I read “Postcards from the Edge” and everything else my suburban library had by her, and I was devastated to learn that my new icon had a drug problem. What I found troubled me, to say the least. Leia, and Carrie, were open doors into a new world, and I wanted to explore everything about her. It became an obsession that consumed most of my teens and early twenties (and continues on into my mid-thirties-here I am now, writing for a Star Wars website). From that moment on, I was hooked on Star Wars. It had never even occurred to me to want to be that until she showed me how. She was an electric shock to my ten year old heart: bold, beautiful, and most of all unapologetically badass. I first encountered Carrie Fisher the same way most of us did-dressed in white, hair wrapped in those enormous buns, toting a blaster and slinging insults in “A New Hope”. Carrie’s death ripped a hole in the Star Wars universe, and I’m not sure that it can ever be closed up. The sequel trilogy-whatever history may determine it to be-will always be about the loss of a leader, the pain of wasted potential, and what it means to just keep moving forward, even when everything seems bleak. Although we lost her six years ago, the ache is still so fresh the wound reopens every time I switch on TNT and catch “The Last Jedi” or “The Rise of Skywalker”. By all rights, this should be a day, like Life Day, full of raucous celebration as we honor the people’s princess, the Huttslayer, Leia Organa. Today would have been Carrie Fisher’s 66th birthday. By Laura Duncombe 1 week ago Follow Tweet

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