My therapist was so real for saying the meaning of life is found in connection.
People hug their friends when they meet up and hug them a little tighter when it comes time to say goodbye. My grandfather rebuilt the broken rocking horse my grandmother had as a child, a gift from her father. There's an indescribable ache that goes along with seeing someone you used to know intimately, the becoming of a common stranger. Coincidences that bind, one time I got an uber and the driver used to live in my home before me. It was the last place he saw his father alive as a child and he nearly cried when I told him the walls were still the same colour.
Has anyone ever gotten over their childhood best friend? Is that alone not a testament to the fact we are more than blood and bones.
Reunion is all about losing friendships, which is just wrong after we just lost Elizabeth.
In this episode, we have Ronon finding his old friends and losing them, Sheppard almost losing Ronon, and Carter leaving SG1. There's a lot of pain in this episode, but there's also a lot of hope because nothing is totally lost and no one is totally alone.
In the end, Ronon confesses his real friends are here.
In the end, Sheppard doesn't lose Ronon, Ronon remembers that he's not part of Atlantis just for convenience's sake, that they aren't just allies, and Carter realizes these new people--albeit a bit crazy--are exactly her type of people.
I love love love the moment Ronon hears Sheppard's gun go off and runs towards him irregardless his old friends' protests. So good.
A couple of things I noticed:
-Carter's leaving of SG1 hit so much harder this time through since I just finished Stargate. I actually cried when she hugged Teal'c. I'm not okay with SG1 not being together.
-@sheppardsmckay and I discussed this: Carter coming to Atlantis made me realize how much harder SGA hits than SG1 does. Both places have a creed of "We never leave our people behind." In SG1 they almost always get their people back. Even Daniel Jackson never really stays dead. But in SGA, even when they try, they don't always bring everyone home. Ford, Carson, and Weir are all gone. In this episode, we come close to losing Ronon and we only get him back because he has to kill his old friends. SGA is just darker...and next is Doppelganger, so more on that later.
The tragedy of girls and their best friends from childhood.
It's never throwing away that bracelet she gave you. It's much too small for you now but to bin it would be a betrayal to what it meant.
It's remembering how time felt like it wouldn't move in childhood. It's remembering how you and her felt like forever. The bounce of the trampoline, the pleats in the hair, the wind in your face while you played. You could swear you were still with her.
It's the sleepovers, the long nights making dances, staying up late for the first time. It's holding in your laughter, so her parents don't hear. It's the 'she told me not to tell anyone but, of course, l'm going to tell you'.
It's knowing her better than you know yourself. It's wanting to see each other as much as you can. It's the melding together, the struggle to tell where you begin, and she ends.
It's the first type of love you know.
It's aging and moving away. It's going to the same school but drifting away. It's trying to stay in contact, but no one has the time now. It's realising she's went out with friends without asking if you wanted to go.
It's the ache you feel whenever her photo appears on Instagram. It's the brief conversations you have with her on the streets, with the promises of catching up one day. It's watching time move more rapid and realising you haven't spoke to each other in five years.
It’s knowing she knew you in a way no one ever could. Mourning for the loss of what it meant to be known briefly.
if I called you one day
without warning, out of the blue
something tells me you would answer then
Because you know I wouldn’t call otherwise
What kind of connection is that?
Two strangers holding onto a long lost ghost of what was there once
I want nothing more than to call you in this moment
and ask about your day
see how you’ve been doing lately
When I dissociate, it calls to mind how you’ll never see these streets
You’ll never know the feeling of New York creeping onto your skin,
slowly sinking in, never to let you go
because no place is like this place,
and this place will always be without you.
But maybe one day,
when I’m walking my inner child out the door
we can meet like two awkward strangers whose dogs get along a little too well
barking and yapping and nipping at each other
We hold onto the leashes of the children inside who loved each other once
Who hurt each other once, so badly
but still we meet to let them play, just for a little while.