no_takebacks | DPP: The state of the Nation.

workerbee73.livejournal.com posting in

I was going to do a funny and snarky state-of-the-union post, but once I started writing, the thinky thoughts came out and the meta-poetry snuck in and it kind of got out of hand. So instead of the funny, you get something a bit more contemplative. I promise I'll return to my lighter and more whimsical side tomorrow. : )

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Hello, my dears. It's been over a year since our show ended, and yet, here we are. Still here. Still talking. Still laughing and snarking and pondering pilots. It's strange how a fictional pairing can burrow so deeply under your skin that it almost feels like part of your backstory. But I suspect if most of us didn't feel that way, we wouldn't be here.

And yet, I occasionally hear (and say to myself)—Why do you still care? You were so disappointed in the ending, in so many things. How does what was ultimately given not wipe away all the previous goodwill?

I don't really have a clever answer, I just know that it doesn't. Even with retcon and narrative and genderfail—even with hubris and the things that still make us roll our eyes and gnash our teeth… there's still so much truth there.

And so much beauty. And so much hope.

Despair at the end doesn't negate everything that's come before. In some ways, it just makes it sweeter and more precious.

I went to a funeral yesterday. A beautiful funeral filled with cantors singing psalms in minor tones, prayerful melodies echoing across the congregation—a melancholy celebration of life. A poignant reminder that all love stories have a tragic ending. A colleague of mine, an elderly gentleman, lost his wife of many years. They met when they were 6 years old. Six. Can you imagine? They fell in love at 14, but they had to wait 15 years—and outlast a World War—before they could marry. True soulmates. When her health began to decline several years ago, so did his. And as much as it pains me to say it, I doubt if he will want to stay in this world much longer without her.

It's a very real reminder of what sometimes seems like a fictional idea—that love is real, that it is complex, that it demands hard work and sacrifice, and that it is destined to break our hearts.

But you know what? It is so worth it. The pain of loss, of not having, of clinging to an empty, spinning bed for months—none of it can compare when placed against what we stand to gain. To live life in a full spectrum of color; to breathe deeply and laugh hard and scream at the top of our lungs just because we can. To see the spark of the divine in another person, and in doing so, also see it in ourselves.

We are all Kara, and we are all Lee. The lover and the beloved; the leader and the follower; the savior and the saved. Rash and restrained, measured and impulsive—it's all there in each of us. Searching for something that we're almost too scared to find. Too scared that it will be real. That it will demand too much. That it will hurt too badly when it's gone.

All love stories have a tragic ending, but they are not sad. Instead, they give us hope. Hope for what might be; hope for what has been. They teach us how to better live. In some ways they provide cautionary tales, but the best ones—the very best—show us that love can grow in the most unlikely of places, that it can flourish in the hardest of hearts, under the most impossible of circumstances.

That it can accept us for who and what we are. That it can heal us. Set us free. Fixed is not the same as unbroken but something more, something better.

This is all that matters.

And what a wonderful thing that two fictional characters can remind us of such a fundamental truth. Thanks for sharing in the journey, my friends.

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Thus endeth the essay. : )
**hugs all of you**