Unfinished: Spain, Sedans and Antoni Gaudi

I don't finish things.

So the fact that I lost track of the TV show How I Met Your Mother somewhere in its 5th season shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Recently however, the show finally ended at the conclusion of its 9th season.  Taking this in my stride, I googled how the show had ended and was somewhat surprised to discover that the recap of the final episode was every bit as satisfying as it would have been if I had actually invested the 200+ hours to watch the entire series, so I kind of felt like that was a win.

But then something changed.

I blame Netflix for this (as in so many other things), because a few weeks later I found myself tracking down where I had left off on Season 5 on their service and immediately resumed watching.

As luck would have it, one of the first episodes I watched was titled 'Unfinished' and was expressly about the lack of closure.

The central metaphor was that of Antoni Gaudi, an architect I had been previously aware of but didn't know a lot about.  My sum total of knowledge was: Something to do with Spain and influence for the Doctor Who episode The Brain of Morbius.

One of the things that I did not know but that the episode did was that his signature work (a Cathedral in Spain, which goes to show that I was at least partially right) had remained unfinished because he was hit by a bus.

A bus, people.

This is, I think we will all agree, a fairly defensible excuse for not finishing your cathedral.

So.  With that in mind, and not wanting to die at the hand of any form of public transport, here are a few closing thoughts on a couple of longstanding issues.

-The Grey Sedan

I'm sad to say that I appear to have won.  For almost two months now there has been no sign of the grey sedan in my parking spot.  I've seen it a few times in various other places in the parking ramp.  Sometimes I deliberately get to work a half an hour late just to give them a chance.  But something in their spirit has been irrevocably destroyed.  No matter how long I drag my feet in the morning, I arrive to find my spot wide open and the grey sedan - once so formidable a foe - parked meekly on the other side of P2.  A shell of it's former self.

Sometimes I toy with the thought of leaving a Chuck-E-Cheese token on it's hood.  As if to say, 'Hey Buddy.  How have you been?  I still care.'

But I just haven't had the heart.

-Whatculture

After two entire weeks of soul searching and not knowing how I felt, I sent an email to their editorial staff asking for a second chance and to be re-instated.  My email was impassioned.  It was lengthy.  It was the raw stuff of my soul.

They replied the next morning with 'Sure thing, happy to have you back.'  Which left me wondering if perhaps I wasn't overthinking the whole situation.

So.  There you have it.  Conclusions.  You get what you want and regret it because you miss the drama.  Or you get what you want because it turns out you were the only one who really invested that much time thinking about the issue.  Or you get hit by a bus.

I'm starting to think that closure is overrated.