How I Met Your Mother Series Finale: A Few Thoughts....

**WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW**     

     It's over! It's finally over. We wrapped up the finale of How I Met Your Mother with Ted finally meeting the mother (or rather, Tracy McConnell) and a montage of moments from their life eventually ending in her fight and eventual loss against an unknown illness....and so on. Here, now, I just want to discuss a few things I have seen controversy over and at the end I'll give my verdict.
     The first thing I want to talk about is the rise and fall...and rise of the great Barney Stinson. Throughout the whole of season 9 we are present during the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding. It doesn't seem believable. Barney, the thrill seeking, womanizing, sex-hound and Robin, the traveling, ambitious, emotionally detached reporter are getting married; but we roll with it, cause if How I Met Your Mother has taught us anything it's that...well, just...ok? (Imagine that in Barney's voice and it'll make much more sense) Anyway, everything is chaos through all of season 9. Things go wrong, at one point they can't find Barney, Robin worries about everything...stuff is happening. Throughout the whole episode we occasionally get glimpses of Robin's worries that are valid (as well as the worries of others). Robin realizes that Barney lies and everyone else acknowledging that both of them are very independent people, just to name two of the big ones. Though the lying is resolved in Barney vowing to Robin to always tell her the truth (which we actually get an admittedly sad example of), they are still two very independent people, which they realize; realizing that you are independent and attempting to solve it though are completely different.
     Fast forward three years. Barney and Robin are in Cancun...or Barbados...or somewhere (sorry, I forget....it's late). Once again they're arguing. Robin's career with World Wide News has taken off and they send her to the far reaches of the world to report of various things. Meanwhile, Barney is either left behind or drug along. In this instance he has made his blog a career, but he can't post anything cause he doesn't have wifi. This spurs on an argument that leads Robin to ask if Barney would take an out if one were presented to him. After getting drunk and having married sex (the good kind) and eventually waking up in a haze in someone else's room, Barney responds that because he loves her and wants to be honest he would. Now, obviously that is paraphrasing as that news isn't dropped in the same scene.
     Barney and Robin get divorced. Now, when you get out of a relationship, any relationship, two things happen: you grieve, then you move on. We don't see Barney grieve, but that doesn't mean doesn't, but I won't focus on that. The second step is to move on. When we move on we either try to find what we had again, or revert to who we were before. In this instance Barney reverts to what he knows how to do, i.e. get women. I honestly wouldn't expect any less. It's Barney. Yes, his character development has taken a LONG time to come to fruition, but that doesn't make him stone. If Barney has shown us anything over the years it's that he is broken. I think this is shown especially when Lily confronts him about not changing and he responds that who we all thought he had become just wasn't him. He couldn't, he could never be that person, he was just too far gone. I think what we all expected was that him marrying Robin was an allegory for him being healed finally, but this wasn't the case. You don't fix a broken house with a broken hammer. You don't ask a surgeon with only one arm to perform heart surgery. Robin was just as broken as Barney, and though it would have been great for it to work out, How I Met Your Mother has proven to us time and time again that they are a show that works on real world rules, this means that crap happens. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Barney made it clear, Robin couldn't fix him, he wasn't hers to fix. Ellie was.
     Enter Ellie Stinson. Ellie Stinson is the love child of Barney. She was inadvertently the after effect of his "Perfect Month." "Day 31" as Barney calls her gets pregnant and has a child while the others wait expectantly in the waiting room. When the baby is born, Barney, though very obviously reluctant to see her, goes at the forced insistence of his friends. When he sees her his life is changed forever. You see, I think the flawed premise with the Barney/Robin relationship dynamic was that they were so alike that neither felt the need to change unless absolutely forced, but they both had their own things that could not be changed, i.e. Robin's job and Barney's mentality. For instance, Barney continued to lie to Robin up until their wedding day and Robin remained emotionally cut off unless forced to talk. With Ellie it was different though. Here was this baby that would require all of Barney's attention. He couldn't deny her, he couldn't dump her off on someone else. As soon as he saw her, Barney was forced to irrevocably change. Gone were the nights of sleeping with random women. Gone were the drunken outings with friends. Barney was a single father who had finally fallen hopelessly in love with the one woman who he could not escape nor deny. His daughter.
   
