As a devoted wife, I recently accompanied my husband to see Star Trek Beyond. As expected, the movie bombarded the audience with deafening sounds and galactic explosions. The impossible became possible as good guys defeated horrific space monsters against all odds. (A pizza to munch on through all the blood and gore helped soothe me quite a bit.)
Even as I make light of the movie, I feel drawn to the phrase “boldly go where no one has gone before”. As a senior citizen and grandmother, I currently experience a world that differs so significantly from the one I knew in my youth that it materializes daily as new, unexplored territory.
At the end of the movie, Star Trek offers Captain James P. Kirk advancement into an administrative position. He questions, “Would this mean giving up flying?” After mere seconds of contemplation, Kirk declares, “Nope! That would be boring.” With that, Kirk strides off toward another ship to launch and new space mysteries to untangle.
Don’t we older citizens feel just like Kirk? Don’t we want to seize our own spaceships as we venture into this unchartered territory of aging, and not too far in the future — death? Don’t we still yearn for adventures to confront and challenges to solve? Most of all, I suspect we all want to be needed. “Don’t toss me aside, yet,” I hear an inner voice assert.
Although countless others have strolled through their own final chapters, the walk unfolds as a brand new path for me. Who knows if the chapter will be long or short? I imagine the years or months or days ahead will be filled with many “firsts” as I “boldly” go where I have never gone before. Like Star Trek adventurers, I now plan to spread my fingers and say to those I love, “Live long and prosper”.
In the same movie genre, the heroes in Star Wars say farewell to one another by adding, “May the Force be with you.” Certainly, I invite the “Force” (i.e. God) to travel with me as I venture into new galaxies and witness never-before imagined planets and space creatures.
Possibly I currently take the Star Trek and Star Wars movies too seriously. Perhaps adding Brussels sprout pizza to the mix sent me “boldly” over the top. Even so, to you reading this post, I close by saying, “Live long and prosper.”