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How I Met Your Mother S09E17, "Sunrise"–a thread.
THIS IS THE SHIT MAN. I have probably watched this episode more than 10 times already but it just NEVER gets old. THIS IS BEAUTIFUL STUFF RIGHT HERE. 21 minutes of understanding love without being cynical about it. The episode just gets you, and holds you, AND BELIEVES IN YOU.
"Sunrise" is so full of life's goodbyes in its various but inevitable versions of little endings. It's the vulnerability, sincerity, the restless pursuit of love, the heartbreak of letting go, the fulfillment of setting things free, and the joy of it all coming back to you.
It makes you believe in love and how, often, because of it, you are able to choose the most difficult decisions in your life, even if it means meeting the fateful morning, sleepless, and having not found what you had hoped you'd find in the process.
Sometimes, you find something better. Sometimes, you find what you have always needed, not what you have always wanted. It's necessary for us to think we found the one, and for it to be taken away from us for us to be wise enough to know the difference.
In their walk on the beach when they were talking about Ted's top 5 and worst 5, Robin even included Stella in Ted's top 5 because she knew Ted needed to learn that difference because he was so convinced of one lie--his fatal flaw. And what's that?
The next one that comes is not always going to be "the one" that stays. No matter how close it could have been.
Notice also the parallelism in these two shots: a young, troubled Ted letting go of his balloon accidentally, and a much older, more accepting Ted, letting go of Robin, because it's necessary.
Thing is, losing someone or letting go of something doesn't happen in a second. It's not one point in life, but many. It happens everyday, slowly, and you watch it all slip away. But we only ever feel the heartbreak of the burst--not the ticking time, not the running fuse.
Lily: You are gonna lose. You're gonna lose this. If you keep lying to me, if you keep cutting me out of decisions, if you keep using words like winning and losing when you talk about our marriage, it's not like it'll happen all at once. Little by little, you're gonna lose me.
Meanwhile, Barney, in love with Robin, has given the tissue-playbook to the two men who he "taught how to live." The suits, the gentleman life, the moves, the strip club, all behind him now because of Robin. It's like the TV version of Panic! at the Disco's Death of a Bachelor.
He had to let go of and set his former self free in order to prove that he is ready to take on something more meaningful and something more worth holding onto. Even if those are the things that you think make you "you", you drop it to become a better version of that past self.
"And most importantly, whatever you do in this life, it's not legendary unless your friends are there to see it."
Leaving the past behind is crazy difficult. But having the courage to leave the things we value the most behind is necessary to make way for more important things to come back, or to make way for what has always stayed with us but we took for granted.
"I have to let go now."
"I know you do."
PUTANG INA. ANG SAKIT.
"I know you do."
PUTANG INA. ANG SAKIT.
"Sunrise", ironically, for all its talk of letting go, still maintains one thing: love is worth holding on to. It's worth all the chances you take and the leaps that didn't land.
"If you love something, you can never let it go. Not even for a second. Or its gone forever."
"If you love something, you can never let it go. Not even for a second. Or its gone forever."
Which brings us to perhaps one of the most, if not the most emotional and hopeful monologue in the series about love.
(THIS SCENE, MAN. HOW CAN YOU WATCH THIS SCENE AND NOT FUCKING TEAR APART)
(THIS SCENE, MAN. HOW CAN YOU WATCH THIS SCENE AND NOT FUCKING TEAR APART)
"Actually, there is a word for that. It’s love. I’m in love with her, okay? If you’re looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, it’s love."
"And when you love someone, you don’t stop, ever. Even when people roll their eyes, and call you crazy. Even then. Especially then. You don’t give up. Because if I could just give up...take the whole world’s advice and move on, and find someone else, that wouldn’t be love."
"That would be… that would be some other disposable thing that is not worth fighting for. But that is not what this is."
What teaches us best about the value of the things that remain; what makes us realize that we need to outgrow our former selves and leave behind the past that burdens us, is the very moment of letting go.
In whatever form it takes, in however much it hurts.
In whatever form it takes, in however much it hurts.
