They told me... "Son... you're special. You were born to do great things." And you know what? They were right.
- Jack Ryan
Next week will be the series finale of How I met your Mother. I know what you're thinking, but bear with me for a second.
When you take a step back and think of it, it's quite extraordinary. This show has been on for nine years. During that time, it evolved from a smart, funny comedy show to a complete drag that we keep watching because we need to know how all of this ends. We know Ted gets his girl- now we want to see it happen, and we need to know how.
The point is I've been watching HIMYM for years now. And as terrible as this show has become, I've stuck with it. Next week will see the culmination of nine years worth of TV-making, and I'll be watching. So will a lot of my friends I assume (let me know on Facebook/in the comments). For nine years, this show was a small part of our lives. And in one week, it will be over. Gone forever. Shows end all the time, but I never quite actually gave it some thought. This particular one should have called it a day a long time ago perhaps, but it didn't.
Nine years. It just flew by. Hell, I still remember when I first sat down to watch it. Ted's goatee. The drink to the face. Barney's odd urinal-introduction. Nine years. Peanuts. I loved HIMYM, and it made me giddy and sad and nostalgic and hopeful and everything.
I love fiction. From Jim Carrey's Montauk to the City of Rapture over Dickens' London and all the way to Greendale, Colorado, fiction is the one thing I perhaps look forward to the most. The promise of a narrative, and the creation of worlds upon worlds, filled with promises ours could perhaps never keep.
Which brings us to the genius of Mr. Glover:
We lay out our lives in a narrative we understand, like a movie. But are
you enjoying making it or are you wondering: “who’s watching my movie?”
As he would say, "that dude gets it."
A lot has changed in those nine years. I'm pretty sure 16-year-old me would have never guessed I'd have ended up in this place, doing what it is I do. I'm not sure he would have approved. 16-year-old me was a bit of a downer, he might have thought it poetic. God, I can't stand that ass.
I can get so lost in my little worlds of fiction, both the ones I visit and the ones I create for myself, that I often grow sad at the thought other people might never get to experience them, or would choose not to at least give it a try. Billions of people in this world will never understand what "The Cake Is A Lie" means, or what it represents. And they shouldn't, because it doesn't matter. It's not important. But for some reason, it is to me.
This past week brought more frustration, as you might have expected. From anxiously waiting for good news that never came to discovering I have grey hair at the age of 25 and women doing what they do best (blowing you off for suggesting it's weird to talk on Facebook without really knowing each other less than 24 hours after adding you. Seriously) and writing some of the hardest stuff I've ever had to write on a professional level (the 2014 Dubai World Cup. I ******* hate horse racing).
In those moments of unfiltered frustration, it's hard not to flee to the places I have created for myself. But this is where I lied to myself for years, and I've only recently come to realise that. For instance, one of those places was London. A narrative I started laying out from the moment I first imagined its streets, all the historical landmarks you see on television or in magazines and the countless other places only locals know, and you have to dream up in your mind.
I never thought I'd actually move here, and without realising what I was doing I broke a narrative the moment I set foot on the bus that would bring me here. We all have expectations and sometimes expectations go unfulfilled, but this was different. This had nothing to do with expectations. Like I do so very often, I'd created a reality that wasn't there, and the real world started crashing with that reality the moment I got here.
Does that make sense, or does it sound like the ravings of a deranged lunatic? I mean, I realise we constantly set ourselves up for failure. It's in the very fabric of humanity. We will blow up everything we hope for to the point disappointment becomes an inevitability, thus creating a self-fulfulling prophecy. It's called puberty, or being a little b*tch where I'm from.
Boy, this is going to be a long night.
Anyway, if I ever make it out of bed tomorrow I'd like to catch a tube and visit Dickens' London. There's so much I've yet to see, and in the absence of someone to show me around, I might as well do it myself while I still have the chance. After that I'll have a long talk with my dad and we'll see where we go from there.
I'm not bitter. I might be slightly disappointed, but that has become a perennial thing for me. A Perpetual State Of Bummer, if you will (genius). But it's mainly directed at myself, and in this case I'm 95% at fault anyway.
And yeah, I'm sick of the narratives. Some of the worlds I've been creating as of late have been pretty dark, I'm not going to lie. When it's all said and done, everything seems to go to hell anyway. Why would anyone want any more of that?
We all have our reasons. And oddly enough, it's one of my narratives that pulls me through. The most unlikely of worlds, and the smallest I've ever created. I've never been there, not even once. But it sits there, in the back of my mind, waiting.
In the end, 16-year-old me would have been content with being a writer, and he would have loved the concept of living in London. No, I didn't realise any of the dreams I've had in the past nine years. But most of us never do. They get replaced by more realistic goals we gather along the way, and we gradually evolve into a mature, normalised form of ourselves. Surprisingly, I may have ended up closer to what 16-year-old me would have wanted than any version that has come since.
So, how is it going to end? Does Ted tell his kids "that's how he met their mother?" Personally, I'm a big fan of the classics. We may have seen this one before, but it works. And if you have to go, you may as well go with a salute.
It'll be legen - wait for it -
Song Of The Day: Billie Holliday - I'll Be Seeing You
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