Over Force Friday weekend, Crystal and I went store-hopping in search of Star Wars treasures to add to our collection. If you, too, were one of the celebrants on September 4, you might have dropped dollars for anything from a certain remote-controlled droid to a can of Campbell’s soup featuring a wookie. It was, as the Internet will attest, a shopping bonanza for Star Wars fans savvy enough or lucky enough to get out there early. But it should not go un-remarked upon that more — much more — was happening in stores that day. And it was happening outside stores, too. In fact, Force Friday brought a most unexpected party into our home, a party that lasted all through the Labor Day holiday and, I hope, will continue in our hearts long after December.

Yes, one result of that party was a three-minute video showcasing the day’s haul and shot through the eyes (eye?) of BB-8, a magical little piece of tech from the good minds at Sphero. We shot the video on Crystal’s iPhone in our hallway, and it told a story of sorts, I later realized, about our own Star Wars journey, one we haven’t really shared with anyone. It’s the story of two lifelong Star Wars fans who found each other and returned to their first great childhood love together. We strayed, as so many did, in the wake of the prequel trilogy (maybe I strayed more than Crystal, who never lost a place for Jar Jar Binks in her heart; I had to carve this place out over the years, but he’s there now, upon the shelf, along with the rest). In fact, a number of our early conversations about Star Wars focused on the errant storytelling and the missing humanity of the prequel trilogy. This was the conversation that went back and forth for years between us, the occasional speculative rewriting on our parts, usually delivered in back and forth exchanges in the car on our way to the grocery store, the bookstore, like a pitch session, the indignant wonder at why George didn’t just pick up the phone and call a fan.

Probably not an unfamiliar story to most fans our age.

On this went, and then, in 2012, the unthinkable happened: Disney bought Star Wars, changing the conversation forever. Speculation turned, finally, to what the future might hold: more movies, new filmmakers? Healing?

In short, yes. But the road to healing really began, for us, with Dave Filoni’s fantastic Clone Wars, which introduced the idea that a young Anakin Skywalker and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi possessed greater humanity than Lucas had been capable of delivering. And, of course, Mr. Filoni gave us the one and only Ahsoka Tano, whom we now count among the greatest of all the Star Wars characters, past, present, and future. For once, our conversations turned from what was wrong to what was right, but still there was the lingering fact of the need for balancing the opposing Forces at work, if you will, between renewed hope and much-remembered disappointment.

Now, we have The Force Awakens, and in this I suppose we’ve all given ourselves over to, well, a new kind of madness: hope. We have the desire to take out the old toys, even as we take up the new. We aren’t grown-ups arguing against the dark and backward abyss of time anymore! We’re just kids again, playing. In the end, can we thank the Walt Disney Corporation enough, friends? Can we ever buy enough toys to repay their corporate generosity? I’m not sure we can. But that’s okay, because Star Wars has never been about the possession of the material; rather, it asks us to search out the spiritual within ourselves, to listen to others, to commune with the larger world, to carry and spread the spark of imagination and joy. Witness the tale of the stormtrooper who walked hundreds of miles in memory of his deceased wife, or the story of the little girl who was bullied for wearing boys’ clothes (she was a Star Wars fan, and girls are still woefully underrepresented when it comes to apparel), and the stormtroopers who came to her rescue. On and on these stories go.

Maybe this is why Star Wars fans feel such ownership of the galaxy George Lucas created; he took us there as kids and we never left it. Though we may have grown up, we never grew out of it. It became a part of us, of who we are. And now, we have a little droid to show us the way back, to guide us to the very heart of what we remember. It’s a good time to be a Star Wars fan, yes, but an even better time, friends, to be a grown up. To live in this world and carry its banners.