if harry potter is your thing, then you've probably heard of the new ilvermorny sorting quiz on Pottermore. if you don't keep up with the magical times, then you might be wondering what's going on?
don't fret, i was in the dark as well but saw the light! ilvermorny is the North American magical school that exists within the entire harry potter universe. there are other schools in various other locations (such as Brazil, Japan, and Uganda) that rowling has written on before, except that we now have one more originated from North America.
of course, i had to take the quiz on Pottermore because it just seemed like the right thing to do.
i have to say, all of the questions were pretty great. they were simple but thought-provoking. so, when i came upon one i had to stop and really think about it for a couple minutes.
the one that caught my eye was the soulmate one. the question goes like this:
A soulmate is...i guess this question primarily struck me because of where i'm at in my life. i'm 24, turning 25 in a couple months. my friends and i have graduated college and find ourselves in that never-ending cycle of being an adult and working.
- out there somewhere
- an illusion
- a psychic twin
- strong where i'm weak, weak where i'm strong
when people ask me how my university experience was i find myself describing it as a wonderful bubble; a fictional world presiding on the cusp of reality.
when you're in college, the world it exists in and the people who live inside of it become your reality.
school is composed of begrudgingly waking up in the morning trying to decide if you want to make it to your 8AM class or if you can merely survive off of other's notes and your own studying, late-night hours at the library with various cups of coffee, parties and social gatherings on the weekends (or even weekdays) interacting with a multitude of people in hopes of finding your social niche, deadlines that creep up on you for neglecting to keep an orderly schedule throughout the semester, winter and summer breaks that mean finally reuniting with your family who you haven't seen for months and finding an odd sense of nostalgia when you return home, and eating endless amounts of horrible food with little to no exercise.
when you graduate this precious bubble bursts. it just goes " p o p " and you're sucked into reality- that foregone world you left behind for a couple years while you were off making memories and rejoicing in your youthfulness.
around this time two years ago, when i was about 23, things began to shift a bit. sure, i was still in that bubble of college, but there was a certain unease that began to filtrate its way inside my enclosure.
it was a sort of signal, alerting me to the fact that we were going to leave this place in about a year's time. it was also about everyone reflecting on their lives and what they were studying, where they were going from here.
post-graduation became a major theme of our conversations when we would meet up with one another after class or on the weekends and ask "where were we heading? what's to come?"
now, a year after having graduated and settled down a bit, the conversation has shifted once again to "will we find ourselves alone or with that significant other anytime soon?"
some of us might not want to admit to it, but on some level, finding a person who makes you feel right and good, makes you laugh, who you can confide in and drag to all your own dorky things is a mate who your soul finds solace in (at least for some period of time).
for those of us who are single and just doing our own thing, this other unknown person starts to appear in our minds more. now our bubble is gone and it's hard to meet other people. my generation says the way to go are dating apps. that whole bumping into a stranger thing or meeting people while you're out is a farce.
when i took the ilvermorny quiz and got to the soulmate question, i sighed and said, "hmm..." while i don't take the idea of a soulmate so seriously as to there's one and only one destined for you, i think finding that compatibility is pretty one of a kind, and it's something that the majority of my generation is searching for.
this is why the guys in fictional stories are so eternal. they steal hearts and show up at the right time and place (well, usually). what's your take on soulmates and who is your current fictional heartthrob?
xo Alex
