There's something special that happens when one Star Wars fan meets another Star Wars fan. You don't have to know the person. You don't have to be in the same state this person lives in. You don't have to be of the same "walk of life" as this person or even share the same likes in pizza toppings and views on religion. All you have to do is realize that this other person is a Star Wars fan and - boom - instant connection. It's what makes fan events like Star Wars Celebration so great.
Star Wars Celebration has a history that dates back to the prequel era when Lucasfilm held the first Celebration in Denver, Colorado in 1999 to celebrate the upcoming movie, The Phantom Menace. At the time, I never heard a thing about Celebration - despite the fact that I was frantically snatching up action figures, clipping articles from the newspapers, and drinking more Pepsi products than I ever had in my entire life just so I could collect all of those character cans. (Fandom makes you do weird things, people. It's truth.) A few years went by, and a second Celebration was held in conjunction with the release of Attack of the Clones, and the convention was moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. I remember I heard about this - the weekend it was happening. Now, Indianapolis isn't that far from me - a few hours in the car, and I could have been there. But I was a young college student, not a lot of money, and trying very hard to work a job and go to school full time. So Celebration was out, and I was bummed like you wouldn't believe.
I made a vow - right there - that I would be at the next convention, no matter where it was held. So I made myself a little bank out of a coffee tin I snagged from my parents (because I didn't drink coffee at the time), and I printed out a picture of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and labeled it "Celebration III Fund". Every time I would have change, it went in the tin with a satisfying "clink". If I made some money from helping my videographer friend film a wedding, I put that money in my tin - "clink". Extra cash left over after buying books and gas and insurance - "clink". I saved for three years in that little bank, and I managed to save up enough money for a ticket, gas to get there, and to split a hotel room with a friend of mine.
Then real life happened - it wasn't a bad thing, but it felt like it at the time because it made my trip a tad harder. My friend met her husband and got married in the midst of all of this Celebration planning, and then our group of two went to a group of three - and I didn't feel like I could room with them in a hotel. That would just be a tad awkward. So we added a second hotel room onto the reservation that I would be in by myself, and - since it was fair - I offered to pay for it in whole. So that doubled my room expense, and I didn't have that money saved. Luckily, my friends were understanding, and they offered to let me pay them back on a monthly basis, no interest, with the teeniest little college-kid-budgeted size payment plan you've ever seen.
And you know what? It worked. I made it to Celebration III in Indianapolis, IN in my mother's Hyundai Accent, with my burned CD of compiled Star Wars songs, parodies and sound clips and a whole lot of Star Wars excitement in my heart.
Now, I won't deny that this was a rough time for me personally. School was tough. I was in my senior year of college. Things were dark and kind of oppressing, and I was struggling with a fun little bout of depression. I had just recently found out it was "major depressive disorder", and my brain thought oh, so that's what's wrong. But that's another story, and we won't delve into that ugliness right now. What really matters here is that - yes - things were dark and heavy and rough and brooding and ugly - but Celebration...was a Celebration of so many amazing things.
I met online friends from the forums at www.StarWars.com. I saw shows, looked at costumes, hung out with fans, watched trailers and gasped and ooo'ed and aww'ed over all sorts of things that were just nerdy and geeky and downright fun. I waited in lines and then laughed when lines were "capped" (again) and complained more and laughed with people. I got to wear my hand-stitched Jedi tunic that I'd worked for a year on - a year. And I was so proud of it, and everyone thought it was awesome, and I felt so awesome. And yes, there were times I was still down and I felt like crap thanks to my fun little brain chemical deficiency, but you know what - I wouldn't trade that Celebration for anything. Not a thing. None of it can ever be replaced.
It's why I've continued to go to Celebration since CIII in Indianapolis. I've been from one side of the country (Orlando, FL) to the other (both Los Angeles and Anaheim, CA), and those experiences have all been a mixture of both bad and good in all sorts of ways. But I wouldn't trade them. None of them.
Because when one fan meets another fan - while you're waiting in yet another long time for a panel, or just sitting there eating lunch, or you've seen someone wearing a costume you love - there's a connection that you don't find much in life anymore. There's a sense of, "This person is like me. Okay, maybe not 100%, and we don't see eye to eye on everything. But check this out! They like this thing! This one thing, and we can talk about this, and we're both excited about it. And isn't it so amazing that blah and he did yada and omg did you see when so-and-so?!" *insert Kermit flail here*
That is what being a fan is. What it's supposed to be about.
And I won't trade that for anything. Ever.
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