I just saw Star Trek again and fucking Christ I’m emotional so let’s go.

My dad was a huge fan since the beginning. Watched them all as they came out. I remember watching Star Trek Enterprise with my dad when I was about 4. I have very fond memories of Star Trek from the beginning.

And then the reboots started in 2009, when I was 12. I was completely fucking lost when I was 12. My first suicide attempt was when I was 12. I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. I got in trouble at school constantly. I had started smoking when I was 12. I drank. I was a piece of shit, I was lost, I didn’t have much going for me. (Don’t even get me started on the parallels between that and a certain trash lord soon-to-be captain)

And seeing Star Trek didn’t change all that, it didn’t change me being a piece of shit, but it started something. It inspired me. It reminded me of better times from my childhood. It lead me into learning about space and I realized that, fuck man, I really liked space. I liked LEARNING about space. And then I started to like learning. That movie set me down a particular path that lead me to be a better person. I learned math and physics and before I knew it I had began to consume college level material. And I learned from that that being smart - smart enough to get places and to raise eyebrows - wasn’t a “gift”. It was something you could learn. It was something that you could become through hard work. It snowballed into me getting my shit together. Something so small as a movie could start that.

And fuck, I really liked chekov. That wunderkind. I could be that. I wanted to be that. I wanted to be the youngest and the best at something. I now had a personal agenda to become that. That trope that he had became an objective of mine. Two parts out of spite, because no one thought I could do great things, one part for myself, to get myself out of that hole - early grave rather - that I had been in. And I did just that. I was the youngest person in my physics classes in high school. I was the youngest person in my physics, astronomy, higher math classes at college. One of the youngest research assistants at the university. I’m on track to be one of the youngest undergrads in the program and one of the youngest people in the program to be published.

Now by this time, I have other things going for me, I do astrophysics not out of spite, not because of that movie, but out of love of the field and dedication to the sciences.

But it’s what set the ball rolling. That god damn movie that came out at just the right time. That god damn movie that showed me what I could be.

And I think that’s why it hurt so bad when Anton Yelchin died. Because he was chekov. That character that I pushed myself to be like. That character that pushed me to be better. And it hurts because he’s gone and it made me falter. I was working a godawful summer job at the time that he died and it shook me because it made me look at myself and where I was. My mental health was shit because of that job, I wasn’t making enough money to survive. It scared the shit out of me. I was slipping and it scared me.

And then Beyond came out. And I saw it on opening day, I felt like it was my duty to. For myself and for Chekov. And it was different than the other two movies. It was hopeful and colorful and fuck I don’t know but seeing it helped. It helped me get some of that passion back that that fucking awful job all but stripped from me. And it was like a farewell of sorts too, I guess? A send off to Chekov, because I knew he wouldn’t be coming back. Not as I knew him, anyway. It felt like a bittersweet farewell to a childhood idol. Like I had grown up and that I was going to have to carry on without him. I was going to have to be my own role model now. It’s up to me what I can do. As stupid as it sounds, it felt like I was dragged out of that hole I had been in all those years ago and now that I was up and on my feet and going places, I have to go them alone now. It’s up to me what I do. It’s up to me who I choose to be. And I’m ready to take that on.

That’s why Star Trek has always been so much more to me. Beyond was so much more to me than a movie. It was both a goodbye and a new beginning.

Star Trek was the first kind of “fandom” I was ever in. My dad was a huge star trek fan, and I remember the show being on in the background throughout my early childhood. When the Star Trek reboot came out in 2009, my father and I were first in line. I think that’s what did it. Throughout that summer and into my 7th grade year, I was obsessed with Star Trek. Not just the reboot, but TOS as well. Even though, through the years I’d moved on to other things, Star Trek was always the first thing. It was the first fanfic I read, the first fan art I made, the whole 9. I think that’s probably why hearing about Leonard Nimoy hit so hard. It was the first thing I truly threw myself into, and started me down the “nerd path” that I’ve been on ever since.