     The next thing I want to talk about is the mother's death and Ted's seeming lack of any emotion. Admittedly, I was also very sideswiped by the the whole mother dying thing. It happened so fast, I wasn't sure what was happening. Ted never explicitly says, "SHE'S DEAD," but rather that she was sick; we later find out that she had been gone for six years by the time of the story starting. This brings me to my point. She's gone and had been for six years.
     Allow me to jump over to something else for a second and then I'll come back. Last year I took a class called Bible Study Methods. It was a fantastic class that at the beginning level only focused on the book of Jonah. Four chapters. Three months. You get the point. Anyway, sometime during this class we discussed "authors intent." Authors intent refers to the ultimate intent of the author. For example, you're reading an old poem in high school english and one of the lines is "the curtains were blue." The teacher begins to go on about how the blue curtains were actually an allusion to the authors troubled and sad life living on the streets of the bronx...when in actuality the author literally meant that the curtains were blue. Authors intent means that above all else, if the author intends for something to mean how they mean it, it means that regardless of what you think. It's a tough law, but it's just so we go with it. Back to the show....
     At the end of the episode we find out that the mother has indeed died and has been gone for six years. Now, I was also disappointed with the lack of emotion displayed on screen by Ted, but ultimately this isn't the story of a broken man who hasn't yet come to grips with the death of his wife. The whole story, beginning in 2005, is told from the point of view of a Ted Mosby who has been without his wife for six years and is ready to move on. What about Robin, you ask? Ted and Robin had been on and off again for a long time before Ted met Tracy. He had come to grips with not being with her though before the wedding, which would be 16 years before the events of the story. For 16 years Ted never pined after Robin. Then his wife died. I'm sure he grieved, come on, it's Ted, but again, the story isn't told by a broken Ted, it's told by a healed Ted ready to move on with his life, which touches on a really important lesson I think this show teaches, but I'll get to that later....

     The last thing I want to talk about, though I have already touched on it, is the eventual pairing of Ted and Robin. I saw one dude comment on a post on the How I Met Your Mother Facebook page saying that Ted had ultimately just returned to the obsessive and overly compulsive guy he had once been with women, giving his heart to them right off the bat and slowly watching as they crushed it in front of him. I don't believe this to be true. Ted married her. The one. He found her. It was destiny. He left during the wedding and went to a train station where he told the story to an old woman who would not keep from pestering him until she eventually point to her and asked if she was the woman in his story. If that's not destiny, I don't know what is.
     Ted tells us in the end that as soon as he saw her he knew he had to love her as much as he could then, he couldn't wait for the future; so he loved her. Through thick and thin, through the times of joy and the times of pain and frustration, he loved her. He would have kept loving her, but she became ill and eventually passed away. You know Ted would've been sad. He knew she was the one. Ted would've cried like a baby, but in the end he would move on, just as he always does. He would've looked pain in the face and focused on what was important. It was no longer his search for a soulmate, it was the kids. Her legacy left behind for him.
     Six years pass before the story we hear is told. Some criticized the finale because they took it as the writers telling us that the whole story voids the Ted/mother search just to tell us that Ted has always loved Robin more than anything else...ever. Again, and I feel like I've said this a lot, but I don't agree. Just because Ted tells his kids the story doesn't mean that it was him asking for permission to ask Robin out, just because Penny (the daughter) says that Ted still has "the hots" for Robin doesn't mean that the story has now come to naught, stories can have dual meanings. Yes, I do believe part of it was that Ted wanted to move on and thus telling his kids the story was a way of sharing this, but I think that the telling of the story would also serve as Ted revealing to them that he has healed enough to tell it, after promising to his own parents so long ago that he would tell his kids everything. The story honors the mother by showing everything that happened that eventually led to her. Every time Ted wanted to give up. Every time he almost ended up with someone else. Every time Ted almost ended up halfway across the country. Everything eventually ended with her. Yet there it is again, she dies and Ted must move on. So I say this, it's not that everything that has happened led to Ted getting together with Robin, the show is called How I Met Your Mother, and Robin is definitely not the mother. It's more that everything that has happened has led to the mother, but when even the worst happens, Ted will always be Ted and move on. Ted will always be the one to make the big gesture (as with the blue french horn). Ted will always love. And lastly, Ted will never dwell on the past because it's the future that is the most important.

