Deeply Felt: Universal Truths

The highs and lows of life, as experienced at a theme park.

Hi, friends. It’s been a minute (more like a month) since I last joined you here. I’ve got an announcement at the end of this post to explain more, but wanted you to know that I’m suspending paid subscriptions for now. My deepest, deeply felt gratitude goes out to those of you who have helped financially support this endeavor.

If you read my last post, then you know that I have been off trying to find the FUN that had, as of late, been evading me. I’ve also just been extremely occupied with all of the activities that go along with having two Gemini children whose birthdays come a week apart…and that week also happens to be the last of the school year.

Once the balloons had popped (pro tip—never buy them from Party City unless you have millions to spare; Dollar Tree is your friend), the gifts opened, the candles blown out, and the remnants of school days buried in backpacks had been discarded, I set out on an epic adventure with my now 10-year-old to Universal Studios in Orlando.

Spoiler: I thought I was going to die on this ride. And not in a fun way.

He’s too young to remember it, but prior to moving to Austin we took a family vacation to Bali and Hong Kong, where we spent a day at Hong Kong Disney—one of the best, most manageable theme parks I’ve ever visited. As my older son recently had me explain to someone, we ended up in Bali because I had some wine at a preschool auction and became very competitive bidding for a week in an Indonesian villa. I stand by these actions. If you’ve been reading Deeply Felt for a while, however, then you know our financial picture has changed in recent years. There has definitely been no bidding, drunk or otherwise, on any vacations. Instead, my generous relatives sent Griffin and me on this trip once they found out that was his 10th birthday wish. I’ve tearily thanked them so many times at this point they’ve likely turned it into a drinking game.

Off we went, for four days of adventuring at Universal Studios. He loves Harry Potter so this was a wizarding-world specific journey, and I’d be happy to discuss my feelings about J.K. Rowling’s awfulness with you while also telling you that these are some of the first books he’s ever been interested in reading, so yes, we went there.

I won’t bore you with the details of our theme park days. There are hundreds of blogs and Reddit threads that can map out all the specifics of how to make the most of your time/budget/express pass/tennis shoes/food allergies/etc. for each park. I know this because I read them all.

What I am going to tell you is that somewhere among the crowds of people all trying to stay hydrated and sunburn-free, the thousands of steps walked, and the anticipation of whether a ride would be worth the wait, we found the fun. We found Oh-So-Much-FUN.

Heading into our first ride on Day 1. Yes, I was already sweating.

Immersing yourself in a theme park means, to a certain extent, you must disengage from what you know to be true. You are not actually trying to escape Gringotts Bank while Bellatrix and Voldemort seek to destroy you. You are not chasing Velociraptors in Jurassic World. You are not becoming a minion, nor are you learning how to fly on top of a dragon.

You know these things, and yet, you loosen your grip on reality in order to feel the childlike wonder that brought you to this place. You allow yourself to fly, to fight bad guys, and even to be scared sh*tless because you hope/know it will all be okay in the end (thank you, safety harness!) And, if you’re very lucky, you get experience it all with a young person who really does believe they have stepped into these worlds.

On our last day, we went to the newly opened Epic Universe. So newly opened, in fact, that we got stuck on two different rides, one of which had us suspended in air, reclined backwards like we were at the dentist, while an animatronic monster stared us down. Deeply felt panic bubbled to the surface on that one.

For the most part, though, the park lived up to its name. The worlds they’ve created look and feel like nothing I’ve ever experienced. And, upon entering the How to Train Your Dragon Universe, the wide-eyed kiddo exclaimed, “It looks just like the real thing!” The real thing, of course, being an animated place he’s only seen on screen.

But that’s the magic, right? That’s where the fun lies. Being able to exist in a place where things are both familiar but also stupendous.

We tried to figure out our favorite ride. An impossible task, really. Certainly the water ride named after a character neither of us knew, Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls, is high on the list—we rode it back to back and I didn’t even mind the wet clothes for hours after.

The Harry Potter experiences were everything we hoped they would be and so much more. My little wizard found his perfect wand: Cypress and Phoenix Feather. It’s said this wand matches with owners who are “courageous and altruistic…drawn to a master who is unafraid of shadows.”

We decided the last ride we would take on the entire trip was the Constellation Carousel at Epic Universe. I read on one of the blogs that it was unique from typical merry-go-rounds and that while one might be tempted to skip it for more thrill-based rides, it was worth checking out. The wait was 35 minutes, which felt a bit long to us TBH, but we were in the shade, the kid had a blue frosting covered churro, and I was soaking up the last few moments of this precious time together.

