didn’t feel right.

Afterward, I realize that Maria was seeing something inside of me that I was projecting, sensing signals I was somehow giving out.  She was seeing something in me that I don’t believe is really there any more, echoes of another time, another way of being.  I was one of those Boomer Dads, my daughter had to have face time with Mickey. Disney World reflected my own turbulence, drama, grandiosity, big gestures and money, chaos. What was I doing to make Maria think that these things were so important to me? Was it my jokes about them, my memories, my talk about my trips, and Walt Disney, the smile she says she saw when I talked of them?

I realized I was playing a role, and an unconscious one. I was pitching to the crowd. How cute, a 67-year-old man who loves Cinderella. Look, how cute, the magic never dies. Everybody loved it. But here is my curse, or one of them: truth for me is never black-and-white. I do not belong in a left-right world.

It isn’t that I don’t love the Disney stuff, it has been a part of my life for many years. I took my daughter to Disney World when she was 18 months old, and three more times after that. I returned again and again to write about Walt Disney and his visions and creations. It fascinates me still, my poor wife has heard too many stories about it.

But this morning, I sat Maria down at breakfast and told her what I have slowly realized is the truth, another step towards my long struggle for authenticity. I see that this is  not our place.  Not your place. That was another time, another life. I am not a parent of a small child now, not writing about Walt Disney for a living, not mooning over a cartoon mouse. I have moved on, my life has moved on, my dreams have moved on.

I am happy, she said, to be here if you want to be. Yes, I know, I said, but not the point.

Maria is not a part of this Disney dream, she was happy to come along, generous spirit that she is, but she would never go to Disney World in a million years if she didn’t think she was doing it for me. Too expensive, noisy, crowded. I know that, I saw it in her face all week. Standing and watching the animals, walking quietly in nature, that was her place, our space, one of the points where we come together.

Thank you for seeing that, she said. It makes me happy.

What did we love doing? Watching the family dynamics of apes, staring at long-horned antelopes, watching meercats scurry. Walking in nature, being together in peace and harmony and quiet.

There is nothing wrong with Disney World, a zillion people all around me were having great fun, the place is a marvel, like the Pyramids. The problem is me, I have not caught up with myself, a part of me is still mired in the years of delusion and excess, of pushing my kid into the things I wished I had been offered, of relieving the miserable fantasies of my own wretched childhood. How could I have missed all of this, how was I so blind to it? The genius of Walt Disney is that he spoke to children like me, he gave us hope and laughter and different messages than we had ever heard.

I have never forgotten him, how he told me dreams do come true, when I had lost faith that that they ever did. I believed him, he was right. Whenever I look at Maria, I know he was right.

But this week, I saw my dreams are very different, at least I began to see it, and it jarred me to the bone. Maria and I need to find a vacation for both of us, our own place, a place of rest and connection, a spiritual place, not one borne of my own fantasies and pain, as so many Disney lovers know. A place out of my authentic life, not my dysfunctional past. Disney World is the world’s greatest circus, but a circus still.

I have moved beyond it, grown and evolved in a different way. A part of that is Maria, we are so in sync, we share so much I selfishly failed to see that I was acting out my dream, not hers. That is wrong, that is not the kind of partner I wish to be. I was also not being honest with myself, failing to be authentic and clear.

I am grateful for every trip to Disney World, including this one, a generous gift when I needed one. I did not stare at the rides for hours, I avoided most of them and long lines around them, I stared at the gorillas for hours, and the hippos in the pool, and the elephants on the safari. My memories and dreams were not of Peter Pan and Cinderella, they were of quiet moments in the sun, birds on the marsh, the swamps at dawn.

I am, in so many ways reborn, reconnected to nature, to love, to the world of animals, walking on the path to a spiritual life, to healing and learning.

We left Disney World this morning, I am not sure I will be back there again (my daughter asks that I plan one more trip when she gets married and has a grandkid, she says I am the one to take him or her).  I felt that I was leaving something behind, and for good, and with it, pieces of myself from another life.

Dreams can come true, and they never need die, but they do need to move on and grow up sometimes.

And so, good people, do I.