Lord of the Rings Memories

In honor of The Hobbit's release today at midnight, I thought I'd rave about my enduring relationship with Tolkien's creations.

I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in middle school, but the epic awesomeness went over my head.  The first movie came out when I was in 8th grade, and my brother invited me to join him and his friends to see it opening night.  Partly because I liked the books, but mostly because I was in awe of hanging out with people four years older than myself, I went.

By the end of the movie, I had stars in my eyes.  Immediately I re-read the books and corrected my misconception of who Aragorn loved (to be fair, Eowyn appears WAY more often in the books than Arwen ever did).  I had a huge crush on Legolas, and I downloaded pictures of the entire Rings cast, printing them out and pasting them into a LotR scrapbook.  I bought the Ring, I made homemade t-shirts with my favorite quotes, and I made up a potential LotR wedding ceremony in which Gandalf presided and I wore a white dress like Galadriel's.

I saw each of the three movies four times in theaters.  By the time Return of the King came out, I was drowning in nerdiness.  On opening night (of course), I started crying when Merry and Pippin separated, and I pretty much didn't stop for the next three hours.  Well, that's not exactly true.  When all seemed lost in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, but then the Rohirrim appear over the hilltop with the sunrise, I was done.  My body shook with sobs, but I had no water left in my eye sockets with which to cry.

Upon leaving the theaters, I thought, "I could die happy."  That seems a bit extreme, and hey, I was an obsessive teenager, so of course it was.  But there's a big piece of truth to that sentiment.  I had just witnessed the most beautiful, truthful, loving story that somehow echoed everything my heart desired to be and pointed me toward a God who was maybe writing an epic story like LotR throughout history.

I went home, curled up in bed, and turned on "Into the West."  I found some more tears, and I cried happily to sleep, half expecting to never wake up.  It would have been a good way to go.

However, I did not die!  Which is good, because I got to live to see the Return of the King extended edition!  I watched them all through, and then instituted a very strict policy of only ever watching them all in their entirety within one week, and not more than once a year.

Years went by, and suddenly I was a senior in college with one of the best friends in the whole world.  For the end of my final semester in December, Stephanie and I watched all three extended editions in a row.  We started at noon and finished at 2:00 in the morning.  Friends came and went.  Josh and Seth joined us in The Two Towers and stayed to the end.  Erin and Tim came home engaged, and while I happily took pictures of them and squealed with joy, I kept thinking, "But Frodo is climbing the slopes of Mount Doom!  I have to get back!"

Mid-December has been Lord of the Rings-time for the last 11 years of my life.  I think it will forever be associated with the stories, and I'm incredibly okay with that.  Especially because in mid-December of 2012, I'm going to re-enter the visual world of Tolkien and watch The Hobbit!