Community

Have we talked lately? Has there been a spring in my step? A glint in my eye? A grin on my face? Well, probably not, knowing me, but I've been in a better mood for a couple of weeks. And it's all because of Abed, Troy, Annie, Brita, Pierce and Geoff.

Matt and I were bored one evening in July, and he suggested we watch an episode of Community. We ended up watching five, eyes streaming with tears of laughter, sides aching (at one point I fell out of my chair and was rolling around on the floor, unable to breathe or get up).

Community is a show (A show? A religion! A way of living!) which is set in a California Community College. It has seven central characters who've ended up at the college after failing to get a more prestigious place, or trying to keep the brain active in retirement, or because their fake bachelors degree was discovered and they need to get a real one or face being debarred. It is excellently written, witty, elegantly structured and not afraid to be daft without being overcomplicated or silly for the sake of it. It is better than Friends, How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. It is quite the best show I have seen in a couple of years. And now I have finished season three, and I'm waiting for season four to start, but not without some concerns; Dan Harmon, the creative voice behind the show, has left.

My instinct when faced with change is usually to dig both heels in, fold my arms and refuse to deal with it. I think that some of that I'm not inclined to risk what I have; I've got my mates, and I'm okay where I am - why risk losing that or changing things and being less happy? I know there's not much logic in that, but there we are, that's the way I think sometimes. Consequently, whenever I think about season four I worry that some of the witty repartee will disappear, that the developing plot lines which have been slowly (and in many cases unexpectedly) maturing over the last three seasons will be truncated or forgotten. I am concerned that the portrayals of the characters will change too, that they'll play too hard on the pop-culture tributes and not enough on original story development, or go the other way and turn the show into one long in-joke.

But then I had a thought this morning. After three seasons, some of the plot ideas have been explored as much as they can be. In particular, the interactions between two of the characters have reached a point where things are going to have to change. The final episode of season three involved two characters growing up slightly, and a another calming down and being a bit more at ease with his situation. Change doesn't care about what we want to do, about where we'd like to be.

This October I start Term One of my fourth and final year (touch wood) of University. While I have chosen to stay on for an additional undergraduate year (digging my heels in again) many of my friends have not. One has married, one is engaged and living in London, others have found jobs and moved away. Much of the tight circle of friends I have valued so much for three years have left.

But that's not exactly right. They've not left, not abandoned me; they've reached for other things, and they've found new places to be. And whether I like it or not, I've changed too. The Edward Bilson who came to University was seldom known as Ed, would never have published a blog (certainly would never have published fiction) and would never have stayed for that second drink at the pub.

Okay, so maybe I'm still working on the last one. But there's more change coming. I'm not going to be an undergraduate forever, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life living in this house with these people (great as all of that is). One day I'd like to get married (although not yet), I'd like to ride the train from Toronto to Vancouver and climb another mountain with just me on the trail, I'd like to be a professional engineer and maybe (just once) a writer. I want to do a lot of things which will require some change from me. Perhaps the biggest thing that I need to do is convince myself that it's okay to get it wrong every once in a while: after all it's impossible to get things right without getting them wrong first (in the words of Jake the Dog, "Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being kinda okay at something").

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that there are no endings (things go on without us) and no beginnings (stuff went on before us), that the only thing we can do is run head first at change and hope that it changes right for us.