There is Only One Tree Hill

I know I promised a graduation week part 3 post, which I will still write, I promise! But, I was inspired to write about something else first.

A couple of months ago I sat on my couch for two hours on a Wednesday night watching the One Tree Hill Series finale. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually sat and watched tv in my apartment because I normally make a point of going to the gym to watch tv so I'm at least a little active. But I felt like I needed to devote my full attention to this particular episode. Although I don't think I've ever considered it my favorite tv show, I've watched One Tree Hill from the very beginning-my freshman year of high school. I'm quite certain there are still no-longer-blank tapes sitting around my mom's house somewhere with old episodes painstakingly recorded because that 7pm CST show time didn't always coincide with my mom's dinner plans. Little did I know that I would soon be able to watch every episode on Netflix, and thank God for that!

Just like when I finished the last Harry Potter book and movie, watching the series finale of One Tree Hill signified another door closed on my childhood (although not quite as drastic as with Harry Potter). That show never gained as much of a following as many tv shows, even other CW "masterpieces", but it did manage to somehow last 9 seasons. Of course as soon as the final episode was finished, I felt an urge to go back and rewatch the rest of the series. Part of my motivation was just to remember what the hell happened because its definitely hard to remember what happened during some random week night of my freshman year of high school, but some of it was just to live it all over again through Lucas, Haley, Nathan, and the rest of the gang.

My first instinct when it ended was to text Brian, the guy I dated in high school for two years. He was just as hooked on the show as I was (although it may have just been because I was so hooked...) but he watched it more or less from start to finish as well. I can't even remember how many hours we spent analyzing each episode over the phone the night it showed and then probably during school the next day too. I made the enthusiastic suggestion that we should have a One Tree Hill marathon over the summer....without really thinking that a) I could never sit through that much straight tv b) there's no way I could ever have that much consecutive free time and c) I will soon have this lovely boyfriend living with me who might not be so cool about me spending 3 days on the couch watching tv with the only other guy I've been with.

So, that plan quickly changed to me checking Netflix to see if the series were available on instant streaming which it is! I've been diligently working my way through the series ever since. I take some joy in having this foresight about who everyone ends up with and its highly amusing to see their reactions to each other upon first meeting and all the petty fights and the moments that cement their relationships. A lot of it I don't remember, or at least not the fine details. But I eagerly awaited the Nathan and Haley's marriage (both of them) Lucas's diagnosis of his heart condition, the school shooting, Karen being pregnant with Keith's child, Peyton's stalker not-brother, and Haley going into labor during her high school graduation. I find that knowing what happens in the end doesn't make the story any less enjoyable, although I'm also the girl who frequently reads the last page of books before I even start them. I like knowing what happens, particularly if its a happy ending, what can I say?

I  just completed season 4 tonight which is what inspired me to write about it a little. Like Harry Potter, One Tree Hill is kind of one of those shows I grew up with. Yes, they did stretch the last 2 years of high school into 4 seasons, but that meant that I graduated high school just a few short weeks after the season 4 finale aired. They also skipped the college years for the most part, so all the characters ended up being in their mid-late twenties while I'm 23, but everything can't be perfect.

Season 4 concluded with overly dramatic parties, bonding, and "moments", not unlike those perfect moments I wrote about a few entries before, that the characters experienced before leaving Tree Hill for the summer and for college. It was essentially the last time they would all be together. And it was, because if I remember correctly the characters start dropping like flies later on. Even Lucas only lasts another season or two and he's a pretty essential character! In the final scenes, they focus in on the couples: Lucas and Peyton, Haley and Nathan, Skills and Bevin, Brooke and Chase, Mouth and Rachel. I couldn't help but be reminded of my own relationship upon graduating high school.

I dated Brian from October of my sophomore year through November of my senior year. When we finally managed our likely long-overdue breakup, I had definitively decided that I was not interested in trying to maintain a high school relationship when I left for college. Although it would be nearly 6 months before I decided where I was going to school, I knew it would be a minimum of a 5 hour drive away and likely much further. This was a huge step for me, as I spent most of junior year trying to figure out which schools in the tuition exchange program either a) had volleyball programs or b) were reasonably close to a school with a volleyball program. I think Brian signing to play volleyball at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL was the last straw for me. I knew he was capable of going to a more academically challenging school and he had always dreamed of going to college in California. To go from dreaming of San Diego to settling for a school just 45 minutes from home was a total shock to me. Whether or not he made the right decision I'll never know, but this isn't his story.