     Now for my verdict. I loved every moment. I loved the show since my friends in high school got me into the pilot and I loved it even more when it ended. True, there were problems. I wish they had shown Ted grieving over Tracy, but I know that they wouldn't because it's all being told by a Ted that is past that. Since the beginning How I Met Your Mother has been a show actually for the people. It worked on real world problems and real world solutions. Sometimes things happen, sometimes they don't, but when they do, we must continue moving forward or we're lost. We have to focus on what is really important: friends, family, having fun, love. Nothing is worth doing if you don't have anybody to share it with, which is a lesson shared with us by the most broken of the group, Barney.
     Even within the group each character provides a lesson in and of themselves. Barney is totally broken when we meet him. He's a sex crazed, egotistical, womanizing, scoundrel. Over the course of the 9 seasons we watch him rise up, and then fall, and then rise as he is slowly healed. Every time he rises though it is only temporary as it is only the result of a treated symptom, but then he see's Ellie and shows us that when that one person or moment shows up, even the worst of us can be healed. Marshal is the friend that never gives up. He never gives up on Ted no matter what. He always believes in Lily and even when it's questionable whether or not they would follow Lily to Italy, he ultimately decides to drop his own judgeship and go with her. Marshal is the friend that loves no matter what and shows Ted the whole time what never giving up on love looks like. Robin shows us that no matter what the circumstances, you should always follow your dreams. When we meet Robin she had been in the U.S. for just two months. She had been working for Metro News One as a reporter, though she really only did those "little fluff pieces at the end of the news." Through the course of the show however, she begins to rise. By the end of the series she is a world famous reporter for World Wide News, traveling the world. Yes, problems rise, but she just kept following her dreams and even though she took the solitary path for awhile, even she would end up back with her friends. Lily is kind of a conglomeration of Marshal and Robin. She is full of love and shows us the benefits of believing in people even when it comes at the expense of your own personal gain. However, she also shows us that it is possible to follow our dreams when we might feel otherwise tied down. Through the story she slowly but surely follows her artistic desires and eventually becomes and art consultant for a man known as "The Captain" which leads her, Marshal, and their two kids to Italy for a year. And lastly, Ted. Ted shows us that no matter what the situation, no matter what life throws at us, no matter how down we feel, we should always move forward. Always believe in love. Ted goes through the best and the worst of times in his search for love and eventually finds the end, but only after tripping on every root along the beaten path. He's left at the alter, dates 39 women, get's punched in the face by Barney, get's left multiple times by Robin, but he continues to believe that somewhere out there is the one girl who will solve all of his woes. And she does. Ted shows us that no matter what he must keep our sights on the present and what is to come because when we begin to focus on the past to exclusion of all else, we are lost.
     For some reason, this show has meant a lot to me, and though I'm not quite sure why yet, I feel very sad to see it go. With that said though, I am very pleased with the way it ended. The writing was more real than most sitcoms now or in the past. It worked on a real world basis. I loved every moment, every high and every low. This is a show that made us laugh but also made us think. One of my favorite episodes is still The Time Travelers from season 8 when Ted spends a whole night debating whether or not to go to Robots vs. Wrestlers, talking occasionally to the future selves of him and Barney. Though hilarious in some aspects, it leaves us with Ted talking about how if he had known about the mother sooner, he would've ran to her door and told her everything just to have that extra time with her. It's this kind of writing that we need more of on television. It makes you laugh, but at the same time it leaves you with something more. The whole of How I Met Your Mother was simply "something more." With that, it teaches us that we ought to simply love life, to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes our lives suck, but sometimes they don't and those are the moments we should live for.

