It's like a best friend moving away. I feel sad that it's over.
I suppose that the conclusion of the show and the goodbye to all the characters with whom I feel a false sense of intimacy isn't really about the show. It's about my own story.
In a way, Scrubs was my friend throughout my 20s. I remember seeing it for only the 3rd or 4th time -- sometime in the first season -- after a fight with Amanda. As we lay on our bed, I was turned away from her, away from the TV, and away from the world. JD and Elliot had just broken up for the first time -- so young, so fast, so sitcommy, so born and lost in 22 minutes. And then the moral of the story was summed up. "The big difference is they don't let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it's right, and they're real lucky, one of them will say something."
And we stayed together a little longer. I grunted. Amanda said, "Maybe we both needed to hear that, huh?" And I turned to face her. We hugged.
I see the age on the actor's faces, just as I see it on my own. I see the faint lines under the eyes, the now-distinct cheek that is slowly becoming more and more delineated from the mouth and nose. I see Eliott on television, and she still represents some fantasy image of a girl I think I'd want to date -- smart, sexy, blonde, athletic, ambitious, and absolutely neurotic. I see J.D. and still relate to him in his closing lines of the series. "Why can't my fantasy be my future? Why can't it all be true?" He says this as he watches, in his mind's eye, the future he imagines with the woman he loves (I'm glad he got the girl, I don't care that it made this last season less interesting. He's just an idiot for letting her slip away so many times. Only in Hollywood does she ever come back.), the friends he believes will always be there, and the kids he'll watch grow up.
It is simultaneously, paradoxically, a message of hope and doubt. The fantasy of a happy future leaves the optimists with their happy ending, the realists with their present, and the pessimists with an urge to engage in their own fantasies.
It's not that I miss Amanda. It's that I miss the fantasy.
It's not that I hate Laura. It's that I miss the ability to fantasize.
It's not that I will miss JD & Elliott. It's that their goodbye is a reminder of change, a marker of times gone by and fairy tales lost.
And it's not that I'm sad as I write this. Just... reflective.
I suppose, if I were to be honest, that I do have a lot of wishes. A lot of... fantasies. I suppose I've just accepted that they aren't my destiny, which makes this pensive, rather than tearful.
I wish Amanda had loved me a little more and her job a little less. I wish we'd had another go of it.
I wish I'd never loved Laura. Some lessons are better left untaught.
I wish I'd finished high school and gone off to college like a normal kid.
I wish I were still friends with Sam.
I wish my dad were sane.
I wish I could love my brother enough.
I wish I could love my mother.
I wish Ayla was still my friend.
