Break a Leg

"All pain is permanent as long as it can be seen." 

It’s like breaking a leg. All your friends and close relatives come visit you. If not, they at least call or leave a text message just recording their well wishes. Some really close friends, who’ve also rocked on the same boat, tell you how they had it much worse. Their experience defines their sympathies.

“Oh it was terrible!” they’d say. “Right down the knee cap up to my ankle. Leg split right open. You could even see the marrow! At least yours isn’t so bad.” They think it’s reassuring, but it’s actually not. It just makes me want to cut open my wound and show them I’m stronger than what they see.

Some friends play the pity card. They sit with you, talk to you, watch a movie with you, listen to your complaints and how much it hurts and how nothing is helping. They try to feel empathetic, but they’re not even close. They can’t feel it. Others try to cheer you up with mundane things like juice or candy or your favourite food. They just don’t know that when in pain, even sugar tastes bitter. It’s just how it is.

It’s not their fault to be honest. They’re just doing their job. Trying to help during the healing process. Trying to be there at the worst times. Just to create memories. Or maybe to reassure themselves that when it’s their turn, you’ll be there for them. I’ll be there for them.

What they don’t understand, is that at the time of healing, nothing feels good. It’s like chemo therapy. You lose your hair, your skin is pale, and the doctors are saying you’re getting better. But you don’t see it. You don’t feel it. It’s not there. The lasers are killing you and the cancer, simultaneously. You both are the disease, and you both are the cure.

What really agitates me is when it hurts, you can’t see it. They can’t see it. So when you complain and cry and show them the area where it hurts, they can’t see it. They’ll tell you it’ll get better, but they’re deluding you in the process of deluding themselves.

But the bizarre thing is, when the pain is unbearable, it stops. Everything stops. Your screams just become wave energies that you produce from your throat, tears just droplets of water cleaning your eyes, and your leg, just a hollow piece of bone, waiting to be mended.

When the pain is less, I sit near my window. Watching the kids play together, or the birds chirping away near the maple tree. It’s calming but not enough to make me forget what I’m unable to do. It’s not long before I push away and lie back in my bed and put my earphones on, muting the world as the melodies sooth my ear.

As time passes by, the friends start coming occasionally; giving more gaps between their visits and shortening their stay. It’s only fair. Nobody has the time that I have. So I welcome them just as hospitably as I did the first time. Their expectations grow from visit to visit.

“Oh it’s been a few weeks now, the leg is about to heal!”

“Well look at that, just a couple of weeks, the cast will be off and you’ll be walking along.”

I just smile and nod. Clearly they’re more optimistic than I’ll ever be. A few weeks to them are years to me. My time zone is different from theirs. Seconds can last as long as months and days can feel as short as minutes. Night bright as day and days darker than nights. That’s what pain does to you.

Eventually they stop coming. I get texts from them asking me how I am. How much longer till the cast is off. I say a few more days. 

I await the day my leg is free again. Scarred, but free. I walk. It’s magic.

I am back among the regular the people. Laughing, talking. My friends forget the wound and time heals the cuts. But I remember it fondly. The pain, my impeding friend.

That’s how a heartbreak feels. Exactly like that. 

Twitter: @itsNazar
Instagram: @itsNazar96

HIMYM an Alternate End!

"Which meant for the first time in years, the world was wide open. Because kids, when a door closes, well, you know the rest." - Future Ted

A lot of things have been said about How I Met Your Mother, but one thing that the majority of the masses agree on is that the series finale sucked. I was on the other end of that argument for a long time, defending the finale with all my might. BUT, I just saw the alternate ending and my views have changed drastically.

Ok so those of you who haven't seen the alternate end, but have seen the original finale, I'll give you all a basic summary of what happened. In the end of the alternate episode, future Ted goes about how he met their mother and recaps the whole series, telling his kids how he started off his quest from Marshal's apartment and all the ups and downs he went through. Its like a short 3 minute recap coming back to Farhampton station where The Mother is waiting and he goes up to her and they're under the umbrella and talking. They talk about the yellow umbrella and we get to know her name, Tracy McConnell and then future Ted says, " And kids, that's how I met your mother." Cut to end credits.

