How I Met Your Mother

    The quote by Junot Diaz, written in his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, has always maintained a permanent seat within the highest pinned file of my notes app. It’s a beautiful way of encapsulating a bittersweet experience that comes with every progression of life. I am sure we can all relate to the sentiment, the unfortunate nature of it that is. For me, I take it to be a particularly poignant message, encapsulating a lesson I have spent most of my life trying to learn. 
    When I first left high school, it was with the belief that I had found all the friends I might ever need. No matter what came next, I felt assured in that truth and the security that came with it. But then I happened upon Michigan, attending university in a state completely unknown to me at the time. Utter randomness, I recall thinking to myself. How did I end up here? Now, though, I can’t imagine being dropped off anywhere else. As I prepare to graduate, leaving behind some of the happiest memories I’ve created in 21 years, it’s hard not to laugh at the naivety I once believed in so deeply. The truth is, I’ve never been good at endings, especially the ones that change everything. 
    The first time I finished How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) in its entirety, I was overcome with ambivalent feelings all around. The show itself is comedic, touching, heartfelt, and drenched with lessons about life, love, and loss throughout. The ending, however, leaves a certain pang in my heart. I’ve always had trouble letting go of characters I have grown fond of, feeling a connection to them at times that can’t be classified as normal behavior. But the ending to HIMYM is one that left a uniquely painful etch on my chest, a mark that still rears its tainted face every time I try to revisit it.
    To be fair, the show’s main focus falls on our main character, Ted Mosby, and his journey in the pursuit of true love – he finally dissipates the nine seasons of anticipation on who the mother of his children really is within these final episodes. But, to me, the group’s friendship was always one of the show’s more outspoken traits. Their comedic antics, the love that they each hold so staunchly for each other, all of it comes together to create a beautiful picture of the life I would hope to live in my own era of adulthood. Consequently, seeing the changes they encountered, the disruption of the constant they lived in for so many years, and how their lives eventually aged, often becomes a tough pill that I can’t quite ever face. 
    Even as a child, after hours upon hours spent at a friend’s house, I’d find myself plotting how to keep the time running, wondering whether I could keep it ticking forever. “You would never want to leave!” My mom often jokes. I wonder if she knew then the prophecy she was etching into my fate.

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    After first coming across HIMYM years ago, it has always been a recurring media item on my roster. Starting with the pilot episode, my yearly rewatches became such a routine that I didn’t even realize it was a habit—until a friend pointed out how absurdly well I had the show committed to the folds of my mind. Yet, one part of the experience that always seems to fade from the strict library of memories is the two-part season finale. The lingering emotions are clear: sadness, blank, and blank. Past that, it is a blur. I’ve never known why their ending has been such a hard reality to accept; in certain aspects, it should assuredly be considered a happy ending. But following eight seasons of navigating their 20s together, the glimpse into their future reveals the different paths the group takes. I always assumed they would endure on the same path together. 
    Though they remain friends, ensuring to keep up with the significant moments, eventually, only the significant moments, the differences in their lives are more than evident. Gone are the days spent in MacLaren's Bar, nights out on the town, and the amusing antics that have brought laughter to so many of us. Now comes the life of marriage, children, and a greater need for sleep than ever before. Time for friendship seems to have become a luxury, one quietly sacrificed to the rhythm of adulthood; something about that future fills me with a quiet kind of fear. As I trudged onward during this year’s annual rewatch, it didn’t take me too long to reach the last season. Yet the slight hesitation of the hover over the remaining few episodes still managed to send a shiver down the unkempt hairs on my arm. But, as if guided by the invisible hand of a force that seemed to know better, I clicked on the first part of the dreaded finale anyway. Titled, Last Forever, I took a deep breath laced with resentment. Maybe things would be different this time. Maybe I was different this time. 
    The poignant music coating the episode, endowed with nostalgia at every time stamp, began to strike the chords of my discomfort. The scene is set at McLaren's Bar – classic – yet the discourse around the table is painfully different. With Ted, Marshall, and Lily tied to the all-consuming tethers of parenthood, it is evident there is less time for jokes, spontaneity, and each other. Barney, always the unrelenting cheerleader of the group, is giddy at the prospect of everyone hanging out again, even if just for a night, though ten years earlier, a night like it would have been the norm. But even he can’t mask the sadness behind his plastered smile when they all agree they need to be home by 10 p.m. 
    “Tonight is about celebrating our enduring bond as friends,” Barney exclaims. But the word enduring lands heavier than it used to; what once was a certainty now feels like a hopeful plea. But as I took in the rest of their banter, the dialogue between the five never failing to escape my attention, I realized I did understand the changed dynamics of the group. To hope they would forever exist within the four green walls of Maclarens, drinking their days away together, is just that – a hope. But maybe one that exists more for me than for them.
    There’s a moment in the scene, fleeting yet gutting, when Lily, wrapped squarely in a sparkly blazer akin to a remnant of her youth, fights back slight tears at the realization that Robin, the missing piece of the group and her best friend once upon a time, is no longer there. They all know, it’s no one’s fault; just the quiet unraveling of proximity alongside the ghosts that may very well exist in their signature booth. The kind that happens when careers soar and priorities scatter, thinning time out like a ragged breath in the cold. 
    Still, the group finds ways to reunite. They join together for traditions like ‘Robots vs. Wrestlers,’ babysit the others’ kids, and are, all in all, still a looming presence in each's lives. Yet moments like Ted’s wedding, a highly anticipated function for all, still feel tainted by the versions of themselves that once existed in the bar. In a moment laced with nostalgic love, Ted’s wife, with full awareness of the bad luck that is claimed to follow a bride seen by her husband before the wedding, snaps a picture of the five of them reunited, saying simply: “Some things are more important than superstition.” That’s the part that always sticks with me. Will that be me and my friends one day?

