TRANSMISSION 005 - THE SKYWALKER

Hello. This one is a little different from my usual transmissions, and I want to say before anything else that I'm not going to get into too much detail about the why behind this one, because some stories just aren't mine to tell. But I've been carrying this one around in my head for a while now and I think it deserves to be written down somewhere, and where better than here. So bear with me today viewer, this one is coming from a very real place.

Recently I've been on a big Star Wars kick again, rewatching the originals and the prequels back to back like I used to when I was a kid. Growing up Anakin was always my guy, and I know that's probably not the most popular answer but I always connected with him the most. A kid who was so full of love and so full of fear at the same time, who had so much taken from him and was never really given the space to heal from any of it, and instead of dealing with his pain he let it turn into anger and eventually it swallowed him whole. If you've read my last few transmissions you can probably see why that hit close to home for me. But watching it all again as an adult, I found myself paying way more attention to Luke this time around, and how differently he dealt with the same kind of darkness his father did. Anakin let the pain win. Luke didn't. And I've been thinking about that a lot because of someone in my life.

I have a friend, I call her mi amiga, and recently she went through something that I don't think most people would be able to come back from. Something heavy, something painful, something that would make most people shut down completely and want to disappear from the world for a while, and nobody would blame them if they did. But she didn't do that. She faced it head on, she took care of everything she needed to take care of, and she did it mostly on her own without letting it spill over onto the people around her. And the part that gets me the most is that she never stopped. She kept going to class, she kept studying like she always does, she kept helping out at home, she kept looking for work, she kept showing up for her friends and the people she loves, all while carrying this thing that most of the world will never even know about. If you saw her on the street you would have no idea. She carries the weight so the people around her don't have to, and she does it so gracefully that most people don't even notice how heavy it is. I was lucky enough that she trusted me with it, and in all honesty I don't think I've ever been more in awe of somebody in my life.

The first Star Wars movie is literally called A New Hope, and Luke is that hope. A nobody farm boy from the middle of nowhere who stares out at those two suns setting and wants something more for himself, even though he has no idea what that something is yet. And then the universe takes almost everything from him. His aunt and uncle, his home, Obi-Wan, his hand, and on top of all that he finds out the man who did a lot of it is his own father. That would break anybody. That would turn most people into exactly what Anakin became, bitter and angry at the whole galaxy. But Luke never lets it harden him. He takes every hit and he keeps going, and somehow he comes out of all of it still believing in people, still choosing to be good when nobody would blame him if he wasn't. That's what makes him a Jedi to me, not the lightsaber or the force powers, but the fact that he never let the darkness make his decisions for him. Luke is what happens when you choose hope even when everything around you is telling you not to. And in a way that I can't fully explain here, Luke is going to always mean something a little different to me now, and to her, because of all of this. When I think about hope now, I think of him, and I think of her.

But the part of Luke's story that really gets me is the end. By Return of the Jedi everyone has given up on Anakin. Obi-Wan, Yoda, the whole rebellion, as far as they're concerned there is nothing left of him but Vader, a monster in a mask who has done unforgivable things, and honestly they had every reason to think that. But Luke walks right up to him anyway. He tells him he can feel the good in him, he refuses to fight him, he literally throws his lightsaber away in front of the Emperor, and it's that, not a battle, not a big flashy hero moment, that finally brings Anakin back. Somebody seeing him for who he still was underneath all of it. And the reason this hits so hard for me is because I've been Anakin. If you read my last transmission you know how angry I used to be, how I would lash out at the people closest to me, make choices I couldn't take back, push away anyone who tried to get close. I was a lot of the time more Vader than I was me, and I know a lot of people looked at me back then and decided I wasn't worth the trouble, and I can't even say I blame them. But mi amiga wasn't one of those people. Even at my worst, when I was acting out and being someone I'm not proud of, she reached out her hand anyway. She saw the good in me when I couldn't even see it in myself, and she didn't give up on me when it would have been so much easier to. I don't think she even realizes how much that meant, or how much it changed things for me. She was my Luke before I ever knew what that really meant.

What I want you to take from this, viewer, is that strength isn't always loud. We kind of grow up thinking strength looks like the big hero moment, swinging the lightsaber, blowing up the death star, but think about it, Luke's biggest moment in the entire saga was putting his lightsaber down. A lot of the time real strength looks like getting out of bed when you don't want to, finishing your homework when your whole world feels like its falling apart, being kind to the people around you when you're the one who's hurting, reaching out to somebody that everyone else already gave up on. Its quiet, and a lot of the time nobody sees it. Mi amiga thinks that what she does goes unsaid and unnoticed, and I guess this whole transmission is me saying that it doesn't. I see it. She is a beacon of hope to everyone around her, especially me, and I'm older than her and she still teaches me more about life than i could ever teach her. Life is going to throw things at you that you never saw coming and never asked for, things that feel impossible to survive, and the only thing you can really do is decide to keep going. Not because it's easy, but because you're stronger than whatever is trying to keep you down, even when you don't feel like it.

Sorry for the heavier one today, viewer, but I think some things are worth saying out loud. And mi amiga, if you're reading this, I'm so proud of you. Thank you for never giving up on me or yourself. Never forget who you are.

Strength is everything. We love and miss you Luke.

May the force be with you, always, THE RECEPTIONIST