View from the top

This week I had my biggest accomplishment of my high school career. Was it a perfect score on an in-class essay? Was it being first in line at Cafe M? Neither. My greatest accomplishment is finally finishing all eight, long, sometimes scary, mostly exciting seasons of “Game Of Thrones.” 

Yes, I’m aware I am a few years too late, but in my defense, I started watching GOT right after the show finished… in May 2019. I do not want to talk about how it took me almost three years to finish a TV show, but I will say, watching a TV show all the way through is an accomplishment for me. I am really bad at committing to TV. The amount of series I’ve started are endless: “Friends,” “Gossip Girl” and “The Office” to name a few, but the amount of shows I’ve actually finished is too embarrassingly low to list. But my point of sharing my incredible cinematic viewing accomplishment is to talk about the feeling you get when you come to the end of something. 

To be frank, change makes me sad, but it’s something I greatly cherish. While I think I’m pretty good at adapting to change, just as I had to adapt to death after death of some of my favorite characters in GOT, it still creates a deep, bittersweet feeling in me. I was barely able to see my computer screen through my tears when watching the final episode of “Game of Thrones.” I wondered why I was crying during scenes I was supposed to be cheering or smiling in. I realized I was sad to be done. I was 15 years old when I started watching “Game of Thrones” and here I was, three years older finishing it (while simultaneously wondering why 15 year old me thought she was mature enough to start this show in the first place). It’s crazy to let go of something I’ve held onto for so long. 

I think it’s not just okay, but expected to be sad about something ending. I’m a second semester senior now, so everyday is filled with this bittersweet feeling that I’m heading towards my own childhood conclusion. But I think in the midst of these sad endings, it’s important to know that there will be new, exciting beginnings too. I know there will be a college spinoff show to my approaching high school series finale, just hopefully with less dragons, fire and death than “Game of Thrones” (but no promises for the tears and melodrama).