A Love Note to How I Met Your Mother

In All Seriousness:

During my Junior year of high school, which was 4 years ago, I watched my first episode of How I Met Your Mother.  This episode that I watched was "The Three Days Rule,"(Episode 21 of Season 4) where Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) changes one of Ted's (Josh Radnor) potential love interest's numbers in Ted's phone as Barney's number, and when Ted inevitably texts her right away Barney and Marshall (Jason Segel) pretend to be her.  I was attempting to do homework at the time, but I wound up not a doing a single second of it while this episode was on.  I was too engrossed in it to even look at my homework.  This episode was so interesting and funny.  The characters were likable.  And the episode just worked on it's own without me knowing much backstory about the show.  I was immediately hooked, like a guy who swore he was only going to try crystal meth once.

After that day I decided I would start the show from the beginning, and try to catch up to wherever they were in the series.  Well, I started Season 1 the next day.  By Sunday of that week, I had watched every episode up to "The Three Days Rule," which shows you how much time I had on my hands in high school, and how obsessed I was with this show already.

The obsession didn't end with just constantly watching episodes.  Not even close.  I bought the DVDs of the seasons when they came out, I made constant facebook statuses and tweets about my love for this show, I was Neil Patrick Harris for celebrity day at school, and Barney Stinson for Halloween that year.  I started incorporating countless HIMYM phrases like, "Suit up!" and "Lawyer'd" in every day life.  I watched HIMYM every night before I went to sleep and every morning before school.  I introduced countless people to the show.  I started doing Slap Bets in real life.  I had every original song from the show on my iPhone.  I re-watched the entire show in order with two of my friends.  I did the math one day and estimated that I've watched about 32 days worth of HIMYM.  That's 24-hour days, over a month (in Earth time).  It's still to the point where I might need an intervention (HA HA, reference to the show!).

Now, after nine seasons of slaps, Robin Sparkles songs, Ted girlfriends, catch phrases, naked mans, ducky ties, marriage proposals, and all of those good HIMYM things that I love so much, the show is coming to an end.  I don't care who you are, if you watch TV (and aren't a soulless human being) you have at least one show that actually effects your life in a major way (*salutes* Major Way).  It'll make you cry, it'll make you laugh so hard that you cry (unless it's like Law and Order or something), and you'll reference it constantly without caring if people get the reference or not.

I want to give an open thank you to everyone who is involved with creating the show, and all of the fans who kept it going for 9 seasons.  The creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, the writers, Pamela Fryman and the other directors, the producers, the great cast of Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris (and Cristin Milioti).  Not only has HIMYM helped me get even more excited to potentially tell stories like this as a hopeful filmmaker, it also has helped me in my life.  Whether I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm going through a break-up, I'm in a good relationship, I'm in a bad relationship, HIMYM has and will always be something I can use to just get through life.  The show has helped me create and further friendships, it's given me confidence and allowed me to be more outgoing, and it taught me things that I didn't even know I needed to learn.

This upcoming Monday will be as bittersweet as bittersweet can get.  I'll sing the opening song to a new episode for the last time, I'll see these characters in a new episode for the last time, and I'll get a conclusion to the question I've been wondering about for 9 years.  It sounds silly to feel this way about a television show, but when it becomes such a big part of your life, you can't help but feel sad when it's over.  My expectations are extremely high, but there is no doubt in my mind that in the final minutes of the show I'll get an incredibly satisfying ending set to the perfect indie rock song.  I'll finally feel relief now that Ted has met his perfect girl.  And for the first time in my life, an episode of television will make me cry.

~Ryan Moncrief