For as long as I can remember, I’ve always dreaded a series finale. I hate them. I avoid them. No matter what TV show, no matter how long I’ve been invested, I’m never ready for that final episode. I’m never ready to say goodbye.
I’ll spend the entire final season watching as the sadness builds, and then I’ll get to the second last episode and never press play again. I don’t care that the story isn’t tied up in a neat little bow. Rachel never gets off the plane. Ted never grabs that blue French horn. If I never press play, it’s never officially over. The characters. The love. The history. The story.
I approach life in much the same way. I’m never ready for the “Golden Years” to be over. Like damn, on my last night of being a teenager, I listened to Where’d All The Time Go by Dr. Dog on repeat until the clock ticked over to midnight and I turned 20. Dramatic, I know.
But it’s the truth. I see something good, grab it, and hold on for dear life.
I wasn’t ready for my childhood to end. Or my adolescence. But they did. They have to. If those periods never ended, I never would’ve started the next one. You can’t stay eight years old forever. And, if I had, I wouldn’t be writing this memoir right now, on a rock, in the rain, in Taiwan. Things have to end for the next to start. The new isn’t scary or bad, it’s just different.
As much as I’d as I’d love to watch the characters of my favourite sitcom to grow old together, and the show to keep on going forever, it just wouldn’t work. Eventually, cast members would die. Storylines would wrap up. And, ultimately, the show would have to end anyway. That’s the whole point. Everything ultimately ends.
But, in some way, I think that’s what makes life beautiful – the fleetingness of it all. We have to grab the magic while we can. Enjoy it.
All this to say, I’m graduating uni soon. Now, I can’t say I’ll never be a student again, but I am pretty confident I won’t be. This is most likely my last uni semester ever.
In true form, all throughout my degree, I’ve kept saying that I don’t want it to end. Contrary to many of my peers, I’ve actually loved uni. The classes. The learning. The schedule. The freedom. The people. The vibes.
Except we’re now up to another season finale. And, as usual, I’m not ready for it to end. I don’t think I ever will be. But it’s not up to me. Time marches on, and I have to start catching up with it.
I can’t stay eight forever.
It’s time to press play.
