THE WANDERING YEARS

Walter Smith once said,"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." That is what I feel like I do every time I write, but in my case I sit down at a computer. I have been teased endlessly by my friends some more than others, about my addiction to Dawson's Creek. For whatever reason, here lately I have been running it on a continuous cycle. I have an emotional attachment to the show that most would not understand.

The fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts just draws me in some days. Luckily, I have all six seasons on DVD. In the third season and the end of an episode Jen, played by Michelle Williams told Dawson, played James Van Der Beek that, "This is some alternate reality where our intellects are sharper, our quips are wittier and our hearts are repeatedly broken while faintly in the background some, soon-to-be-out-of-date contempo pop music plays." The show did many things well. It explored socially relevant issues. It had heart. It definitely had wit. Most importantly, it lead us through the journey of "the wandering years" allowing us to walk in the shoes of the main characters: Dawson Leery, Joey Potter, Pacey Witter, and Jen Lindley as four stories unfolded. We were given insight into four lives and four very unique viewpoints. These four main characters interacted with many different guest stars and three characters whose involvement in Capeside and Boston respectively earned them kudos in the main title sequence.

In the words of Dawson Leery, "It's about a lot of things, but more than anything it's about what it's like to be fifteen, that time in your life when everything is new and you're constantly on the edge of a broken heart. I mean it should be stylized and operatic. We open in a teenager's bedroom walls plastered with movie posters. So in the bed: boy and girl. Both fifteen they've been best friends for as long as they can remember. So they're in the bedroom and they're talking about movies. This is a coming-of-age story. I wanted to tell a story about something small, something personal something I've been trying to figure out for quite some time. I want to write about growning up and why it's so hard. I want to write about falling in love and why it can't last, but how at the same time it lasts forever." In a nutshell, this monologue sums up the character of Dawson Leery. A dreamer with his eyes wide shut who fell in love with his best friend and never quite got over her breaking his heart.

Then there's Joey who resented being "half of the will they, won't they", couple of the century although she is the one whose raging hormones developed "a thing" for Dawson. And why wouldn't she? She climbed up the ladder into his bedroom every Friday for "movie night." She slept as in total hard core REM sleep with him in his bed. Not to mention, she was a tomboy who developed " a thick outer shell" because at thirteen her mom died of cancer and her father got put in prison for drug trafficking. Despite trying to figure out "their budding romantic intanglement" Joey and Dawson were best friends and soul mates. So when Pacey developed feelings for Joey, Dawson's "girl Friday" and Joey developed feelings for him things quickly got complicated.

Next is Pacey. Pacey J. Witter. His character reminds me of my first boyfriend which I guess is the reason that I favor the off-beat character of Pacey to the stay-in-the-lines character of Dawson. Pacey once said, "Since the dawn of time I have been designated the black sheep of my family." He was a screw-up and he never really believed in himself until Andie came along and inspired him to be "the man he only dreamed of being."

Finally, there is Jen who was probably the most complicated character of the whole series. Kudos to Michelle Williams for doing such a fantastic job of playing the multi-layered and complex character of Jen. She once had to go see a therapist as a direct consequence of getting drunk on a school sponsored ski trip. Her therapist Tom Frost told her during one of their therapy sessions that her, "smart sarcastic exterior masks a young lonely woman whose relationships with her parents has scarred her in ways she hasn't even begun to process. She has a hard time trusting people. Men, especially and who can blame her? When parental ties are severed early on like that it can send a young person searching for love and acceptance in a variety of destructive ways which may explain your relationship with drugs, alcohol, and a best friend whose sexuality prevents him from ever fully returning your affections." When Jen had made a breakthrough, Tom Frost told her, "You are a beautiful innocent young woman who's meant to shine in this world in ways you can't even begin to fathom."

These four characters had their own unique set of problems, issues, and hang-ups. The silver linings to their dark rain clouds are that they had each other. Joey and Dawson's friendship even survived when she admitted to Dawson that she had feelings for Pacey and pursued a relationship with him. Sexuality was not a factor when it came to the unique bond between Jen and Jack who told Jen on her death bed in the series finale of Dawson's Creek that she belonged to him because she was his soul mate.

I would like to share some of my favorite scenes between these characters when they were right in the middle of their teen angst. The first scene is between Pacey and Dawson rowing in a boat towards Dawson's dock after successfully sneaking Joey back into her house after she had been drinking at a beach party, that took place during Season One. In Joey's words, "It's true what they say time plays tricks on you. Memory is an unreliable narrator. History gets rewritten in small ways each passing day. I can't swear that this is exactly how it happened but this is how it felt".

