While many of you, much like myself, have already seen the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers Endgame, others may not have. To them I say, it’s your fault if you haven’t seen it yet — spoilers may lurk ahead. 

These movies mean a lot more to me than most other series. Marvel movies were the first movies that my dad and I would watch together. My brother and father would enjoy movies together that were usually PG-13, so, yeah, I may have felt left out. But I was a daddy’s girl, and gosh darn it if they were having fun without me.  It just wasn’t fair.

The first actual Marvel movie I had ever seen was Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. At the time, I really thought it was an amazing movie (nothing compared to what Spider-Man is today), but I had wished there were more superheroes in it than just Spider-Man. In the summer of 2008, my dad and I would sit down together and watch Iron Man when we wanted to have a bit of fun or when mom was out for a bit. Of course, my brother joined in, but he was more of an X-Men fanatic — and he still is to this day — and claimed that this would probably only be a stand-alone movie. Oh boy, was he wrong.

As time progressed, I found myself embarrassingly loving most things related to Marvel and DC comics and movie universes. I would go to Thursday night releases of the movies with my family throughout my childhood. I never realized I was essentially living in the Golden Age of superheroes. I guess I’d explain it the same way people would explain watching the original Star Wars while they were growing up.

Perhaps the best memory I have is when Stan Lee came to Kansas City for Planet Comicon. The mayor stepped up on stage with Stan and began a whole spiel on how Kansas City has a profound appreciation of the arts. He announced, “I, Sylvester James, the Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, on behalf of the citizens of this great city and the city council do hereby proclaim May 21, 2016, as Stan Lee Day in Kansas City, Missouri.” It all felt pretty surreal because that was going to be my last summer with my friends in Kansas before I would move to Pittsburgh.

When I finally did move to Pittsburgh, we stayed in the apartments in McCandless Crossing. Ironically, it was because I lived right next to Cinemark that I watch so many movies today. I had already seen Captain America: Civil War because I had somehow convinced my entire 8th-grade class that it was a movie we had to see for our graduation field trip. The only other movie left to watch was Doctor Strange. I didn’t really have any friends at the time, so life was pretty sad. I was adjusting from living in a house in Kansas to living in an apartment in Pittsburgh, so seeing a Marvel movie with my parents was something I always looked forward to. Finally, there was something that I was comfortable with, something that I was used to. I never wondered about the kind of impact these movies could make on my life — I mean, they were just movies, after all.

Last year, my friends and I — yes, I somehow managed to obtain some — went to the fan event for Avengers: Infinity War, which meant that we were the first group of people in Pittsburgh to see the movie, and we each received a collectors coin. After the movie, I reflected not only on what happened but how far I had come from since the first Marvel movie I had seen in Pittsburgh. I managed to make amazing friends, learn how to play a new instrument, join a multitude of clubs, and get through my freshman year of high school.

It wasn’t until this year that I realized how fast time goes by. I remembered when I saw the original Avengers movie: I was in 5th grade and entrenched in a phase of cat shirts and the same three skirts on rotation. Flash forward to this year — I still have a terrible sense of fashion, I’ve lost some friends I made freshman year, and junior year is coming to a close. When I received my coin for the Avengers: Endgame fan event and headed into the movie theatre, it felt as if an era was ending. I was finally growing up. I would be applying to colleges in less than 6 months and leaving the high school and friends I had grown so close to.

Before the movie started, I was ready to be emotionally attacked, and once I had watched it, I was torn. The way the movie ended was heartbreaking, and seeing some of my favorite characters die or no longer exist in the cinematic universe really struck a chord with me. Sure, they may just be comic book characters, but I grew up with them. I felt a sense of melancholy while driving home from the movie theatre. Was my childhood really coming to an end? Days of not having worries and eating whatever pleased me — were those really over?

The MCU is a timeline of my childhood, and the most important thing it’s taught me is to enjoy the moment while you can. Time will go by so fast that you won’t even notice. Focus on the good things in life, and don’t stress too much. When you look back on those memories and see moments, would you rather remember the petty fights or the great times?