I Ran Away to Disney World by Myself at 14. It Saved My Life.

Every great animated Disney film begins the same way, with someone longing: to be up where the people are, to go the ball, to find true love, to discover or recover some strength or power… Suddenly, something sparks in them, and they decide to pursue a dream, make a change, take a chance, risk a journey, and we accompany them, cheering them on.

When their happy ending comes (and of course it does, ’cause Disney) it reminds us of when our dreams have come true. For me: my first real kiss, my wedding day, my first music video release… indelible. We treasure and remember the happy endings.

But the beginnings, happy or otherwise?

It’s easy to forget that “spark” moment, when a dream first chose us (and I propose: we don’t have dreams; dreams have us). Can you remember any of those sharp-involuntary-intake-of-breath moments? Some before-it-had-words “aha”? That literal inspiration before reality let doubt creep in?

I can.

Even though it happened 50 years ago, I don’t even have to consult a calendar to recall the exact date, time, and location when my most life-changing dream had me.

Friday, October 29, 1971, at 8:00 p.m., in Grand Rapids, Ohio.

I was 11.

We were only allowed to watch television three times the entire sixth grade year I spent in boarding school. The nuns of the Ursuline Sisters of the Sacred Heart didn’t usually allow such frivolity among the cadets of Nazareth Hall Military Academy. (Yes, I know, nuns and military school. Anyone else see the therapy bills in that future?)

I was enrolled in (read: exiled to) Catholic military school “to cut the apron strings,” or so my father hoped. I knew what that was really code for. You couldn’t grow up gay in 1960s rural Indiana with alcoholic parents (and a suicidal mother) without developing certain survival skills: a precocious sensitivity for subtext, and a keen eye for subterfuge. I overheard the whispers and caught the knowing glances between my father and Sister Mary Patrick, the principal (most definitely not my p-a-l). I recognized the military drills and mandatory early-morning masses for what they were: an all-out assault to discipline the “different” out of me and make me (gasp!) normal. I was conscripted into a system that demanded conformity: heads buzzed, shoes shined, belt buckles and buttons gleaming, and beds made with sheets so taut you could bounce a quarter off them.

I despised every part of it.

Until that fateful night.

We weren’t told what we were about to watch that autumn evening, but I knew it had to be something big.

The nuns marched us single-file in our pajamas down to the library and sat us on the floor in front of the console Zenith TV to watch a special Friday night broadcast of “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” on NBC. Exactly what my spirit yearned for in the bleakness of that grayscale gulag: something unashamedly “In Living Color” (cue the peacock, flute, and harp).

I watched, intrigued, as Glen “Rhinestone Cowboy” Campbell hiked through unidentifiable scrubland, strumming his guitar and singing. I scanned anxiously for clues to his location, impatient for the “special” part to be revealed, when suddenly he stopped and looked up as a monorail passed overhead and the announcer trumpeted “The Grand Opening of Walt Disney World.”

Disney World? There was something beyond Disneyland?? How could I not have heard of this entirely new magical destination? I was so transfixed, I don’t think I even hazarded a breath. Mind. Blown.

NBC

Sad fact: growing up in the Midwest, only really rich kids got to visit far-off, magical Disneyland. I was from Muncie, Indiana, pathetically the most average town in America. Our family took sensible, educational vacations. Indian Mounds. Old Forts. Caverns. The Liberty Bell was almost too extravagant for us.

I don’t know what it was about that night: the Dickensian boarding school, knowing my father’s idea of a perfect family life didn’t include an unindoctrinated me, or realizing that I didn’t fit in anywhere (and probably never would)–-but right there and then, I decided–-no, I knew: I was going to Walt Disney World someday, no matter what it took.

And I was going to go there by myself.

Maybe it was divine inspiration. Maybe some queer angel looked down and knew this lonely, misunderstood gay boy needed a magical life-preserver to cling to during the oncoming storms of adolescence, bullying, and conversion therapy. All I know is I started acting like it was the most natural thing in the world for an 11-year-old boy to go around telling everyone he could about his upcoming solo trip to Disney World, reality be damned.

I started planning. And saving. And budgeting. Paper routes, odd jobs, and washing dishes in the school cafeteria so I could pocket my lunch money. Family friends gave me leftover Walt Disney World ticket books with the A-, B-, C- and D-tickets intact–I only had to buy…