Dear Star Wars fans:

I started writing this letter in my head about 100 times before I actually put my hands on my keyboard.

(I can't use the Force. Or I would be right now. To write this.)

In case that last bit wasn't clue enough, here's a warning: this is going to get on a new, horrible level of nerd.

I don't apologize for that.

I'm writing to you because in just a few days, we're going to have something brand new and shiny and something that we have never seen before. We, who have been waiting for this for a very long time, are going to see Episode VII.

This, as you may already know, is pretty exciting. It's nice to have new things to look at, and it sure doesn't hurt when those new things involve our very favorite things. Like space. And laser swords.

Anyway, there are going to be little tiny people there who have never been alive to see a new "Star Wars" before. If that's true, they are at most 10 years old. They get this one pause, the length of a movie, before they are initiated into a tradition that is almost 40 years in the making. It's brand new to them, and everybody else gets the chance to teach them things about this crazy new world that we all love so much.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

You were that person too.

It doesn't matter if you watched it when you were too young to understand, or if you didn't see it until your friends in college found out that you didn't know the difference between Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt (my roommate, for the record), or if you were there for the very beginning in 1977. There was a time where you'd never seen a single minute of those six movies, and so I have one request.

Don't tell them what to think about this new adventure that they're setting out on.

Show them what you know, and learn the new things with them. Don't get stuck on the glory days of the originals or the less positive aspects of the prequels. I don't care what you think about Jar Jar. Just keep your mouth shut and let the kid live, even if it hurts your soul a little.

I think that it's important to have engaging conversation about what happens, though. It doesn't hurt to point out things that could have been done better or that are problematic within our culture. We can hope for none of either, but we should still be prepared to speak constructively about both. That's how we get good stuff done, y'all.

On a personal note: I'm inexplicably excited to watch this movie. The first time I ever watched "Star Wars," I was 7 years old and curled up on the couch with my family. Fourteen years later, I'll be in a packed movie theater with one of my best friends.

I wouldn't trade either experience for the world.

I hope this makes you just as happy.

(Also...may the force be with you.)

Sincerely, me.