Now, a massive massive difference from the original finale. They didn't kill off The Mother, they didn't make Robin a bitch, and they didn't show future Ted standing outside Robin's apartment holding a blue french horn. These are the reasons why the masses of the show had reached to such an extreme position about the finale. 

The reason I liked the original finale is twofold. One, it was honest. I mean this is life guys, bad things happen to good people all the time in this world. Some things work out for some people and some things don't. Some people live to see a happy ending and some don't. Secondly, the original finale talked about second chances. If Ted's wife died, he had a second shot at love with Robin. When Robin and Barney split up, Robin had a second shot with Ted and Barney could raise his daughter the right way. I thought that was really hopeful and sent a beautiful message across the board.

Here lies the conflicting question, did we need to see all that? For 9 years, we waited for the titular Mother to show up. It took a whole season to get attached with her, and they just killed her off in one episode. It took 9 years to establish the fact that Ted and Robin are a no no, but they still managed to some how make it in the end. Great for them, not so great for us. It's all coming down to the fact that although those things must have happened to the gang, we needn't know about it. 

This is why the alternate ending clicked for me. It was the perfect goodbye to the show. The show is about how Ted meets the mother, and that's exactly how they end it, with Ted and the Mother under the famous yellow umbrella. That's all we needed to see. It makes me happy that in the alternate ending, Barney and Robin are still married, and Ted finally meets the mother and all is right with the world. 

I think the writers got a little cocky. Apparently, they shot the scene with the kids in 2006, so they felt obliged that they had to include that bit in the original ending. I respectfully disagree. If the finales were swapped, the show would've ended on a higher note and maybe we would've seen what happens to the gang on the DVD/Blu Ray version. To me, the alternate end is the original end and now my heart is content with what I saw. 

Frikken blue french horn.

If you guys want to follow my personal accounts, here you go!

Twitter: @itsNazar

Instagram: @itsNazar96

20th Anniversary of Friends!

"Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You’re gonna love it!" - Monica

Aahh yes. It was some 20 years ago that Rachel barged into Central Perk with a wedding gown in the rain. Our lives have never been the same since then and they never will.

Today I sit down and look back at Friends, in honor of the pilot airing 2 decades ago.
Friends changed the dynamics of the 90's television scene. With shows like Seinfeld and Cheers already on NBC, the producers thought it was a safe shot to take, and put their trust into the writers and actors.

In an interview with Jonathan Ross, Matt LeBlanc said that the producers took the six of them out and sat them down in a resteraunt in Vegas and said, "This is the last time the six of you are out and nobody notices."
And boy was he right. Since then, the show took off, producing 10 seasons, 236 unforgettable episodes and redefining the phrase, 'How you doin?'

Friends looks at six people living in Manhattan together and how their everyday lives shape up. With clever writing, and even a larger performance by the ensemble cast, Friends took off as arguably one of the most popular shows during its air time.

Even to this day, Friends impacts millions of people as it trancends to a whole new generation that connects to it just like their predeccesors have. Although some references might be dated, nostalgia hits you at a 100 miles per hour as their conversations have no mentions of iPads and smartphones. The dialogue between the six friends is what makes this show unforgettable and sticks with most people.

The Rachel and Ross 'We were on a break' banter is by far my favourite of them all, as the humor from the act still holds up to this day. Much praise to the writers of Friends for entertaining us for 10 years and in 236 different ways.

Watching Friends is like growing up a little inside, as you see these young adults morph into mature human beings through trial and error. As you pick apart each of the six main characters, you learn something different from each of them. From being reckless in love to finding the perfect one, from making mistakes in life to learning to fix it through apologies, Friends teaches you how to live your boring life the right way.

Theres something for everyone in this show, and as I sit down and play the Pilot over again, I cant help but smile over the fact that none of these people at the time would know how the next 10 years of their lives would entertain generations onwards.

Till another blog!!

Peace.