    I am grateful that the friends I have found in college, the ones that were meant to find me, I believe, form the basis of some of my deepest connections. From four years of Saturday game days to Wednesday wine nights, to spontaneous late-night talks that blurred into morning, and cackling fits so uncontrollable they left us breathless—these moments have stitched themselves into the fabric of who I am. When I think about the lessons I have learned, the mannerisms I have adopted, or even the priorities by which I structure my life, it all comes back to them. I doubt they even know it. 
    They’ve shown me what true, unconditional love looks like—not the kind that demands or expects, but the kind that simply shows up. The kind that quietly holds space for you when you’re unraveling, that celebrates your wins without envy, and that reminds you who you are when you forget. It is through them that I’ve come to understand the extraordinary power of platonic love. The type of love that is often underestimated, yet feels just as soul-shaping as any romance. A love that is grounding, forgiving, and constant. A love that doesn’t ask for performance, but instead simply asks for presence. I see now that these relationships have not only given me joy—they’ve taught me how to be loved, and how to love better in return. I see that love in the five characters gracing my screen. Yet it seems to me even they could not survive the distance unscathed. 

    As I continue on with the episode, directing all my brainpower to compartmentalize away the ache that Robin and Lily’s long-awaited reunion instills in me, I find myself fighting the same battles these episodes always seem to incite within. On one hand, I realize the gratitude lacing my dilemma – it is a remarkable thing to love something, someone, or somewhere so deeply that imagining life without it feels almost unbearable. But on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder what the point is sometimes. We let people in, shape our lives around their presence, yet all the while knowing it is not forever–or, I should say, it likely can’t be forever. For some, that impermanence provides them fuel; the excitement of the unknown is thrilling, and a new day truly brings the hope of new promises. But for others, it is a crippling fear that takes over instead. 
    How one ultimately becomes one or the other is beyond me. Though watching Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall, and Lily return to their respective roles of the group, chuckling and cheesing as if no time has passed, gives me hope that I am slowly making my way to maturity. Because, for once, my mind is locked on the fact that they did make it back. Maybe not in the exact same way, maybe not every night at MacLaren’s, but they still chose each other—again and again, across years, cities, babies, heartbreaks, and weddings. And that choice, I’m beginning to realize, is what really matters. It brings some comfort to the anxiety inhabiting my persona, I realize, knowing that love, real love – whether platonic or romantic — doesn’t always require permanence to be real. It just asks that we show up when we can, and hold on when it counts. And even when the daily rituals fall away, what remains is the thread of something quieter, more resilient: care that survives the chaos of adulthood. 
    As I waited for the credits to load, committed to seeing one more time where each of the five's futures would lead, it dawned on me that even this fictional show couldn't preserve a moment in time. Everything keeps moving—always, forever—and it is ultimately up to us to decide if we move with it. The fear of what’s to come, the unknowing forces that exist within any future, the intricacies of life still patiently waiting for me to stumble across them, will always exist, I realize now. Seeking out its doom, rather than taking into account its beauty, is where I went wrong, I think. For more than 20 years, the five of them stayed steadfast in their commitment to each other. Though it took its breaks, it adjusted to the distance, conforming in its own way to the lives they all embarked on leading. That’s life in the end, I think; an ever-changing rollercoaster that we are resigned to navigate ourselves. For Ted, Barney, Marshall, Robin, and Lily, I see now that they have always been on that ride together; I just had to have faith in their evolution.
    Because maybe some things are more important than superstition. More important than routine, time, and even change. Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to learn all along: that endings don’t erase what came before but rather amplify what is to come. That loving deeply, despite the ache it sometimes leaves behind, is still the only way I want to live. I can only hope that I am able to keep the fears I have at bay, remaining present in the moments I cherish, as much as I can.