So kids, I was sitting on my couch, trying to write a shoddy review about another movie but can’t concentrate because my eyes were constantly drawn to the TV screen where 30-something actors in terrible 2000s clothing were making bad puns and terrible life decisions. Instead of writing about a movie, I decided, why not just write about this show?

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is one of those casual sitcoms that rarely gets a mention over the infamous Friends from the 90s or the wildly awful Big Bang Theory. I first watched this series in the summer of 2017, right before I moved to Fairfax. It was the summer after my parents split up and the summer I barely remember because it was spent in a haze of are we moving? Are we not? Will I have to transfer schools? Will I stay here instead? Or move to Madison to live with my ex-fiance (at the time, still just fiance)? What the fuck is going to happen in my life? It took me two whole weeks to watch the entire 9 seasons of HIMYM. It was mesmerizing to me, and still is, as I could barely concentrate trying to write while this show plays in the background even though I’ve seen it a dozen times at this point. Other shows never had that kind of hold over me.

HIMYM has this weirdly comforting, nostalgic, hilarious, and cringey vibe I can’t seem to get enough of. There are definitely episodes I end up skipping because they’re boring or I’ve seen them too much or there’s something that happens that I just can’t stand (when Ted, the so-called romantic, gets into a threesome, it’s gag-worthy). But for the most part, I adore these terribly tragic, sometimes adorable, always more-complicated-than-necessary characters and the show in its entirety. Unlike some sitcoms, where you can watch one in the middle of the season and not have much change, each episode connects to the next, building upon each other season after season.

It drives me crazy because for the most part, I hate sitcoms, and would usually rather watch a movie than start a new TV series. My boyfriend described sitcoms as being “stuck in one room; claustrophobic.” But I think for, at the time of my life when I first watched it, I was also stuck in one room, for the most part. I was stuck in limbo, not knowing where I was going to end up, on a life path I didn’t know I was going to be on. Being “stuck” in a New York room with Marshall, Lily, Ted, Robin, and Barney, their intimate chosen family, and the way Ted describes life as a wild adventure while always moving in one direction (towards the mother) was incredibly comforting. It’s comforting now, as well, being stuck in the house while everything goes to shit outside, and will likely always be comforting despite its antiquated jokes and horrendous season 9 ending.

I’ve watched too many video essays on the ending of HIMYM, for the last two episodes are likely the reason it gets passed over by so many viewers. The disappointment and betrayal of those episodes traumatized thousands of viewers who spent nearly ten years growing up with the characters, only to be brutally fucked over. I, luckily, watched it all in two weeks and by the time I got to the end… I was just as pissed. Don’t get me wrong: it’s AWFUL. If you haven’t watched it yet, I won’t spoil it, but I have many, many, colorful opinions on how they ended things. But it still doesn’t ruin the rest of the series for me, thankfully.

I also kind of pretend the last two episodes never happened and when I rewatch the series, I end it at episode 22 “End of the Aisle.” So that helps.

How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014)

the summer of ‘17

i wrote a poem about how sad people

always seek swingsets 

because they provide the motion

of life without ever actually going anywhere

real edgy, right? 

yesterday i wrote an ecopoem 

about rising from the earth’s surface

encrusted with dirt, moss-covered,

and maudlin, 

while this past semester i’ve been writing

a whole thesis of poems

and a blog of shitty movie reviews 

in disguise as poems 

suffice to say my poetry style

has changed quite a bit 

but my love of this terrible

goddamn sitcom still gets me

teary-eyed and giggling 

at the denim button-ups

and fake-satin blouses 

the transphobic and sexist jokes

the awful puns and all the mindless sex

of 30-something New Yorkers 

in a time before corona

in a time before Netflix

and Buzzfeed Unsolved

and iPhones

and decent fashion sense

this show feels sticky

humid 

clinging to my fingers

and dusted over with pollen

the virginia spring and summer vibes

glowing beneath the subtitles 

my knees still bend 

as if about to climb 

Appalachian trails 

or run down the street

to my old campus 

the old restaurant i used to work

the coffee shop i met all my first lovers

and keep running 

until i no longer see the blue ridge 

mountains or hear the cicadas humming

love songs in my ears

past the grassy mounds covering an old Dump

the ones that probably gave our dogs cancer

and hide holes filled with dead rabbits 

don’t mind all these references 

to my past life 

it’s just the show’s theme song 

sliding them back into my chest

a cassette tape of television laughter

glued into the back of my eyelids 

the laughter of ghosts 

still expelling joy 

la vie en rose 

and how i met all these new people

in new homes and new lives 

until nothing is new anymore

until new is suddenly the best thing

you could be to me 

until barney says nothing matters

unless your friends are there to see it

so nothing matters right now

we just have to spend the time that we can right now

living our best new lives

because this life is the new normal

nothing will go back to normal 

and that’s fine

our new lives will be legen-

wait for it-