Tag: carrie fisher

I didn’t really appreciate Princess Leia when I was a kid. I was too busy running as far away from most anything with the word “princess” or the color pink in it to notice how strong she was. I was too busy being confused by a world where most other media told me that blue and all the toys I liked were for boys and all the toys I had no interest in were for girls; that all girls liked those things and that that–liking those things, dressing like that, all of it–was the Way Girls Were, the Only Way. And I didn’t fit that. So I ran very far in the opposite direction (minus some ill-fated attempts to “fit in” in junior high.

I only really hit the point of realizing and believing that there was more than one way to be a girl–that in fact that there are many ways, and that no matter how much flack all of those ways get for not being “right,” they all are–in my late teens to early-to-mid twenties. And I realize that I lost out on so much because of swallowing the lie that there’s only one way to be a girl, and that that way is inferior.

So I came to love Carrie Fisher first for who she was in later life, as she spoke openly about dealing with addiction and mental illness. And then I learned to love Princess–and later General–Leia.

So here’s to you, Carrie, General and Princess and Space Mom. I wish I’d known you longer, but thank you for being you.