One Tree Hill. One Last Time.

After nearly two months of putting it off, I finally watched the final episode ever of One Tree Hill. I guess I kept putting it off because I wasn't ready for it to be over. I wasn't ready for the stories to end and I wasn't ready to let go. And for a show that started out with strong characters, storylines and music, it did lose its way a few times (especially after losing Lucas and Peyton), was the end of it really going to do its justice to the core of the show?

I remember what One Tree Hill meant to me back in 2003. It aired on channel 10, but I never found too much interest in it. To me, it was that show with the hot Chad Michael Murray, a curly haired blonde and that extremely sexual brunette girl. A show about sex, drugs, teenagers and high school drama. So in short, I wasn't interested.

A few years ago, they began airing random episodes of OTH again on channel 10, this time, on Saturday mornings to fill in the time between Video Hits and the news. That was also the time when I used to actually watch TV, I'd spend most of the day on the couch constantly flipping through channels. So I sat and watched a few minutes here and there of OTH as it played over these Saturdays, and I got the gist of the show pretty quickly. One particular episode that caught me was back in season 6 (ep 18) where Jamie Scott asked his grandfather, Dan Scott, about who killed his great-uncle Keith. And in this, Dan admits to murdering his brother. Shocked and curious, I decided to start from the beginning and watch the entire show. As I watched it, I learned that it wasn't a show purely about teenagers, sex and alcohol. It was about growing up, learning what's important, learning right from wrong and following your heart and your dreams. And yeah, that summary makes it sound lame and cheesy and it probably is. But I'm a lame and cheesy person and I love all things lame and I love all things cheesy.

So I fell in love. I fell in love with the show, the characters, the music, the settings, the places, the journeys and most of all, I fell in love with the words. There are some great moments in OTH. Moments that make you cry, that break your heart, that fill you with joy and hope, and most of these are carried out in the form of words, whether narrated or spoken as part of a dialogue. There is something so beautiful in the way words were written for that show. That a certain combination of letters and words can translate and communicate thoughts, feelings, emotions in such an artful way.

I found that when others talk about what the show meant to them, a lot of people say it was a guide for them. The characters and the viewers, all young and lost, grew up together and found their way together. Unfortunately I didn't have OTH growing up. But it doesn't change the fact that I've learnt so much from it. My view on certain issues changed, my needs and wants changed, my mind matured and it got me through the day when I was at my worst. So much of my life has changed in the last couple of years, my world changed, I changed, but having this constant in my life is a comfort.

I'm glad I discovered OTH. I grew up with disconnected, distant judgmental parents (whom I still love very much) but they never taught me anything about hopes or dreams or what it means to be in love. I wasn't allowed to be lost, I wasn't allowed to be creative and so I learnt all the things I missed from them from this show.

I'm always going to be grateful for this show. It seems so silly that my life would change because of a show, based in a fictional world full of fictional characters, but it did.

As for the final episode, I was worried that they would ruin it. They admittedly did quite bad after Lucas and Peyton left and the end of season 8 was a mess. I think the producers weren't quite sure they would be signed on for another season so they tried to wrap up as much as they could.

But the final episode, I think was pretty good. It would've been amazing to have brought back Lucas and Peyton, but they did add so much to the end that really tied it all together. Like the importance of Dan's death, the ultimate sacrifice he made for his son. Brooke being given all the things she's ever wanted and deserved: love, two generations of a family, and a family home, Nathan and Haley lasting the entire 9 seasons (minus half of season 3), and the idea of a TV show based on OTH. This is probably my favourite of all. OTH originally was a movie script called Ravens, but they decided that the script would be better told as a TV show. So they made the TV show and Lucas wrote a book about it, tried to make a movie and failed and in the end it became a TV show. A bit Inception-like but bringing it full circle. I'm saddened by the end of it all. I'm sad that there won't be more stories, that the lives of these fictional characters have ended. I feel like there's so much more to tell. Will there be more kids for Brooke, Haley, Millie or Quinn? How does Lydia grow up? What kind of predictions does Jamie make? Does Jamie grow up to be a basketball player? And dammit James Lafferty got really hot when he started bulking up. Sexy.

