I feel a bit sad tonight - “This Life” sort of officially came to an end.
(for those who have no idea what I’m talking about, “This Life” was a series produced by BBC2 in the UK in the mid 1990s telling a fly-on-the-wall life story of a group of twenty-somethings. For my generation it was and remains perhaps the best television series ever made. You can read about the series at Wikipedia.)
Myself and W just sat and watched the “Reunion episode”. Ten years on, the various actors came back together to let us know how the characters we knew and loved had faired over the last decade.
It reminded me a lot of my own relationship with old friends - how you remember the good times, but being in each other’s company for more than a few hours exposes the same old cracks that used to exist. Strangely, beyond the invenitable bickering and shouting you can forget the differences at a moment’s notice and be close once more. It’s almost like the arguments are merely “noise” in the relationship.
That was the story for “This Life” this evening. At times it was uncomfortable - watching each character self destruct in their own way. The reassuring part (for me) was seeing the friends react each time, and prop up, patch up, and forget.