Star Wars is Forever.

I can't tell you how excited I was when I heard about this.

I love the Science Museum, but I can't handle the stress and noise level when their are hundreds of children set loose inside.  Having this for people 21 and up was an awesome idea!

Star Wars at the Science Museum!  

Let me tell you a little story from my childhood.  A memory that I will never forget.  In 1983, my Mom and Dad took us to Ada, OK to see the final Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi.  I'm pretty sure it was opening weekend or maybe the second weekend.  We didn't go to the movies often, but we had managed to make it to see the other two Star Wars films.  I was three when I saw the first one.

This was the last one though.  Everything had said so.  I knew that going in, but in my heart I didn't want it to be the end of Star Wars.  You see, since I was three, I had come to absolutely love Star Wars.  I had decided that I would indeed grow up to be a Jedi Knight and take the last name of Skywalker.

I was going to learn to use the Force.

So the thought of all of this ending...well, honestly it broke my heart.  Still, I was excited.  Nervous and excited.  I absolutely adored Luke Skywalker.  He was my first crush.  I was so worried he might meet his end in this movie.

We stood in line for a while and then into the theater.  No one gave away anything in line.  I remember being impressed seeing Luke in all black and so confident.  I was worried he might be too confident.

I remember thinking that Princess Leia was so brave to dress as a bounty hunter and how cool it was that she saved Han and not the other way around.

I remember my brother crying out when Boba Fett met his demise.

Most of all though, I remember how hard I cried when Darth Vader picked up the Emperor and tossed him into the abyss.  I remember I kept crying when Luke took off his mask.  And cried even harder when he lit the pyre.  And when I thought I couldn't cry any harder, I did as the credits rolled and I realized it was truly really all over.

This might be when I realized things end.  Everything eventually ends.  

Little did I know that Star Wars wouldn't.  If I traveled back in time and told 9 year old me, that one day, in 2013, I would attend a cool Star Wars Science Museum event with my smoking hot soulmate who also totally digs Star Wars and loves me for who I am,  and that Star Wars would only get bigger and better, I wouldn't have believed it.

Well, maybe I would've.  I believed anything was possible at that age.  I sort of still do.

Still, sometimes I think about that moment.  How very sad 9 year old me was.  I mourned for months.  I continued making stories when I played with my figures.  Sometimes though, you just don't know.  You can't know, what the future will bring.  I wasn't the only 9 year old kid who didn't want it to end.  I wasn't the only one determined in my heart to make sure it continued.  Nope, there were so many of us, that we just kept it going.  We wrote novels about it.  Comics. Created art about it.  Some of us became Scientists that would go on to try and recreated that prosthetic hand Luke had.  Some of us engineers, determined to create a real droid or even a lightsaber.

Humans can be amazing.  We have the power to keep things alive and to do so much good.  To make the future into a beautiful amazing thing.  It doesn't have to be this dystopic, broken sad thing we keep being shown.  It can be full of science and technology and droids and x-wings and lightsabers if we want it to.

Star Wars is forever.  If we want it to be.

May the Force Be With you...Always.