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Thursday, September 24, 2009

GL: Echoes and Ripples

How do you say goodbye to something that's a part of you? Well I'm really not sure how, as if something lives inside you even if you can never see them again, they still persist. With Guiding Light over, I'm not going to stop talking or thinking about it. While it may happen less regularly, after being on-line since the mid-90s discussing the show, it isn't going to flutter away as easily as a bramble on a windy day. I'll continue to write about it when the feeling hits, as there are a lot of things that can be discussed even if they can never be changed.

I could write specifics about how characters' lives were resolved during the last episode of GL, but I won’t, as it is what it is and enough has come forth from me about it on various message boards. In life and in soaps, a lot can happen in a very short time, and in my imagination some things would have been written very differently. One day I may write some derivative fiction on the subject. I've cried seeing others cry, hearing songs that remind me of days gone by, reading thoughts and quotes; but watching the finale episode was surreal. When "The End" appeared in a script font, my initial reaction was "that's it" and a feeling of emptiness filled my stomach. A "happy ending" is still an ending, so we have every right to grieve regardless of ones opinion on the show.

The tears I've shed in the last week were in honor of something that means so much to others and me. I feel for those, who worked behind the cameras and in front as closing the doors is never easy. Most programs don't last generations, and that is something to feel pride about. Like other things that have lasted generations, even if it fades from view, it should never be forgotten, as it is part of our collective history. There will never be another program that successfully moved from radio to television, which lasted over 70 years.

I don't consider 9/18/09 to be the last day of Guiding Light, even if it the last time a newly produced episode airs (barring some revival, which I am not banking on, as it would be a different show like 90210, while sharing some of the same characters and the zip code is not the same as Beverly Hills 90210.) This may be because while I tend to not believe in miracles, especially in the television industry, I do believe in echoes and ripples. Echoes are the sounds of the past, our influences that sometimes overwhelm and sometimes inspire. Ripples are how those influences filter out into the larger universe. With GL, those things could be anything from sharing ones love for a story with others, to a performer who was on the show taking their memories along with them to another project and so on...

Do we toss out every recording or erase every digital file, by a band that has broken up or a singer that has died? Do we only read books, see movies, watch programs that have been created in the last three months and forget everything we've seen before then? That's doubtful, as some work persists through generations. The images, the words, the sounds stay with us like an indelible memory that can come back to us at any moment.

I hope that Guiding Light becomes like a favorite book sitting on a shelf just waiting to be read again. While no new chapters will be added except in ones imagination or in fan fiction, the stories that are beloved can be experienced again. What each of us love is a very individualized bond. I hope that even after cancellation that people continue to find the program and see how wonderful it could be.

So while I'm looking towards the future, I won't forget the past. It will inform my thoughts and my interests. The echoes and the ripples remain. We are who we are due to what we've seen and experienced. I'll miss those who I will no longer see, and I don't solely mean the characters or the actors who portray them, but the friendships that will invariably drift apart. I'll miss reading the soap news and spoilers and being gleeful, though in later years it was more likely that I'd be tearful.

While some may see Guiding Light as only soap, for those of us who have been touched by it, it was something more. Soaps can be a common interest, an inspiration, a frustration, a place of comfort, an escape, or any or all of the above. Regardless of the show going off the air, we will always have our memories. The light will forever glow within us, and that is the best legacy of all.

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