A long time ago, I used to sleep really well. I sleep decently for a middle-aged man, but for a while, it wasn’t so. Racing thoughts, bouts with apnea, midnight snacking—I’ve experienced all the classic sleep disruptors. There are stories within stories if I ventured off track to talk about my sleepwalking days. Once, I went to the kitchen, grabbed two pieces of bread, poured sugar all over one slice, slapped the other on top, took a big bite, and then instantly spat it out as I awoke from the shock of a mouth full of dry sugar. Fun times, but that’s another story. Oh yeah, I used to sleep really well.

When I was a toddler, Mom would say there was almost nothing that could wake me up. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, my mind’s way of keeping me safe. Wait! Off track again. Dad trauma is another story. Anyway, I was hard to wake up. Mom said she could vacuum the carpet around me, and I wouldn’t flinch or budge a bit. As a toddler, I assumed the most practical of sleep positions: face firmly planted on the floor, knees pulled to the chest, and my butt pointed straight up to the ceiling. When all that remained to be vacuumed was the child-sized spot occupied by my coma-like sleep, I could be picked up by the ankle and placed on the couch without waking. So, I am told.

I was born in 1976, Gen X, the bicentennial of our great democratic experiment. I suppose I never had a choice in a lot of this, but nonetheless, it makes for an interesting psychological analysis of the effects of a rapidly changing technological society on the developing mind. We had one of those big TVs with two dials on the side that sat like a monolith on the living room floor. This was my altar. Every day, I sat cross-legged in front of the beaming set like a dutiful parishioner absorbing all it had to offer. (Saturday mornings are definitely a whole other story.) When I turned five, we got cable TV, an Atari game console with all the accoutrements, a VCR, and… MTV. It was 1981. I’m told I saw A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back in the theatre, but I don’t really remember. It’s almost like the trilogy was always there—a folklore tale passed down as a generational inheritance ingrained in my very DNA. Obviously, to me, they are much more than just movies.

My Grandmother was special. That’s an understatement. I don’t know how to adequately put into words what a unique, kind, and amazing person she was. Like children do, I got sick and required antibiotics, and while with my grandmother, I had an allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock, to be precise, so it was serious. When she took me to the ER, they directed us to the waiting room. She would have none of that. With me cradled in her arms, she kicked through the swinging doors and demanded I be seen immediately. She probably saved my life. God, I miss her!

Though I don’t remember seeing the first two movies in the theatre, I do remember my first “That’s it?!” moment when watching The Empire Strikes Back at home on HBO. My first cliffhanger experience. Luke loses his hand and finds out the truth about Vader while Han is frozen in carbonite and whisked away to Tatooine, and the movie just ends! I do remember vividly May of 1983 when Grandma and Grandpa took me to see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in the theatre. The conclusion to the stories that had been shaping my moral compass to the notions of right and wrong. I was seven.

In 1984, my parents separated, so my brother, mom, and I moved into Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a while. This was an awkward time for me, and the trauma of this period is most likely something I’m still trying to process. But at the time, my dad, mom, and grandma knew how to temporarily soothe the shock of sudden and dramatic changes… Star Wars toys! I don’t blame my parents or grandparents for this behavior; I think it was a typical reaction, especially in the ’80s. You put your kids through some tough shit, then buy them some toys and tell them to go play. Hell, it worked, I’m fine! I ended up with almost every Star Wars toy that existed. Few of my friends’ collections came close to what I had accumulated. During this transitional time living with my grandparents, I started to desire the attention of my female classmates and thought no one liked me. The first Christmas living there, I amassed the largest haul of my collection, including a life-sized R2-D2 toy box. I discovered Santa Claus was not real by having some of my first experiences with racing thoughts keeping me awake. Upon waking and hearing a ruckus, I lumbered into the living room, catching everyone placing the presents beneath the tree. I bawled for hours because the fabric of my belief system started to unravel. There’s no Santa Claus, love does not last, families separate, girls don’t like me, is the Easter Bunny fake too, is there no God? Wait! Is that a 12-inch C3-PO figurine? Awesome! I’m fine, everything’s fine!

By 1986, my mom had remarried, and we moved into the house directly behind my grandparents. Grandma was my neighbor! Wait! Tommy and Grandma adventures are another story. Also, by 1986, all the Star Wars movies had been aired on HBO. Do you remember when I said we got a VCR? For those who don’t know, a VCR is a machine that plays VHS cassettes, and it is capable of recording video from the TV. The VHS vs. Betamax battle is worth mentioning, but in the interest of coherent thoughts, back to the subject at hand. Grandma had two VCRs, which meant she could record movies from HBO and then play those recordings on one VCR while recording them on another VCR to make duplicates. You get it, right? She had been doing this for a while. In her living room, she had two deep bookshelves on either side of the gas fireplace. In those bookshelves were VHS tapes, two rows deep, and she had handwritten on each one a number at the top with the titles of three movies below the number. A VHS could hold 6-8 hours of video. She had little notebooks, and on each page of the notebook, there were corresponding numbers to the VHS tapes with the movies listed on the page. So, if you wanted to watch a movie, no need to wait until HBO airs it again—simply pick up the notebook and read through the list of movies until you find one you want to watch. Note the number at the top of the page, then pull that VHS tape from the shelf. Of course, the tapes were kept in numerical order, and you were scolded if you didn’t put the tape back in the correct place. It was genius, really. Every time I had a friend over and asked if they wanted to watch a movie while handing them the book, they were impressed. I’m still impressed. It was analogue iTunes. Did I mention how much I miss her?