One Tree Hill. One Last Time.

Pushing.

I've been watching How I Met Your Mother a lot lately, but in all the seven seasons that have aired, I have only one favourite from Ted's many, many, many conquests. Victoria. aka Buttercup aka the baking lady aka the lady that Ted met at the wedding in season 1, ep 12/13/14.

I will always be vouching for Victoria and Ted to end up together, and even though I know there's no possibility of that happening now, (sometime in a later season, she comes back and she's engaged), there's a tiny part of me that still hopes.

Why? Why do I invest so much hope in a fictional character finding love and a happy ending with another fictional character? Partly because I have no life of my own. But mostly, its because she's epitomises the kind of woman I'd like to be. Creative, fun, spontaneous, mysterious, baking delicious cupcakes and finding the most sweetest, purest, most romantic of loves.

Anyways the title of this post is "pushing" not "Victoria", even though it was inspired by her and Ted's storyline. We all chase this idea of happy ever after, but often we end up pushing ourselves until we reach breaking point. And something that started so sweet, and pure, like Victoria and Ted's relationship, eventually breaks down.

So how do we know? How do we know when to quit? When is the optimal time to stay in a certain place before all hell breaks loose and it all becomes irreparable? There's that saying "quit while you're ahead," but that's the trick of good things. Good things are good, and hence you want more and more of it but the more you ask for it, the more you push and the closer you get to ruining it and losing it all.

But knowing this, why don't we stop? If we know that all things will eventually go bad, why don't we stop? Because we hope. We hope things won't go bad, we hope the happiness, the joy, the success will last forever, and we hope that it'll all work out.

 What are we, without hope?

Relationship Changes

 People change. They grow, they mature. It's a fact of life.

We all go through stages in our lifetimes. Primary school. High school. College. Adulthood. Parenthood.

Along the way, we collect new friends, family. And, if we're lucky, at some stage, we find someone to fall in love with and someone to love us back. But we never stop growing, we never stop moving through the stages. Maybe we slow down, maybe we breeze through it. But we all grow, we move through the stages, we change.

So what happens when that person you  loved changed? What if the person you were changed?

One of those break-up cliches people use is that You/I have changed. We're not the same people anymore. Does that mean that if we want to hold onto someone we love, we're not allowed to change? Anyone who says yes to that, is, frankly, an idiot. You expect someone not to change, to be the same person they were six months ago, or even sixty years ago? But can you guarantee that in that time, you, yourself, have not changed? You haven't lost interest in your favourite t-shirt, or forget the songs that you used to play on repeat? No, of course not. You've changed.

But change isn't a bad thing. It isn't about pretending that you're okay with these changes in yourself and in that other person. All it means is that the love, the relationship, the dynamics have to change too. All it means is that you need to re-evaluate yourself, your life and see them for who they are now and not what you saw in them before and not what you think they should be. See the changes you've made in yourself, and see their changes and accept them. All change means is that its time to change the way you love them. Let the new you, love the new them.

P.S. This kept popping into my head while writing: As we mature, the relationship matures with us. HIMYM

Relationships.

There are so many things out there, telling us what to do in relationships. All the rules, laws, cliches. Your best friend, your mom, your grandma. TV, movies, blogs, videos. And yeah, most of the time they are right. You know, "Don't go looking for Mr. Right, he'll come to you". Or "No man is worth your tears, if he was, he wouldn't make you cry". And of course, all those ridiculous rules like "playing hard to get," or "wait three days before you call." (In all fairness, that last one may be a little outdated, but you get the point.)