-- Josh 

High School: "The Glory Days" (A.K.A. What I've "Known")

     For this post I'd like to back way up to 7th grade for a bit. Back in March of 2007 I had finally figured it all out, I knew where I was going. I KNEW I was going to be a professional clarinetist. I KNEW I was going to attend the Peabody Conservatory of Music for a double major in composition and performance on clarinet and a minor in conducting. I KNEW I was going to go to the State Solo and Ensemble Contest my freshman year. Isn't it funny what we know?
     In the car ride home I began reminiscing about the last four years of my life and how I've changed. I've always been a pretty mature person, so I never imagined that I could get much more mature. When I began my freshman year at Peninsula High School I was the chubby kid that, though he had his little group of friends, didn't really fit anywhere in particular. I was shy around people I didn't know and obsessed with music, the unpopular kind. I had been one of four freshman to make into the schools top wind ensemble, and to top it off the only one of the now only six people in the last four years who made it in on such a popular instrument as clarinet. I spent most of my time practicing rather than out with friends. I had jet black hair, fake of course. I was a bit overweight. I listened to jazz and band music in my free time. I didn't feel quite adequate. Little did I know that the next four years would be the defining moments of my yet short life.
     The summer before I had gotten my first girlfriend, and that, sad to say, started everything. That year I kept listening to jazz, but I found that I wasn't the only one. I cut out the black hair. Oh, and I lost 60 pounds. I made it into the top jazz band on 2nd Tenor Sax, subbing also as 2nd Alto in the bottom jazz ensemble. I also began my first year in the Tacoma Youth Symphony Association playing 2nd clarinet in the Tacoma Debut Orchestra. Music had literally become my life, everything good had come from music so far. But it was just an avenue. Oh, and did I mention that I was now half deaf?
     That summer I went to my second (after having had ear surgery a couple weeks previous) Evergreen Music Festival (for TYSA) and had the time of my life, meeting some of the best friends and best musicians I've ever known. Unfortunately while there my appendix ruptured and I had my first, and hopefully last, battle with death and pain. I was told the following monday after my rush to surgery that if I had waited another day I would have died. Fun stuff. I missed both weeks of band camp, which wasn't good because I had also been made the new clarinet section leader for the PHS band. I also had little under 2 weeks and 4 rehearsals to learn a field show that the rest of the band had already learned. But I did it.
     Sophomore I challenged myself with AP Biology, but failed terribly. My life was on the rocks. I was no longer practicing much because my head had swelled. And my precious relationship was in tatters. Well, as you can probably guess, it ended. It was rough, my first breakup. But being stupid as I now realize I was, I jumped into another relationship which would actually change my life for the better. That year was my second year in the Tacoma Youth Symphony Association and on top of that, I had skipped a group and jumped the the second highest group. At PHS I was now Lead Tenor Sax in jazz band and principal clarinet in the symphonic band. The highlight of my year being that with my family and new girlfriend watching I had soloed with trumpet virtuoso, Wayne Bergeron--who can be heard in such movie scores as 2009's hit Star Trek and Pixars superhero hit, The Incredibles--with the PHS Jazz Band, May 15th, 2010. The end of that year was spectacular.
     That summer I travelled to Washington DC with the Peninsula High School Marching Band to march in the Independence Day Parade, had my second ear surgery, and spend three days on Orcas Island with my girlfriend as a sympathy trade from her parents for her having been working at Miracle Ranch most of June and July. It was a great summer.
     Junior year began rocky and didn't really get better until the end. I'll just run over a bit of it: I was no longer section leader, I still held my Lead Tenor position in jazz, and was still 1st clarinet, I dropped Tacoma Youth Symphony in exchange for a change of scenery, subsequently joining the Puget Sound Youth Wind Ensemble, oh, and I endured my second break up. Junior year kind of passed in a flash. It was good and bad rolled into one confusing torrent that leaves my mind wondering what exactly possessed me to do what I did. The really important stuff begins in March of 2011. My girlfriend and I broke up to my shock and dismay. Before this however she had convinced me to do something I didn't think I would ever do, something I did I believe just to make her happy: I applied to her alma matter, Miracle Ranch. Then I forgot about it. We broke up, kept talking, considered getting together again, and kinda just repeated the motions. I went to my interview in april for Miracle Ranch, there meeting someone who shocked me by shouting my name (forewarned by my girlfriend) as my first introduction to ranchers, my resident jewish friend, a friend I haven't seen in forever, and someone else a camper claimed I liked. Oh, and someone I would try to avoid. I was floored. In a year I had gone from just absent-mindedly believing in God to applying to a christian camp, and I was enjoying every second. I didn't hear back from them until June 6th, I was on edge the entire time. My boss called me in for a second interview and hired me on the spot two weeks before I was supposed to start. That summer changed my life.
