It’s a family joke that I never wanted to see Star Wars. I’m not sure what was going on in my preteen mind to make me think I wouldn’t like it–maybe because I wasn’t that into sci-fi at that point, or whatever. So it surprised everybody–myself most of all–when my parents took me to see the re-released A New Hope in theaters in 1997 and it instantly became my favorite movie.
I was 13. I was weird. I wanted to be like other girls, just enough so they’d stop making fun of me, but had no idea how to do it. I wore thick glasses and had a speech impediment. I didn’t understand it yet, but I already had anxiety severe enough to keep me up at night. I could count the number of friends I had on one hand.
I didn’t know then how seeing that movie would profoundly change my life. I could write hundreds of thousands of words about Star Wars, but suffice it to say that I take it very seriously, so much so that the Rebel Alliance symbol is permanently branded onto my forearm. I couldn’t imagine, until looking back years later, how seeing Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia affected me. She came into my life 20 years after she’d been introduced to the rest of the world: wielding a blaster, yelling at her would-be saviors, smart-mouthed even in the face of almost certain death.
She was short and had brown hair and brown eyes, like me. Sure, she was beautiful and badass while I was awkward and goofy, but I wanted to see myself in her.
The original Star Wars trilogy very quickly became an important part of my life. Within months, posters were everywhere in my childhood bedroom. I used to watch them in order every day after school. Monday, A New Hope. Tuesday, The Empire Strikes Back. Wednesday, Return of the Jedi. Thursday, start all over again. I loved Luke and Han, but Leia… she was my hero.
Not that there was anything cool about me to begin with–I was an eighth-grader with a report card full of Cs, I wore boys’ pants because they were comfortable, I wasn’t pretty or athletic or girly enough to fit in with any crowd, I talked about video games too much–but liking Star Wars most definitely made one uncool. Because then you were a nerd.
I was already a nerd, but it was around this time that I stopped denying it.
The art of not giving a fuck is a beautiful thing. I can’t say that Star Wars, Carrie Fisher, and Princess Leia were entirely responsible, but I do know that they came into my life at a time when I cared way too much about what others thought of me (and since they didn’t think much of me, it caused me great stress and sadness). That can’t be a coincidence.
But then, people started making fun of me for my very obvious Star Wars obsession–I had the t-shirts, books, beach towels, magazines, basically any piece of licensed material I could get my hands on–and I found that I simply did not care. No one was going to diminish what these movies had done for me.
I started seeking out other movies with Carrie Fisher, because I was just fascinated by her. Back in the days of dial-up, I couldn’t just pull up Wikipedia and find out every detail about her life. I had to get it in bits and pieces, from TV specials that were, thankfully, plentiful in 1997 because of the movie re-releases. Did you know that Carrie Fisher is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds, I told my mom? (Yes, everyone knew that, and further, I had no idea who Debbie Reynolds was, but it was still interesting to me.) Hey, have you seen When Harry Met Sally? Princess Leia’s in it! Because it wasn’t just Leia I loved, it was the woman behind her as well.
In my teens, I learned that Carrie Fisher had battled substance abuse and mental health issues–and found her calling as a writer. I wanted to be a writer! I’d always written, from as far back as I have memories. I wrote journals, I wrote fiction, I wrote terrible poetry. I just needed a way to get all the shit happening in my brain to CALM DOWN FOR JUST A SECOND and that seemed to do it. By then I had become severely depressed (but still didn’t understand it or acknowledge it in any meaningful way). Finding out that my goddamn hero was like me in more than just cosmetic ways just made me adore her even more.
In recent years, thanks to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its years-long press extravaganza, I’ve been reminded just how wonderful and witty Carrie Fisher is. Was? Fuck, no, not ready for that yet. Her comments on ageism in Hollywood and sexism in general have always been poignant. The way she talks to and about her costars, especially Mark Hamill and especially especially Harrison Ford, is endlessly endearing.
But what I find most admirable about her is her advocacy for mental health issues. I couldn’t talk about my own mental health issues until I was almost 30 years old. If you’ve done the math on this post, that means I went silent and untreated for seventeen years. Seventeen years of feeling crazy and broken, of feeling so sad I physically couldn’t stand or so panicked I was 100% positive I was dying of a heart attack. It’s hard shit. And the thing I’ve learned is, even when you’re okay with talking about it, it still tends to make other people really uncomfortable when you do.
And yet here was Carrie Fisher, once again being an absolute badass, talking so openly about being bipolar. In books, in interviews.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Princess Leia came into my life when I needed her the most, and unknown to 13-year-old me, the woman behind her turned out to be even more of an inspiration.
These words feel hollow and stupid and I know that Carrie Fisher would have had something hilarious and biting and witty to say in this situation but I haven’t stopped crying in 5 hours so I thought I’d try writing. It sucks that we’re going to be deprived of her wit, her light, her writing, her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
May the Force be with you, General. You never knew me, but you changed my life.
charming-tothelast