Although a lot of those are useful in snagging a guy, the truth is, in a real relationship, there is no-one else in the entire world who knows how the two of you are. Yes, there are patterns. The girl gets more emotionally attached first. It takes longer for the guy to do so. But at the end of the day, the two people in the relationship are two unique people and they create a unique relationship. And the ones who aren't unique, the ones who follow rules, well, the guys turn out to be jerks who aren't after a real relationship, and the girls end up sad and alone. 

So here comes another cliche: Be yourself. Be who you think you should be, be who you think you are and not what you want a man to see you as. Don't try to be what you think you should be. Don't spend hours and hours on hair and makeup that's supposed to look effortless. Don't pass yourself off as sexy and mysterious, if you're not. If you be the person you're supposed to be, the right man will think that's sexy and beautiful. And this is speaking from experience. While working, I spent an hour every day before work putting on make-up, experimenting with new hairstyles, trying on outfit after outfit, trying to impress a guy. Even though I got a few comments from co-workers, I got no response from the guy I was trying to impress. After a week or two of doing this, one day I woke up late and had no time for my ridiculous efforts, so I got dressed in the first thing I could find and headed out the door. The next night, I realised that with or without make-up, this guy was not going to notice me, so I stopped my painful routine. Two days later, I won him over and he asked me out.

For guys, winning a girl over is easy. Just show her how you feel. It's easy to buy roses and chocolates. That's sweet, but cliche. And not always true. For example, I hate roses, and I prefer white chocolate over anything else. The best way to win a girl over is to show her that you care, that you listen, show her how you feel about her. Its not hard to find presents for a girl, you just gotta pay attention. The best presents I've gotten are the ones which showed me he cared, or that he listened or that he put effort into, rather than the things I asked for, or wanted.

A lot of guys get nervous easily, and they chicken out. They come off an shy and sweet, but not boyfriend material. And then there are guys who are confident, and come off as arrogant. They come off and cocky, crass, and are clearly only after one thing. Either way, be honest about who you are and what you want. If you're nervous, then say so, but proceed anyway. Don't point out your nervousness and then hide. Show some courage. If you're after sex, then at least be honest about it. And yeah, maybe most girls will turn you down, but the ones who do say yes, will probably be worth the effort.

Revertigo?

I've been filling my days up with old episodes of How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) lately, because after watching One Tree Hill seasons 1-7 for the fourth time, it's time to move on.

So anyways, sometime in season 3 of HIMYM (I think), Robin (Cobie Smulders, who, by the way, i have a new appreciation for after seeing the avengers - damn, she's gorgeous!) gets a visit from an old boyfriend and she immediately turns into her old self, the version she was with him when she was sixteen. And for comedy, Lily gets a visit from a friend who also reverts back to the black-woman she pretended to be in high school - Marshall termed this revertigo.

Anyways, it got me thinking.. Are we really doomed in that way for the rest of our lives? Can we see someone we used to know from another chapter of our life and always revert back to that version of us in their presence?

For example, I had a great guy friend in high school. He was sweet and sensitive but always teased by guys for being so sensitive and overlooked by girls for his lack of being forward. Now, four years on, he's got a string of girlfriends, a regular party-goer and had gained all this confidence and even a tattoo. But when he's back with all our high school friends, especially the guys, he goes back to being that shy, sensitive teased guy he was all those years ago.

It's obvious we change and grow and mature as people as we get older. Sometimes for the worse, often for the better. But why is it that when we're out into a group of the people who knew the old you, you immediately revert back to that person?

I believe people can change. I see it in myself and in the people around me. But what happens when those people don't let you? Is it possible for my friend to be the new confident guy he is now with all the old high school mates? Is it possible when they think of him in the same way?

Change happens all the time. You can fight it or delay it, but it happens. With people, they do change too. Sometimes they hide it because certain people already think of you in a certain way and to change it or to challenge is too hard or too embarrassing or just too difficult. Change in a person changes perceptions, opinions, reputations and relationships. So maybe we revert back so we don't challenge them. But life is about growing and changing and if you can't be the new you with your old friends then either you need new friends or you risk changing everything you know.