My heart.

We rode the Caro-Seuss-el at Islands of Adventure the day before and though I hadn’t been on one in years, a carousel is a carousel is a carousel. You go round and round and up and down in one direction. It’s predictable—the same people behind, beside and ahead of you the whole time. The Constellation Carousel, however, flips the script. Not only does it have the traditional turntable, there are four smaller turntables that all rotate, plus the creatures you ride on can rotate 360 degrees as they lift you 6’ in the air.

What that means for the rider is that you’re not going in the same direction the whole time. You circulate through the larger carousel, rising and falling as you interface with different people, all going in different directions themselves.

It doesn’t go fast enough to be disorienting. Rather, you’re aware that even though it’s familiar, it’s also unpredictable. And that’s what makes it fun. It doesn’t send you upside down screaming for the good lord to save you (ahem, Velocicoaster), but it does create new pathways where you once thought there was only way around. You know, kind of like life itself.

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About an hour after we finished this ride, back at the hotel eating pizza in the lobby and planning our last gift shop trip, I received heart-shattering news. My dear friend and mentor, HGTV’s Content Chief, Loren Ruch, had passed away at the age of 55.

Our last hug, January 2023

Loren had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in the Spring of 2024. With his incredible husband, David, plus his friends and family by his side, he faced this diagnosis with bravery and determination. Loren was, plainly stated, the best a human could be. Creative, compassionate, hilarious, whip-smart; I could keep listing adjectives and never be able to fully capture the breadth of his humanity. Just google his name and you’ll see every tribute is the same: he was one of a kind and made everyone around him better.

I took in this news with the knowledge that my son was next to me, having just experienced the most fun four days of his life. I tried, god did I try, to keep my emotions in check. But as texts starting coming in confirming the impossible, I couldn’t contain my tears.

“I’m so sorry, buddy,” I said. “Mommy just found out a really good friend of hers passed away and I’m having a hard time right now.”

I was worried my emotions would ruin the end of his birthday trip. But I forgot what kind of wizard I was dealing with. Courageous. Altruistic. Unafraid of the shadows.

He reached over and rubbed my back, saying, “I’m so sorry, Mommy.” He wasn’t concerned about his fun, he was worried about my heart.

I pulled myself together the best I could, inhaling my gluten-free pepperoni pizza like any emotional eater worth her salt would. I looked him in his beautiful blue eyes and said, “You know what? Loren would want us to keep having fun. Let’s go shopping.”

I barely slept that night, or any of the following nights, because this loss is oh so deeply felt. A cruel reminder that life isn’t fair. The good guys always come out on top at the theme parks, but in real life, for those who knew Loren, we all lost the best guy of all.

For 15 years, Loren was behind me on the carousel. He cheered me on, giving me professional opportunities, serving as an enthusiastic reference, and laughing with me on set after set as we tried to make the best television possible. When my husband, John, was diagnosed with brain cancer, he stayed on the ride with me when others didn’t.

As I’ve mourned Loren this past week, and ached for those closest to him, I’ve thought a lot about the Constellation Carousel. About how life doesn’t let us keep moving in the same direction. It’s not just one giant platform that spins in a circle, keeping the people around us in the same place.

It moves us all around, taking us on different paths with different people, never quite knowing where we’ll end up—or who will end up next to us in the end.

I found the fun at Universal with one of the most fantastic people I’ve ever known.

I also got my heart shattered at Universal by the sudden loss of one of the most fantastic people I’ve ever known.

But as always, I’m still just so damn grateful to be on the ride, wherever it might lead.

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As I mentioned at the top, I’m turning off paid subscriptions for now. Writing Deeply Felt over the past year has been such a labor of love—an endeavor that has given me the confidence to, at long last, pursue a different form of writing. For the past month, I’ve been working on my first novel. Trust me when I say I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to tackle this genre. But I am. And because of the dedication I need to give that pursuit, I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to give Deeply Felt my all.

It’s not going anywhere, but I wouldn’t feel right taking money from those of you who are paying subscribers (my dear Loren was one of them), when I can’t promise how often you’ll see Deeply Felt in your inbox.

I hope you’ll stick around, though. We have so much to discover about life and all its deeply felt wonders. And I sure do hope we can do it together.

With love and gratitude,

Kelly