a goodbye I just wasn't ready to say...

When I was a sophomore in college I fell in love with Grey’s Anatomy. Each Thursday night I would cuddle up on my dorm room bunk bed under my ridiculous yellow gingham comforter and spend an hour with the Chief and Bailey, Derek and Meredith, Izzy and George and Cristina. I watched as bombs exploded and trains collided and Denny died and the haunting harmonies of my very favorite musical melodies serenaded in the background. Songs like “chasing cars” and “breathe” quickly moved into the most played positions in my iTunes library. For Christmas one year, my dear friend Gan and I gave each other Grey’s Anatomy scrubs and calendars. We were what you would call die-hard fans. Years later when college was far behind us we went adorned in those fantastic scrubs as Dr. Meredith Grey and Dr. Cristina Yang to Rachel’s epic Halloween party. My mom took to calling Grey’s my “smutty show” - literally everyone knew exactly where I would be on Thursday evenings - home - transfixed - watching ABC. Summer 2007 while changing the world, Emy and I spent countless hours in the backseat of our Yukon driving cross-country headphones plugged into the laptop watching Grey’s on DVD. For the last 10 years, from where I stand, it’s been a pretty real truth that almost nothing makes anything at least a tiny smidge better like an episode of Greys (especially if you throw it back to Season 2).

So you can imagine, last night after a ridiculously hard day when my head was pounding and I was just so ready to be done, that a brand new episode of Grey’s sounded like an absolute dream. However, the sobs shook my being from deep within when after 10 years (and a truly hideous quantity of hours spent together) McDreamy was lifeless and still, battered and bruised, connected to countless machines as his only means of sustaining life. Meredith stroked his beautiful pale face and told him he could go as I whispered “no, no, no” from the privacy of my own bedroom as tears streamed down my cheeks. And then, Derek died. He is gone. I wasn’t ready - I will NEVER be ready. I know the day will come when Grey’s will end (and truth be told, it should have happened a long time ago) but I love my friends at Seattle Grace, Seattle Grace Mercy West, Grey Sloane Hospital - and I’ll forever be willing to spend a Thursday night cozied up on the couch with them…it just feels right.