Dawson: "Joey was so out of it tonight. She babbled on about the Icehouse, kissed me, rolled over, and passed out."

Pacey: "Wait. Wait. She kissed you?"

Dawson: "Yeah."

Pacey: "She kissed you like an aunt-on-Thanksgiving or she kissed you?"

Dawson: "No. She kissed me. I mean it meant nothing. She was completely wasted. Obviously mistook me for Brad Pitt which is understandable."

Pacey: "Ah. Dawson my fine oblivious friend. One of these days you're going to have to take a gigantic fact check my friend, all right? She didn't mistake you for anybody, okay? This girl is head-in-the-clouds, one hundred percent ass-backwards in love with you, all right?"

Dawson: "Dude. Pacey. Joey and I have a great time together. And it's great to have somebody that you know so well that you don't even have to verbalize what your thinking most of the time. The other person just gets it picks upon it. and it's like that with Joey and me. And it's great, and I like it, but it's not love."

Pacey: "Hey, all right. Don't you think that it's a bit strange that in the middle of a disastrous weekend with your girlfriend Jen, you and I are sitting here talking about your friend, Joey?"

Dawson: "Love is what I have with Jen, okay? It's exciting. It's new and unknown. Yeah, sometimes it's out of hand. But trust me there's a difference between friendship and love."

Pacey: "Right? And your so sure that you know that difference?"

Dawson: "You don't know what you're talking about."

A few episodes later, Dawson takes off the blinders or as Pacey said, "takes a gigantic fact check" and sees Joey as beautiful at the "Miss Wind Jammers contest." In this scene he and Joey are talking after the pageant as he wraps his sports coat around her bare shoulders.

Dawson: "What's happening Joey? I looked at you tonight... And I... It was like you came completely out of your shell. There was this like total I don't know-newfound confidence that just seemed to burst from you. And I know what it must have taken for you to get up there tonight. It's like you... It's like you transformed into this beautiful...Joey. I mean... I'm sitting here with my best friend in the world and my palms are sweating. I've known you forever, but I feel like I'm seeing you for the first time tonight."

Joey: "I don't know Dawson there's something that's just not right about this. I mean.. It's my own stupid fault. I mean... dressing up playing the princess. You and I both know this isn't me. I thought this is what I wanted for you to see me as beautiful. For you to look at me the way you look at Jen, but the truth is I don't want that at all Dawson. I want you to look at me and see the person that you've always known and realize that what we have is so much more incredible than some passing physical attraction. Because you know what Dawson? It's just lipstick. And it's just...hairspray. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to be Joey, just Joey."

Dawson: "Joey, this is all new to us and we should talk about it, okay? No matter what happens we can't go back to the way things were."

Joey: "Dawson you've had a lifetime to process your feelings for me. And I can't spend the rest of mine hoping that you might through a glance in my general direction in between your tortured teen romances with whatever Jen Lindley rolls into your life next. I can't do it."

At the end of Season One, finally Dawson kisses Joey. They have a short-lived relationship. After a school dance, Joey breaks up with Dawson to find herself. She starts seeing Jack, who realizes that he is attracted to men so then he breaks it off with her. Dawson and Joey get back together for awhile until Dawson decides to inform the police that Joey's vindicated father is trafficking drugs again. Then Pacey and Joey start a friendship after he breaks up with Andie for being unfaithful to him by sleeping with a patient while she is staying at a mental health facility. In Season Three, Andie has just told Pacey that she slept with a guy from the mental health facility. He is driving Joey home after the pep rally and they are talking in his car.

Joey: "Pacey, you probably don't want to hear this right now. And you probably don't want to hear it from me, but you have to talk to her."

Pacey: "No, I couldn't even look at her right now."

Joey: "You have to Pacey. You have to hear her out."

Pacey: "Why? What's the difference Joey? The ending is still the same. She slept with somebody else."

Joey: "You think that just because the two of you were together what she did hurts more? It doesn't. There's no difference Pacey. I mean look she's sixteen years old Pacey and so are you. We talk like we know what's going on, but we don't. We don't have any idea. We're really young, and we're going to screw up alot, we're going to keep changing our minds and sometimes even our hearts. And through all of that the only real thing we can offer each other is forgiveness. Don't let yourself get so angry that you stop loving because one day you'll wake up from that anger and the person that you love will be gone."

