I don’t like the Star Wars franchise; never did. I could have published this post on May 4th and be current, but instead, I tweeted, “Is there an emoji for me not giving a shit about May the 4th?” No one liked it.

I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back as one of the first movies we saw in America. It was May 1980 and I was almost 6 years old. I recall walking out of the theater perplexed at what just happened the last 90 minutes and my father had seem transformed. “Now this was a movie.”

He took me with him to see the Return of the Jedi in 1983; I was three years older and just as bored. I wanted so badly to like it; to relate to my dad – not to mention the rest of pop culture. But I just didn’t. My mind doesn’t stretch to accommodate science fiction and fantasy. The minute it seems unrealistic (as in “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…”) I’m skeptical, dubious and shaking my head all at once. I just didn’t like it no matter how hard I tried.

Fast forward to I have a son who OF COURSE becomes infatuated with the series, which at this point has three additional movies plus Clone Wars” I own all six movies, which have been heavily replayed until my son exhausted them and moved on to YouTube. Thanks to the gift which keeps on giving, “The Force Awakens” awakened the bug in my 5-year-old daughter. Star Wars paraphernalia took over the world and she got curious. Who could blame her? I tried to appease her by giving her the Star Wars 5 Minutes Stories book and she devoured the 200+page anthology within days and wanted to see the movie. She has been asking to watch the movie every day for five months.

Today, my husband let her watch it.

I was prepared for a sleepless night; he was prepared for love at first site.

He was right. She LOVED IT and wants to see all of them right away. Move over Elsa, we have a new Queen in town and she’s a Princess. For the rest of the day, my daughter called herself Princess Leia and toted around an annoying R2D2 toy which beeped incessantly in response to her commands. “Stop questioning me,” she directed. “Change the username! Sign me up and don’t tell the Rebels!” She took him to bed, proclaiming she couldn’t live without him.

I worked on my art while the clown and his clone sat transfixed on the couch; my husband seeing this movie for the 7,000th time. My brain listened to the dialog in the background; I recognized many of the familiar lines and I wanted to be sucked in. I waited to somehow hear some inside joke or brilliant line of dialogue giving me a breakthrough moment. I want in on the joke so badly, but I just don’t get it. My mind just does not compute Star Wars.