Carrie Fisher, thanks for your big ass balls, and showing us the way.

You know what 2016, you’re really getting on my nerves. I hate sounding like a naggy, whiny bitch, but you’ve truly brought this out in my with your relentless greed for taking the lives of incredibly talented people.

Granted many who have passed on had lived full, rich, long lives. Except for my sweet George, and now the iconic Carrie Fisher. The best bad ass Princess I’ve ever looked up to. I mean let’s be honest, who didn’t want to be Princess Leia? My daughters Princess options, all though they were plentiful, they were also pitiful. I will forever and always be thankful to Carrie Fisher for her portrayal of Princess Leia, a woman who took zero shit from any man, and wasn’t afraid of Darth Vadar either. She was a Princess to admire, and to dream about growing up to be just like.

Sadly, in her real life she wasn’t quite as formidable as her fictional character. For years she struggled with addiction, to be honest, to me it was amazing that she lived as long as she did, when you consider how liberally she abused drugs, and her body. But man oh man, over the years she blessed us with so much content to assist us in finding the laughter in our struggles. I remember seeing her one woman show, Wishful Drinking, when she brought it to Toronto. She had such a way of sharing her truth, while making us laugh, no matter how ugly, painful or taboo it was. Carrie Fisher found a way to laugh through her tears.

I admired her for that. What I didn’t like so much, was her need to bring up her affair with Harrison Ford, just weeks before her untimely death. To me, it was her one misstep, her one divulging of “her truth” that I, personally, could have lived without knowing. But that aside, I will miss her, I will miss what other incredible screenplays, like Postcards from the Edge, she undoubtedly still had up her brilliant sleeve.

For now I will turn my attention to her wonderfully talented daughter, Billie Lourd, who, in my opinion steals every scene she’s in, on Scream Queens, with her understated performance, and her husky voice reminiscent of her mother. And when I look at her, as a mother to three young women, I will wonder, how does a twenty four year old woman, with so much life left to live, carry on living it without her loving mother by her side? I imagine that it won’t be easy for her. So Billie, I wish you much luck going forward, and I pray that you have other strong loving females in your corner to celebrate all of life’s firsts that are yet to come your way.

And to you Carrie Fisher, may you now RIP, and know that you taught generations of women that it was more than okay for us to fight for what we wanted, even if it meant going head to head with the dark side of not only ourselves, but the biggest, baddest man in our lives.

Thank you for your big ass balls, and for showing us the way.