This photo almost makes me cry. It's the end of an era... but like any relationship, the love was lost a long time ago. I don't know how to feel about it. I feel old more than anything. I feel like time is passing faster and faster. I remember sitting, with skepticism, on my bed to watch the very first episode of The OC on August fifth, 2003 - having seen previews describing a place, "like no place you've ever been," and punctuated with Luke Ward's "Welcome to the OC bitch!" I can see the light in my room, i can see the episode as if it was playing right now before me - Ryan walking out to the curb to meet Marissa for the first time. When the part of Marissa Cooper was cast, she was described as "heartbreakingly beautiful..." and I can't think of a better way to describe Mischa! I fell in love. The show became something much more for me, not because of what it was, but because of what it meant to me and because of a very special girl whom i will always associate with the show. It was a beautiful, amazing thing throughout the first season... and it's only fitting that the last episode played the last day i spent with this girl before everything changed.
Graduation in The OC is going to be a strange, emotional thing - the show began at the same time school would have if i hadn't graduated, so in many ways it was a continuation for me - i was able to live vicariously through the show's characters the life that I always wanted - beautiful people, idyllic beach setting, comfortable affluence, a girl who is heartbreakingly beautiful... Everything I've always wanted, and everything I've never had. It allowed me to suspend reality indefinitely - i didn't have to face responsibility, getting older, moving on, or anything else in the real world because I could always get lost in / find comfort in The OC. I know it seems silly to invest so much in a television show, but it will never be just a television show to me. I'm not sure what to expect Thursday, but I think this feeling i have, this connection is through. I've been pressing the snooze button on the alarm that is life for too long - always trying to capture another fragment of a dream, another seven minutes of fantasy. Fuck it, I gotta get up.
(continued...)