I had Stormtroopers at my wedding. Laugh all you want buster, it’s true. No I didn’t have Princess Leia bun hair and my husband, Kurt, was not carrying a lightsaber (though I’m sure he wouldn’t have objected). On the outside everything looked as a wedding should: white dress, tuxedos, candle light, beautiful fresh flowers, bubbling champagne. We just had Stormtroopers.
What you want an explanation? Ok fine.
Kurt and I had decided that we were going to gift each other with a wedding present on the actual day of. The catch? We couldn’t spend any money on it (which is a rule he made and promptly broke). For months I had been wracking my brain, trying to figure out the best gift to give him. As a wedding planner we had the logistics of the event all lined up, but I was failing miserably on being a bride. And by failing I mean running around like a crazed person, drinking entirely too much wine while telling myself “it’s soothing and the antioxidants will help”, and certainly not dealing with all the emotions bubbling up like uncontrollable molten lava. So needless to say, I was beating myself up for not figuring out this damn gift.
Little did I know that I was going through something else entirely: a type of transition that I could never have seen coming. And that transition started—naturally—with a meltdown.
Kurt and I often fall asleep to our favorite movies and the night before the “meltdown of hell” we had on Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back to be precise. At one exciting moment in the film, our heroes are spinning and swerving through a treacherous asteroid field.
C3PO, the robotic analyst, if you well, says to Han Solo, “Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.”
In which, Han promptly responds with, “Never tell me the odds.”
Never before had a quote from Star Wars—of all places—hit me as hard.
The next afternoon, I found myself staring blankly at my computer screen. Han’s voice rolling confidently in my head on loop. I get up and walk into Kurt’s office, plopping down on the couch.
“Yes dear?” he swivels in his chair quizzically.
“Nothing,” I answer looking at my hands.
“Ok,” he turns around and continues typing.
Pause. Pause.
And then I start bawling. I mean, deep, ugly, guttural bawling, “I want to write!”
He turns back around, shock and dismay on his face. The flashes of expression topple over one another as he looks confused, horrified, amused, and even melancholy.
“You want to what?”he comes over and holds my hand.
“Write! You don’t know this about me because I never showed you. But when I was a little girl and someone asked me, ‘What I do I want to be when I grow up?’, I always answered a writer. Do you know what it’s like announcing that you are an English major? They look at you like you grew a boob on your face,” I exclaim as he clearly tries to hold back a laugh. I can only image how absurd I look. “I’m just not happy as a wedding planner anymore. I just want to write!”
I bury my head in my hands and I can feel him waiting (probably wondering if I will burst into tears again, squashing the need to call a psychiatrist…or perhaps a zookeeper because I had been making uncontrollable animal noises at one point).
“Ok,”he starts cautiously. “So write.”
That was it. So matter of fact. So pointed.
“So write.”
I look up, red snotty nose and all, at the man who will become my husband in a matter of weeks, and take in his reaction to my announcement that could shake up our happy little home.
“You aren’t scared that there would be two creatives in the family?” I asked. Sniffle, sniffle.
“Why would I be scared?”
Damn him. This was his reality and I had just asked him something ludicrous.
“The odds of me actually making it as writer…” I trail off, realizing what I had just said.
The odds.
Those goddamn odds. The same odds I had been listening to for the last decade. The same odds that convinced me that becoming a writer was irresponsible. The same odds that uprooted my plans and laid down—brick by brick—another life that was more acceptable. More expected. Safe.
Because that is what the odds do. They whisper seductive doubts into your ear as you sleep. They slap your wrist when you venture too far off the path. They flat out scare you.
“Sit your ass back down,” they say smugly. Knowing that you will.
Han Solo knew better. He knew that listening to the odds in the first place would make him doubt himself. And when you are navigating treacherous terrain like an asteroid field, you want that cocky half witted nerf herder at the helm and not C3PO.
Creatives have two choices: we can listen to the odds and the dealers who pass them out like candy. They’re sugary, addictive, and comforting Or… We can do it Han Solo style and say courageously, “Never tell me the odds.” Because when we don’t know what we are up against we can focus on our own abilities and not the failures of others before us. When we ignore the odds, we burrow in to what we have been designed to do. We don’t “decide”to be creative. We may ignore the impulses, sure. But we don’t just wake up one day and say, “I think I’ll be creative today.”
Creatives are some of the bravest people I know. They deserve as much respect and admiration as a doctor or a lawyer. Without creatives we don’t have color, the ability to describe what something tastes like, stories that make us wonder, or someone to express the emotions we are feeling, but can’t seem to put into words.
I invite you to come over to my blog, Real Creatives Drink Champagne, so we can say (cork) screw it! to the odds and explore how a life as a creative is as fulfilling as we have dreamt it to be.
After leaving Kurt’s office I noticed a frayed black and white photo taped to the wall. It is a picture of him and I dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia during one of our annual Halloween parties. I look back in the office and see him hunched over again, headphones on, typing furiously on his newest screenplay.
“So write,” said my own Han Solo. He never listened to the odds.
At that moment, I called a friend and set into motion the Stormtroopers making an appearance at our wedding. Kurt had always wanted them there and what a perfect gift to give my own scruffy looking smuggler.
As I hung up the phone, I booted up my computer, opened a document and let the blank page fill the screen.
“Go fuck yourself, Odds,” I say and begin to write.
What odds have you overcome? What odds have you listened to and then graciously flipped off? Have you ever had a chance to do it Han Solo Style? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to know!