Dan and I start dating my senior year over Thanksgiving. November 25th-still the day we consider our anniversary despite jumping many hurdles in between that Saturday in 2006 and now. Our first date was dinner with his family-parents and Tim. I still haven't forgiven him for that. He only informed me that we were having dinner with them about 3 hours prior to this. So I freak out and call my friend Steph (Dan is best friends with her brother, Logan) in order to figure out what this family is like. To top off the matter, I had managed to get an infected toe a few days earlier so I wasn't allowed to wear closed toe shoes in November...flip flops are not actually normal attire in Chicago then. I'm freaking out about what I'm supposed to wear and what his parents are like and I have about an hour in which to do it because I was playing violin at Mass that evening. Thankfully Miriam spent the entire homily trying to calm me down, although I doubt Mrs. Coffman has forgiven us for that yet.

Needless to say, I managed to survive that dinner and many afterwards. But even as the summer was winding down, I still didn't envision this as a long-term thing. When we started dating, I had no idea we'd even last to my graduation or departure for college, and even when we were still dating I was dead set on my plans to breakup before I left. Despite this, Dan came to my graduation dinner with my family and we continued to have a wonderful summer together. I don't recall thinking about this deadline looming closer and closer in our future, but it was certainly there. We spent a lot of time together that summer what with my friends leaving one-by-one for pre-orientation activities and such for school and weird hours for summer jobs.

The last episode of One Tree Hill I watched this evening featured a party with the junior (soon to be senior) and senior (just graduated) classes of Tree Hill High School. Although I was never part of that kind of celebration outside of prom (I also graduated with closer to 900 students so it would have been a bit harder...), my friend Steph hosted a party before she left for the summer and before her parents sold their home in Oak Park. Pretty much everyone from our close group of friends at the end of high school was there. It was also the only time I've ever sneaked out of my house. My mom wouldn't let me spend the night at Steph's for some reason or another so I was sure to be home by my curfew, but then left again once I knew she was asleep. I left a note in the off chance that she woke up worried, but I don't think she ever knew I was gone. That night marked the last time my friends and I were all in Oak Park together. Like in a tv show, some of the characters eventually drop off. Some come back for guest appearances, others don't. Try as I might to stay in touch with all of them, its a near impossible task. Even now I'm still coping with the fact that we'll never be in the same location again which is devastating. By coming home to Chicago I certainly increased the odds that I might live just around the corner from some of them again, at least those who still have family in the area.

I'm a quote person, have been ever since junior high. I can't even tell you how many email folders, lists, and little scraps of paper I have filled with quotes. I even made Brian a 2006 day-by-day calendar with a different one of my "favorite" quotes for each day. Too bad we didn't make it through the year, oh well! I think that's one of the things I appreciated about One Tree Hill-music and language were always major parts of the series. I'm sure it was sometime in high school when I first wrote down the quote "The road is long, and in the end, the journey is the destination" (Coach Whitey Durham, obviously. When I started watching One Tree Hill again, I knew what the ending would bring. I knew who would still be on the show, which couples would be together, what new people would come into their lives, and who would die. I remembered some of the pieces of that journey, but not all of it so it was still a discovery for me. I can't predict any of that for my life, my self, try as I might (please refer to "Why I Should Never Make Plans" and "The Role of Grey" for proof of my efforts), although I imagine the end of the road, a very, very long road I hope, is death. Now that I've reaffirmed my existing beliefs on Heaven and the afterlife through the book Heaven is for Real, I'm quite certain that as long as I continue my journey as best I can, I'll be happy when my road ends.

But where will this journey take me? That's the question I don't know the answer to. I guarantee you that at Steph's party in June 2007, or a couple of months later very early in the morning when, with tears streaming down my face, I kissed Dan for what I assumed to be the last time just before I left for Richmond, that I never imagined I'd be in the position I am today. Despite a tumultuous 9 months apart and a lot of hurt feelings, he said yes to a facebook relationship request in May 2008. All part of our journey.

While Laura and I were philosophizing over Lync this week, we came to the conclusion that God has a very interesting sense of humor. Its human nature to think the grass is always greener on the other side, to want what we don't or can't have. And then we get it and we don't want it anymore. There have been so many times in my life that I've thought I knew what I want or what was best but then it turns out great that I didn't get it after all. I just imagine this God chuckling down at me knowing "you think that's what you want, but its really not-just be grateful I have it all figured out for you already".

So as for my journey, I'll leave that up to you God and try not to get in the way of what you clearly have planned for me. As for the next 5 seasons of One Tree Hill, thankfully Mark Schwahn has got that journey all figured out.