Aaron Sorkin has done me in again. he does it every time I watch the last episode of Sports Night, every time i watch the first episode of Sports Night, every time I watch the episode entitled "April is the Cruelest Month" (which was the first episode of Sports Night I ever saw) and he's now done it to me twice with the season three finale of West Wing.
It's eleven years too late for what I'm about to write to be a spoiler, so I'm not too worried about ruining it for anyone else. The first time I went through this series (I didn't make it all the way through - just the first few seasons) it was with Andy, Kerry, and Scott. This episode, along with the episode where Mrs. Landingham dies, tugged at those emotional parts of me that make me question if I'm really an INTP sometimes.
The first time I watched the series I, like the character of CJ, was enamored by Mark Harmon's character, Simon Donovan. He was only on the show for a few episodes but he, like so many Aaron Sorkin characters, was likable from the start. He may even be my favorite character on the West Wing.
And then, in the series finale of Season Three, Aaron Sorkin did what he does so well - he made me break down and cry again. The backdrop of Jeff Buckley singing Leonard Cohen (one of the most beautiful voices singing a song by one of my lifetime's great poets) has become somewhat cliche in my mind but Aaron Sorkin ties it beautifully into the tragedy of Simon Donovan getting shot and killed. The song goes on while a Secret Service agent pulls CJ out of the play she's been watching to tell her that Simon is dead.
The first time I watched this episode, I hadn't just lost someone and similarly turned to Jeff Buckley singing Leonard Cohen to silhouette my own emotions. This time it hits just a little harder, even though I knew it was coming.
The other night I was going to write a post narrating all of my Thanksgivings in Skagway. I had it started in my head but hit a roadblock when suddenly, inexplicably, Thanksgiving of 2010 seemed to have been erased from my memory. Instead of going ahead with it and detailing 2008, 2009, 2011, and this year, I lost control of my emotions, broke down, and decided not to write.
I spent three Thanksgivings with Stimee - 2009, 2010, and 2011. 2009 we spent at Doug and Lindsay's house and I remember it well. In 2011 he was out of town. While I spent the day with Tekla and Katie, he spent Thanksgiving at a Hell's Angels bar in Seattle drinking beers with a guy named Slammer. But I can't remember what we did in 2010. It's like The Nothing from the Neverending Story that has consumed a lot of my emotions and actions lately has also eaten that entire memory from my brain. And I couldn't quite handle that.
It's cliche and overdone to spend Thanksgiving talking about what you're thankful for, especially during a period in your life when you're constantly reminded of all you lack. Facebook is teeming with status updates about what everyone has been thankful for as well as photos of people's feasts and festivities. On a night when I have to work and can't have thanksgiving dinner with anyone, on a day when i've been racking my brain trying to remember what I did with my dead ex-fiancee two years ago, those status updates have just served to push me farther into an abyss of not wanting to realize what I have to be grateful for.
But I took the bait. Early this morning, when I got home from the bar, I made stuffing from scratch and gravy from a packet. It was delicious. As I sat and enjoyed my own private Thanksgiving meal with the two best dogs in the world beside me, I reflected on the things that, in the midst of tragedy, I really do have to be thankful for. I, like everyone else, posted a facebook status of what I was thankful for - namely, all the people who've been supportive of me in tangible ways over the last two and a half months.
I figured I'd have five or six people to tag in that status update. Actually, I had to make several status updates since facebook only lets you tag twenty at a time. I tagged fifty-six people altogether, and certainly left out a lot more. Those were just the ones who actually did something tangible for me, which doesn't include the people whose texts, calls, and facebook messages didn't fall on deaf ears.
Later on, I found myself on one of the messageboards I frequent as a great substitute for real social interaction. Someone had started a thread demanding that we post the top ten things we're all thankful for. My list: 1. the people who've supported me the last couple months. 2. the fact that i'm alive. 3. the fact that i have a job. 4. my dog. 5. indoor heating. 6. indoor plumbing. 7. hot water heaters. 8. nicotine. 9. alcohol. 10. (i tagged a particular friend who's been particularly helpful in the healing process).
There's so much more than that to be thankful for. (I honestly can't believe that I'm posting a blog on Thanksgiving about being thankful.) I don't have a family to spend Thanksgiving with, but I'm thankful that I have a friend who brought me two heaping plates of food from her dinner. I didn't get to participate in anyone else's holiday traditions because of work, but I am beyond grateful that after so many years of trying, I have a real job. I don't have a partner to go home to at the end of the night, but I'm grateful for both the memories of the ones who were there in the past and for the people across the miles who i know are thinking about me.
I think what I'm most grateful for on this Thanksgiving day is what Aaron Sorkin evoked in me. I used to cry at movies and TV shows every time anyone got married, had a baby, died, or ended up with Mr. Right. Lately that's not so much the case. I watched the episode of Grey's Anatomy where Alex and Izzie get married - an episode which always leaves me bawling like a baby - and had no reaction whatsoever except to think how cheesy and awful it was. I don't feel like a zombie anymore, but when it comes to having emotional responses to things that I think I should have responses to, I've felt very much like a robot. I'm grateful to Aaron Sorkin for proving to me that I am still human.
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