     Do you remember everything I "knew" in seventh grade? None of it mattered. I barely practiced, music took a back seat. I worshiped every night, now the kid infront getting other kids involved rather than the guy awkwardly standing in the back. I danced around on stage. I made friends that I'm convinced will be my closest friends till I die. Everything I knew was forgotten, who I had once been was pushed aside as I realized what I had once taken for granted. God was here, in my life the whole time, guiding me along as my silent shepherd until I was bowing before his throne. I had more fun in two months than I could have imagined. It literally changed my life. I was doubting myself for all the right reasons. Did I want to be a musician? Did I want to stand on stage just to entertain people for personal reasons? Or did I want to make a difference?
     At the end of the summer I picked up a position helping to grow my churches youth group, now leading worship for a bunch of middle school-freshman aged kids. I've been doing that since October. In October also our marching band won 2nd place out of 15 bands at the Peninsula Classic Marching Band Competition and 3rd (correct me if I'm wrong) overall at the Tumwater Marching Band Competition even after our now well known band director for my first three years (though four years in total), Rickey Badua, left to pursue his doctorate and we were now under new leadership. I was made Lead Alto Sax in the jazz band and section leader once again. I had dropped PSYWE in place of a paying job as a Dinning Room Assistant at Miracle Ranch. For the first time in high school I've been single the entire year. In January I had my chance finally to audition (now for a music education degree rather than performance) for the Peabody Conservatory of Music, but I didn't go. It wasn't important. I had planned on applying to six schools (Peabody, PLU, UPS, CWU, Multnomah, and Northwest Christian), I applied to two, Multnomah and PLU, and got accepted to both; year before when I decided I wanted to teach I had decided PLU, but then switched to Peabody, then neither. I no longer had any interest in a degree in instrumental music, though music is still who I am. I'm attending Multnomah University this coming year for a double major in Music Ministry and Biblical Studies. I'll be moving to Portland at the end of August after my second year of camp, this time applying for High School Leader and Music Lead.
     I think we make plans when we're young so that we have some sense of purpose, but then life changes. I'm no longer the timid freshman, or even the cocky sophomore, or the stupid junior. I'm not even the person I was at the beginning of the year. Change is fickle friend, sometimes it can catch you of your guard, but it's times like those where you have to rely on God, I know that now. Over the years there have been many times where I've wanted to shout to the heavens "GOD! WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?!" But I don't, because I know now that God will never leave me. He brings you to trouble to learn; God will bring you, but he'll also carry you through.
     I guess what I'm saying here is that plans never met aren't necessarily broken promises or goals I've never met, it just means that on the way there I decided I'd rather not go, and instead took another road. Did you see that I never went to State? Never, I made it my goal each year, but I always had some seniors above me or I just wouldn't practice enough. I'm not a performance major at Peabody either. Instead I'm the dedicated christian that has devoted his life to ministry. I look back now and realize that every moment in my life has been just another stepping stone, and they were all important. I regret nothing, because if I had done things differently, I wouldn't be who I am now. Sure, there are things that I wish I hadn't done, I may regret them, but in a small way I'm happy I did them because I could grow from them. Now is the time to move forward. Life and God move every minute closer to the next change in my life and I cannot wait. I've loved every second of pain and happiness, and I've loved every person involved. It's hard to believe that I could have changed that much in just four years; and if I changed that much, think about yourself? How have you changed?

   
With that I have but one last thing to say: 

     I'm ready to follow now, God. 

     I'm Yours.