#exvind

@amarearts

*squints at the orb* ...There are people I could probably use this on.

*squints even harder at the card*

*squints at the cake*

......

*goes to get a very large glass of milk*

While I had been shown the originals on VHS as a child, I fell in love with Star Wars. And. Joining the club of people with thirty years on me, I’ve been able to catch them all in theaters. And I remember everyone so clearly.

In 1997 I was five, not even six years old. Freshly moved to Indiana. A new movie theater had opened up - A Regal semi recently and it was one of the first movies I got to watch in a theater that wasn’t Disney. (Then.) I didn’t know about what had been put in through CGI. Or what those letters really meant. I knew “May the Force Be With You” with the entire original trilogy re released that wonderful year. The magic was real.

Two years later, and I begged and pleaded and got to after school go see The Phantom Menace. This kid was my age and was going to be Darth VADER?!?! WOW. It was so cool, especially the super long lightsaber fights. My friends and I pooled money to see it repeatedly that summer. 

The year I got braces was the year the Attack of the Clones came out. I’d fallen in love with video games and my access to the internet was wider but dang it if I didn’t love kazaa and starting into fan fiction on forums and while most of the politics flew over my head I cheered seeing a Mandalorian with an actual jetpack and BATTLEDROIDS WHAT?! And so many clones and I cheered no matter how stupid it was that Yoda brought out a lightsaber. It was bliss.

My best friend at the time in and I saw Revenge of the Sith in 2005, and we spent all summer after using boffer swords to recreate the Epic Fight. Going into high school proper and we ran ourselves silly working out when to leap back from eachother with the Force Push, doing the wonderful silly timed circle swings. And all the High Ground jokes. We laughed. And the joy was pure.

I saw The Force Awakens 10 years later on opening night. I had graduated college with a bullshit degree and was bussing tables. That morning I received a letter disqualifying me from military service after a solid year and a half of tests and training. A coworker had an extra ticket, and I was...well. I loved SWTOR. I loved the community. My friends. I’d been playing it since launch but...the magic was suddenly real again. It was, what I thought, one of the worst and best days of my life. A random act of kindness and...well. An awakening.

Two years later now getting used to the winter tradition of Star Wars rather than long summers of the blockbuster, I was working a job I loathed for a company that I despise making more money at the cost of sanity and empathy. But I left work early, happily taking up another mark on my record to drive to the south side. Dad had scored IMAX tickets on opening night for the Last Jedi. And you know what? Fuck discourse. I was not the only one exclaiming “HOLY SHIT” at the Hyperspace scene.

And tonight? Twenty Two Years after the first time I got to see a Star Wars movie in a theater, in about an hour I’m going to go on my own for the first time. Because I’m in a good place. A good job. My mental health is doing better than...I really thought possible for a long time. And I know there are going to be plot holes. There’s going to be so much fucking talk about plotlines and behind the scenes things with the plot and wasted potential and blah fucking blah.

That’s been true for forty fucking years folks. We just have the means now to broadcast our opinions globally. And I know I’m going to get into debates with my friends. But you know what? Star Wars means joy to me. 

And it has been a very long time since I could say that - but - it’s more like remembering something long forgotten. A lifeline back to summers with a bowl of popcorn larger than myself most years watching this wonderful, campy, flashy story unfold. I’m walking into the theater with a smile on my face, and I’m sure I’ll walk out with the same and a tear in my eye.