This weekend I went and watched the Avengers.
It has been out for a couple weeks now but I've been putting it off, not sure I'd see it all.
Mostly because I didn't want to be the idiot sobbing at the back of the theatre blowing her nose at the funny parts or when Loki makes his epic appearance all badass and whatnot.
Turns out those fears were completely justified. I was and I did. As a random sidenote - it's really hard to see through 3D glasses when they are misted over with salty tears.
No, it was not a sad movie.
In fact, it was pretty cool. No. That's not right. It was amazing. And epic. And everything Craig and I have waited for all these years.
Craig was a comic book nerd. Which amused me to no end considering how much of a jock he was. Like many a closetted comic book nerd, he hoarded his collection possessivey and spent hour after endless hour painstakingly caring for them and savouring them. He would never let me read more than one at a time - something that always reminded me of my own father and his precious collection.
After a couple years of dating I finally gave up and started helping him with his collection, tracking down rare editions, wasting hours and hours at garage sales and farmers' markets searching for missing pieces. It became our favourite go-to activity for most weekends. I even attending Comic Con with him one year and was introduced to a whole new world. A scary, scary world. Just kidding. But not.
We started following the superhero movie craze long before it was a craze and obsessed over every detail of every movie, often seeing them several times in theatres in their opening weeks. We loved Iron Man, didn't care for the Hulk. Superman wasn't relatable but Spiderman was just like us. We argued over plot twists and adherence to the comics, who was too short or too serious or too whatever. Which detail was missed, which was overdone, which was just right.
Nothing excited Craig more than knowing looking forward to the Avengers movie, which was far too many years in the coming.
We theorized for hours about who'd be in it, which superheroes would be best, who the baddy would be.
We loved it.
And, of course, Loki was his favourite villain of all time. He loved him. Poor Loki, always the underdog, unloved, not wanted, always struggling, always failing. For some reason, Craig loved him more than any of the good guys. Appreciated that Loki was just born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, bullied, ignored.
When Iron Man II came out, I struggled to see it. I didn't enjoy it. It was too hard.
By the time Thor came out enough time had passed I didn't feel too bad. Of course it helped that neither of us really liked him as a character and didn't see it going anywhere (so much for that).
But The Big Avengers Movie was what we really wanted, anticipated, couldn't wait for.
So I sat there in the theatre this weekend, sobbing amongst the fellow nerds, oh so grateful for the ridiculous volume of the movie that nobody could hear me over.
It's not fair.
It's not fair that Craig waited so long, wanted to see this so bad, and can't.
It's not fair that they waited forever to make this movie, making him miss it.
It's not fair that the world kept going, that movies were still made, even after he was gone.
It's not fair that the things he loved were allowed to carry on without him, as if nothing had happened.
And it was not fair that I had to see it without him.
That we didn't get to gush over Loki, his absolute favourite villain, that he had to miss.
That we didn't get to squeal together over "Clench up, Legolas".
That he didn't get to roll his eyes at me over my love of Mark Ruffalo.
It hurt so much to see that without him. To try to enjoy something we should have been enjoying together. To reap the rewards of all his hard nerdwork he put into getting me up to speed on these characters, without him there to pat himself on the back for it.
There are so many things he misses now.
Sometimes I hope, wherever he is, he still gets to see them. That it's not so unimportant that he doesn't care. Or maybe I don't hope that. It's hard to say.
I just wish he was here.
I wish he was sitting next to me.
So I could be cheering with the rest of the crowd, instead of crying.