Shortly after that, once Pacey puts his hurt feelings in perspective regarding Andie, Pacey starts to develop true feelings for Joey. Joey returns Pacey affections. Then Pacey breaks up with her at the high school prom. Here is a scene from Season Six, where Joey and Pacey are reliving that time in their lives and contemplating starting over. In the girl's room, Joey is consoling Harley, her professor's daughter after her boyfriend, Patrick started a fight with a guy that Harley used to make him jealous. Pacey is having a "man to man" talk with Patrick in the boy's room at their schmancy private school during a school dance.

Harley: "Look at me. I'm crying in the bathroom."

Joey: "And thus carrying on an age-old tradition of women crying in the bathroom. I did it in high school."

Harley: "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but my high school experiences shouldn't really be the same as yours. Or I'm doing somethng terribly, terribly, wrong."

Joey: Sorry kiddo. But that's just how it goes with the high school dance. You buy the dress. You mess with the hair. Pose for the picture. You think you're date is going to say all the things you've been dying for him to say and no. Inevitably, you end up in the girl's bathroom crying."

Pacey: "You like Harley, right?"

Patrick: "She has her strong points. As long as we are talking man to man. Yeah, I like her a lot."

Pacey: "Congratulations man because true feelings for a woman that's about the best experience you're ever gonna have. It'll make you strong. It'll make you stupid and it will definitely take you closer to the man that you wanna be. Be nice to her."

Harley: "You've honestly had a bad time at every dance you've ever been to?"

Joey: "Yeah. Except this one. This one was nice."

Pacey: "I'm all for the grand romantic gestures, but next time instead of flailing around wildly, just tell her that you like her. And then if you still feel the need to throw a punch, pick an enemy your own size."

Although, Joey was not on the same page as Pacey at least not at this particular point, this is one of my favorite impassioned speeches that Pacey has made. "Don't tell me that you're not scared because I know that you are. I mean, I've known you too long and seen you push away too many good things to let you push me away right now. My whole life Joey, my whole life you have been the most beautiful thing in my orbit and my feelings for you were what proved to me that I could be great. And those feelings were stronger, and wiser, and more persistent, and more resilient than anything else about me. When I was afraid of everything, I was never afraid to love you. I could love you again. Joey." However, at the end of the series, Pacey and Joey get the happy ending.

Think back to your own "wandering years" or formative years whatever you want to call it. Did you feel like your were living your life in a fish bowl? Seriously. Imagine how a gold fish feels in a tiny bowl, swimming around in circles and moving from side to side hitting the edge of the bowl, looking at people peering at him. Sure, he can breathe underwater through his gills. But there isn't much else he can do. The life aquatic isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Did you ever hear the faintest of snickers and whispers in your direction? Can you remember the imaginary audience that followed you around who always seemed to criticize and never applaud you? Did you feel like you were spinning around in circles? Running in place? Did you feel like you had no place to go? Or wondered where you where going? Or where you would be when you got there? That is what college admittance essays are for I guess. Did your life feel small and insignificant? Did you get the guy or the girl? What label where you given in high school?

On top of all of the teen angst, How was your home life? Did your parents decide to get a divorce? Did you lose a loved one? Did you learn a family secret? Did you have a friend that understood you even when you didn't always make sense?

I always wondered, "What made me special?" What set me apart?" I think that I compared myself to every female on my periphery. It was always a competition for attention. I craved encouragement, but rarely ever got it from the people in whom I sought it. There were times that I had crushes on boys whose radar never reached me. Would you go back and be fifteen again? If you had the chance, would you go back and do things differently? What would they be? Those years of growing pains are so tough. It is a miracle we ever find our way out of that maze.
Here is a scene between Joey and Dina, Chris's sister who was briefly seen in Season Two of Dawson's Creek. Everyone went over to Chris's house for a study session. Dawson had unintentionally hurt the tender feelings of Dina. Joey decided to give her a pep talk.

Dina: "After tonight, I'm avoiding growing up at all costs."

Joey: "Sounds good. Let me know if you have any luck."

Dina: "Aren't you supposed to be arguing the other side?"

Joey: "I see you want the I'm older than you so here's how it works speech, right? How's this? Growing up sucks and not all kisses are magic and most boys do not live up to your expectations. But...there are those times when everything I mean love, romance, relationships it all falls together perfectly and it's incredible. It's those moments no matter how depressingly few and far between make growing up worth it. It will be okay."

Would I wake up and be fifteen again if I could? I do not think so. Sure, there are some things when I look back that I wish I could change. It is called regret. It is just in the last few years of my mid-twenties that I have been comfortable in my own skin. That I felt like it was okay to be me. Retrospect is a gift. Sure, there are things that I have done wrong; however there are also things that I have done right where I have no regrets and I wouldn't change a thing if I could turn back the hands of time. One of the main differences between being a teenager and an adult is that when you are a teenager you think you have all the answers, and as an adult you begin to realize and finally admit that in fact you do not have all the answers.

