When It's Worth It

My daughter is a huge fan of the Marvel superhero films. The Captain America series is her favorite, and the character she loves the most is Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier (Cap's best friend) who is played by Sebastian Stan. For the past two years, she's accumulated approximately 5 million photos of him on her Pinterest board, has photos of him printed out and hanging above her bed, has comic books and t-shirts and just about everything else she can find that is Winter Soldier/Sebastian Stan. She even wanted a birthday cake this year with him, and of course she got it!

Since Sebastian Stan goes to comic cons, I told her that if there was ever a comic con within driving distance of us, I would take her. Well, that opportunity came when we found out he would be Tulsa, Oklahoma, approximately a six and a half hour drive from us. That's about the same amount of time it takes us to go home to western Nebraska, so the drive didn't bother us.

After weeks of waiting, the time finally came last Friday. Because my health is crappy and travel only exacerbates it, my husband did the driving, and we ended up in Tulsa late Friday night. We were up early on Saturday and headed to downtown Tulsa for the event.

This was my first ever comic con, so I didn't know what to expect. But it was quite the adventure. Lots of people love to cosplay for these things and this one was no exception. I saw lots of Captain Americas and Harley Quinns and Jokers and Star Wars characters and on and on. My daughter and I didn't dress up (but we've decided that if we go again, I'm going as Agent Carter and she's going as the Winter Soldier), but that was ok - we had a blast anyway.

When my daughter was in line to meet Sebastian Stan and get his autograph, she nearly fainted, but we managed to get through it ok. Later, she was able to get a photo of the two of them together - and she still has a hard time believing she got a hug from her celebrity crush!

But after being at the event all day Saturday, waiting in line, not eating well, and being on my feet most of the time, I was in a lot of pain by the time we made it back to the hotel room. My knees ached, my body felt like it had been tackled by a football player, and I was so tired all I wanted to do was sleep.

This is the crappy part of chronic illness. I've had to learn to prepare for the inevitable pain and discomfort that attending events or going places will bring. In fact, I took Monday off from work because I knew I'd need the day to recover. As it turns out, I needed more than one day - I'm still in a lot of pain today and have spent most of the day in bed.

Was it worth going through that pain to see my daughter's dream come true? You bet. I don't regret it for a second. To see her smile, to see her meet her favorite celebrity and actually get to hug him? Totally worth it!