When we were transitioning from my grandparents to the house directly behind them, we put several items in the garage as we decorated and decided the layout of furniture in the house. It made for a less cluttered environment. Well, someone noticed the movement of items from the garage to the house. The Atari and all the games we had accumulated over the years were stolen from the garage. When buying a new home, it is commonplace to purchase homeowners’ insurance. I wouldn’t know much about that—being a late Gen Xer with student debt, the unrealistic option of purchasing a home seems mythical at best—but apparently, it was and may still be a thing people do. So, when the Atari and all the games were stolen, my mom was able to make an insurance claim. Apparently, the resale value of the Atari was good, or my mom was just awesome; either way, my brother and I both got a Nintendo Entertainment System, a few games each, and a TV and VCR for each of us. Everyone, this is where and when lifelong habits are formed.

Shortly after we settled into the new house with our new NES, VCR, and TVs, Grandma made VHS tapes with all the Star Wars movies on one tape for every grandchild. I used to be able to sleep really well, and I know there are tons of studies about blue light, flickering light, and dynamic sound being disruptive during sleep. Pffft! I guess none of the people in those studies had racing thoughts, multitudes of undiagnosed and unmentioned disorders, and unresolved trauma. Almost every night, I would fall asleep while the tape played. I would usually nod off around the time Han and Luke meet Leia in the detention center of the Death Star. If I roused to turn over or reposition, I would hear the dialogue and vividly picture the scene in my mind. You don’t want to play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit with me. It’s pointless. This was the beginning of a long stretch of good sleep for me. These preteen years formed lifelong habits that still dictate how well I sleep.

I had a bout with apnea in my 30s, but until then, I was getting restorative sleep, and every night I would sleep while a movie played. After VCRs kind of went to the wayside, there were only a few ways to watch multiple movies back-to-back without having to wake up and start a new one. There were DVD players that could hold five discs, but they wouldn’t play the next disc by themselves. For a very long time, it was not possible to buy Star Wars movies on any medium. So, as an adult, I grew accustomed to watching other movies while falling asleep—any movie would do. My wife prefers it dark and quiet when we sleep, and for those with partners, you understand there are bits of compromise in successful relationships. This is one of those instances where I don’t want to compromise, but I do, even though occasionally, I throw a little fit and complain about it. In our compromise, the bedroom TV plays my favorite adult cartoons until I fall asleep. With streaming services, there is now no need to push play for every episode. We live in an attention economy, and they want you locked in. Once I fall asleep, she transitions the cartoon to my phone, turns the volume down, and places the phone screen down on my side table. Some nights it’s not enough to stop my mind from racing through everything I have ever done right or wrong, how to fix it, what I should have done differently, all the things I need to do tomorrow, how to craft a transaxle made from wood using a rudimentary lathe constructed from twine and counter-lever pulleys—you know, the usual.

I have a musical eidetic memory. If I hear a song once, I can hum or whistle the melody verbatim. If only I could play it on an instrument or write down the notes. Do you know what it is like to have an awesome talent that is kind of useless? If I could play it on an instrument or write it down, that would be something, right? I can clunk it out on a keyboard until I have found it, but by the time I have it down, it’s almost unimpressive at that point. I can read music, I can play music, I can write music, but for some reason, I cannot do it in reverse even though I remember it perfectly. I can sing though, so I am able to recreate any melody I have heard verbatim vocally if there is ever any reason or use for that. There is one benefit, though—there is always music in my head. I like having headphones and access to music, but I don’t need it. I can play a whole song in my head from memory. It happens a lot. Sometimes it is disruptive. That is why I am writing right now.

Last night, the chosen cartoon to fall asleep and listen to was Family Guy. The show has created several Star Wars parodies. Around 3 AM this morning, one of those parodies started to play. I could feel the synapses firing off in my brain as the first note of the Star Wars theme played. I also recognized that though it was the Star Wars theme, it sounded different—almost cartoony. Without skipping a beat, my brain understood what was playing, but then my brain wanted to play the full theme correctly. And then my brain wanted to think about all the Star Wars memories I have, and then all the family memories around Star Wars, and then I felt sad about Grandma, and then I started writing this in my head… OK! I will get up and write. So, I sat at the computer, pushed play on Empire Strikes Back because I watched A New Hope the other day, and as I am wrapping this up, Return of the Jedi is finishing as Luke stares off in the distance at the ghosts of his past and everyone else celebrates their victory over the Empire on the moon of Endor.

As I tie this all together, like Luke, I too am envisioning the ghosts of my past. I wish my experience was as tangible and visual as the young Jedi’s. There are so many more stories that exemplify my grandmother’s incredible presence in my life. When she was alive, there was hardly a day that passed without us speaking. To this day, nearly every thought I have about who I am as a person is intertwined with a story of her influence. So, when I wake in the middle of the night, disrupted by the myriads of issues that keep me from sleeping, my thoughts naturally return to why I am able to sleep at all—Grandma. Star Wars.

A long time ago, I used to sleep really well. Then I didn’t. And then, somehow, I did again—at least most of the time. My Grandma was a Jedi.