Tonight I watched Star Wars….
Oh, yeah, look. I know the young folks call it “A New Hope” or “Episode IV”, but when I was growing up the first movie was “Star Wars”. If Lucas still expects me to accept his tinkering after I had LITERALLY seen the movies more than 100 times, then I’m never gonna use his rebranding.
Yes, really. 100 times.
I worked my ass off cutting brush growing up to earn enough money to buy the movies on VHS. This is back in the days they were rental priced. I think I paid $75 per movie and then went and bought the Han vest and Luke jacket the fan club was also selling.** When I got those three tapes I would sit there a day watching the movies like an endless loop, starting over as soon Jedi was over. And I actually kept count on a chalk board!
It’s soooo damn embarrassing now! I can’t get my head around it. i can’t even stand to watch two episodes of a tv show back to back now. But back then I was in love, a total fangirl..
Plus, yah know, no streaming, no internet even, no cable, a handful of VHS tapes because they cost so much still, and the nearest video rental places a couple shelves in Roses 10 miles away! If you wanted to watch something at home there weren’t many choices! LOL
But I did love it, a deep unconditional love. The visceral thrill I felt as a six year old sitting by my father rippled through my life for decades. I’d watch the movie and feel it again every single time. It was a delight that was filled with the warmth of something connecting with you in a way that if feels it was always there. It was like a part of identity manifest in a movie***. Empire was my favorite, but Star Wars would always have a special place in my heart.
Or so I thought.
**sigh**
I wish I could feel what I always used to feel. I felt nothing tonight. No warmth. No delight. Just a hollowness.
And then I went into a full MST3K monologue, mocking my once beloved movie. I wish someone had been here to laugh. I miss laughter. Saying something and someone else snickering or smiling or even totally losing it in gales of laughter…now that’s one of the most wonderful things in the world.
But I couldn’t even feel the humor. Just nothing.
I’m not sure it’s the fault of Star Wars. I’m not feeling anything much from things I have always loved. Nothing brings delight. Not anything I watch or read or listen to or eat or wear or do or…. I can’t blame any of it on what I loved failing me. They are unchanged (well, relatively…damn you Lucas) but something about me has.
I’ve had all my hope worn away. It’s too hard to be happy anymore. Surviving is all I feel like I do, but I’m doing it by habit and my core obstinance rather than caring.
You can’t really love if you can’t even care. I know I love these things, but it’s like knowing you are supposed to love someone while suffering from amnesia.
Funny though that I can still feel grief over all this. I mourn loving things. It scares me, this nothingness where I always felt so much.
** I wore that vest to school every single day for at least a year! It’s so beyond ridiculous!
I mean, I always seemed to have a “thing” I wore like a life line, connecting me to the “real” me. School was traumatic, and I was losing myself to to it. I’d gone from extravert to introvert, and told myself I was just acting to survive. But I felt it happening, the crippling insecurity, the fear of people, seeping into my bones. So I’d wear something. For it a few years it was my ankh (lost), then my amethyst amulet (lost), then my denim jacket with a daily rotation of buttons/ pins/badges/brooches, and finally my leather jacket (my beloved). But that year did I have to latch onto this utterly geeky bit of clothing???
Of course, no one ever seemed to guess it was from Star Wars. You see, the movies were super popular, but geeks were NOT. To admit you knew what it was was to admit you were a geek too. I was the school’s (a K-12 school at that!) only open geek. I even wrote my senior year term paper on comics….’cause fuck it, I’ll never be popular but I can at least be me!
Gah, I remember Coach G—— (how victorian of me!) , the health/PE/science teacher, used to stand behind me pulling at the loops on the back of the vest. He’d be talking away and suddenly I’d feel the yank, yank, yank he pulled me back and forth. Drove me nuts, but hey, at least he never groped me like I heard some girls had to deal with.
(WTF was with our school always having the coaches teach science when most of them had no interest or knowledge of the subject?? Tells you the value they put in science here, and why my father did a TON of volunteer work in those classes!
***TBH, I had this feeling that all the movies, books, comics, and tv shows I loved created a I kind of mosaic of me. To know what I loved was find out all the puzzle pieces you needed to see who I was. I desperately wanted to be understood. The things I liked would let me be found by someone.
Actually, wearing my geekiness out in the open was like advertising! I was hoping against hope someone would one day see a book I was reading or a t-shirt I was wearing and say “Hey! I like that too!!”
Which is a bit absurd. No two people see things the same way. The thing I liked my be perceived completely differently by someone else. WHY I like what I like is the actual key, and I’m the only one really that knows that.
Plus, hick town, teeny population, still in the anti-geek era…..yeah, I wasn’t exactly gonna get lucky. My parents did when they met, but to think I would too is like expecting to win the lottery because your parents did!
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I'm no professional and I don't want to claim anything, but I think that maybe, just maybe, perhaps even only hypothetically, I have a smidge of depression
Because tell me why nothing that used to bring me joy brings me joy anymore, and when before I was looking forward to my new future I see nothing; or rather, I still do have a future planned but it all just feels hopeless.
And why is it that despite so many health concerns popping up with too much frequency lately, and me getting somewhat concerned by it, a part of me rather do nothing and just let it simmer and get worse despite that being such a huge fear of mine (dying at home due to some random health concern I ignored).
And despitem my fear of death, the thoughts of self deletus keep popping up with much more frequency and no amounts of "but you have so many projects to do, so many things you still want to acomplish, so many people still relying on you and would be sad if you left" to myself is working anymore and that, frankly, is terrifying in itself. I jumped in so many projects so that I could have something to look forward to, to enjoy and have fun and idk make a future for myself, and yet I find myself unable to do any of them properly.
Or maybe I'm just tired, maybe it's just the heat making me sluggish and lazy and I have neglected my health so much it has made me weaker and thus making me just rot in my own home....
Or maybe I really just need professional help which isn't possible in the moment when my parents refuse to even go to the hospital when I'm in major pain anyway and, despite being an adult, I have no money for these kinds of things and I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO THIS IS TERRIFYING WHERE AND WHO DO I FUCKING TURN TO
My friends aren't therapists, this blog is too public to air out my traumas, even this is over sharing but no one sees my posts unless it's fandom related to fuck it.
Koko bot will only send me to professional help I can't reach at the moment.
I just
Feel lost????????
And I'm letting so many people down due to my unproductivity right now, this is so terrifying because I'm letting my health get worse on purpose I think and no amount of fear is making it stop.
I'm slowly killing myself and I hate it.
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