In a way, writing is an avenue of reliving the past. Reflection and I have always been on pretty good terms. It does not mean that I do not anticipate and look forward to the future. I do. There are just some moments in the past that I treasure and cherish.

Kevin Williamson, the creator of Dawson's Creek has said, that he used a part of himself in every character. So in a sense, he got to relive the past. Dawson certainly did and at times, he delved into the self-indulgent which if I were being honest, I have a tendency to do the same thing. Here is another great scene between Dawson and Joey near the end of the series.

Dawson: "What if you woke up and you were fifteen again?"

Joey: "The funny thing is... is I don't feel that way anymore. Watching you shoot those scenes today is like this huge weight has been lifted."

Dawson: "Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. Shooting this movie is going to save me tons of money on therapy."

Joey: "Today was a great day."

Dawson: "Oh. The best."

Joey: "I mean how many truly great days are we going to have in our lives?"

Dawson: "I don't know. Who knows how many you get? When they do come along though I hope that you're close by at least for a few of them."

Joey: "Me too. So how would you descrive your movie? If somebody asked you what would you say?"

Dawson: "I would say, it's about a girl who wanted more than she had, who had to grow up to realize that she had everything she ever could have wanted."

Joey: "I like that."

Although Dawson and Joey were soulmates and had this incredible connection to one another, Joey always felt like she was fifteen years old again when she was with Dawson. He transported her back to that particular place in time and she feared that she would never grow up. It seemed the reason that she chose Pacey at the end of the series is because she actually allowed herself to grow up with him whereas with Dawson she was fifteen again in his bedroom, on his bed watching movies particularly Stephen Spielburg movies surrounded by four walls plastered with movie posters.

" I used to be afraid of so many things. That I'd never grow up. That I'd be trapped in the same place for all of eternity. That my dreams would forever be shy of my reach. But it's true what they say. Time plays tricks on you. One day you're dreaming the next your dream has became your reality. And now that this scared little girl no longer follows me wherever I go, I miss her. I do because there are things I want to tell her to relax, to lighten up, that it is all going to be okay. I want her to know that meeting people who like you, who understand you and actually accept you for who you are will become an increasingly rare occurrence. Jen, Jack, Audrey, Andie, Pacey, and Dawson. These people who contributed to who I am. They are with me wherever I go. And as history gets rewritten in small ways with each passing day, my love for them only grows because the truth is...it was the best of times. Mistakes were made. Hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned, but all of that has receded into fond memory now. How does it happen? Why are we so quick to forget the bad and romanticize the good? Maybe it's because we need to believe that the time we spent together actually meant something. That we where there for each other at a time in our lives that defined us all. A time in our lives that we will never forget. I can't swear this is exactly how it happened, but this is how it felt."

The above paragraph is Joey's reflective monologue towards the end of the series. I also have people who I look back on with fond memories who have contributed to who I am. I have made mistakes, my heart has been broken, and I have learned harsh lessons. Joey is right. We are quick to forget the bad and romanticize the good because we need to believe that the time that we have already spent with friends or family members actually meant something and it was a time in our lives that defined us all. The truth is we were all meant to shine in this world.

I imagine that most people when given the choice, to wake up and be fifteen again would graciously decline the offer because it is such an uncertain time in our lives. It is a time riddled with teen angst, confusion, raging hormones, and self unawareness. We are always fighting some internal war within ourselves and when we were teenagers it was peer pressure. E.E. Cummings once wrote, "To be nobody-but yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." Dawson once said when he was referring to Joey taking off with Pacey for the summer in his boat, "Why does it hurt so much?" Andie simply replied, "because our pain makes us real and we can't do it alone. None of us can." No matter what stage in our lives, the only true thing that we can offer each other is forgiveness for our past mistakes and grievances. Dawson's parents taught him that "sometimes love ends and begins again". "True love can forgive anything." Like Dawson, "I wanted to write about something small and something personal, something that I have been trying to figure out for quite some time." I wrote this blog to explore those "wandering years" and pay tribute to my favorite T.V. show of all time. The world is full of mysteries. Among the many mysteries of the world, one that would rank on the top of the list is "the wandering years".

In just two weeks the WB network will say "goodbye". It is being replaced by the new CW network. Dawson's Creek paved the way. It is the granddaddy of the WB. Of all the shows that are art imitating life, in my humble opinion, