It's a beautiful day to rewatch Grey's

Wish me luck

I can’t stop rewatching Grey’s Anatomy. I’m currently on season 2, episode 13, with 20 more seasons looming ahead of me. It’s both daunting and exhilarating, how much show there is to go. As I’m sitting here writing this, Chief Webber just burst into the O.R., where Burke’s operating, and said the name “Denny Duquette” for the first time. “How to Save a Life” hasn’t played once yet. Meredith coined the phrase “pick me” about nine episodes back, but Derek went back to Addison. McSteamy hasn’t entered the scene yet. George is, as of recent, known as “the heart-in-the-elevator guy.”

I love her soooo dearly but I always completely forget about Bailey’s fuck ass bob

In full disclosure, I haven’t actually watched the full show, start to finish. I mainly lost interest after the plane crash, and all of the drama with Callie and Arizona and their ultimate divorce. I limped feebly through four more seasons until Derek died. I still remember the night that episode aired. I was at my high school in downtown Richmond, watching my cousin’s soccer game. I was late to watch Grey’s because of it and texts started rolling in from my friends, all religious watchers. “Omg have you watched it yet??” “call me the minute u c it” “NOOOOOOOO” and I knew immediately what had happened. I broke several traffic laws speeding back home after the game to turn on the TV, and I was a shellshocked wreck afterwards. Partially because of Derek’s death, but also because part of me knew that my religious show-watching was coming to a close.

I’ve loosely followed main plot points in the intervening years by reading Wikipedia summaries, so I know the broad strokes of what’s to come. But I have no idea if I’ll make it all the way through on this rewatch. Part of me wants to, but twenty seasons is … quite the undertaking.

I was recently telling a friend who had never seen Grey’s about why they desperately needed to watch it. I was a few martinis deep and said something like ”Grey’s Anatomy is literally a cornerstone of my personality. It’s the reason I am who I am!!!” Which is 1) incredibly dramatic and sooo a three-martinis deep type of exaggeration. But also 2) not something I’ve ever thought about, but is sort of true?

would die on a hill for her (addison)

it’s true because Grey’s is the first show I ever really loved. It’s not the first show I ever watched in its entirety on Netflix — that honor went to Pretty Little Liars (lol), then Gossip Girl, then One Tree Hill. And I loved those shows so, so deeply, but when I found Grey’s as a sophomore in high school, it was just on a whole other level. I think it was the first show that made me feel adult, or made me feel like I wanted to be an adult. Gossip Girl and OTH were amazing but they were about high schoolers, living these insane, glamorous, twisted lives that looked nothing like mine at 16. I loved the shows, but couldn’t really relate to them — and it felt like I should be able to, if the characters were my age.

But I had nothing in common with Grey’s. I never wanted to be a doctor, I was 10-15 years away from the age of the youngest character in the show, I lived on the exact opposite side of the country from rainy Seattle Grace Hospital. It was so unrelatable that it felt almost comforting — to step entirely out of my bubble and into these bustling, fluorescent hallways where people swarmed around in scrubs and hooked up in on-call rooms.

I have watched seasons 1-8 SOOO so so many times. There are full scenes that have burned themselves so deeply into my brain, I can quote them from memory. My home best friend Lane and I still have each others’ phone contacts saved as “McDreamy” and “McSteamy.” I remember almost down to the episode when key events come about, and can flip to those episodes without thinking.

I love everything about this show. I love Addison Shepherd (my all time fave), I love Meredith’s monologues that sandwich the episodes, I love the O.R. scenes, even though it makes it the only show I can’t watch while I’m eating. I love the guest stars (hey, Mandy Moore!). I love love love the early 2000s music. I have an entire playlist on my phone called “songs from Grey’s” that I would play over and over again on the drive to school and it’s all like “How to Save a Life” and “Breathe (2 am)” and so much Michelle Branch. And my absolute hottest take is that …. I love the singing episode. I love it literally so much. I think I have watched it at least 15 times by itself.

When I was telling my friend Natalie about how deeply this show shaped me, she didn’t really believe me. Which I guess makes sense — I don’t watch it anymore, I don’t talk about it all the time, it’s not always on at my apartment like Parks is. But I do think there’s something about that first show you ever really fall in love with. It forms your personality in ways you can’t fully see. There were a million shows growing up that I loved deeply, like Hannah Montana, which was probably my first real infatuation for a show. (I co-founded and presided over a Hannah Montana Fan Club in the 4th grade). But Grey’s was a different kind of love. I just wouldn’t know who I am without it.

And it’s fun for me, turning back to it when I’m ten years older than the first time I ever picked it up. I’m pretty close to the age the interns are in episode one, and Meredith’s whole season 1 monologue about why being an adult sucks rings more true than ever. It’s fun that I love it just as much as I did the first time I saw it — so much so that I haven’t been able to stop watching it all weekend, even though I know the episodes by heart.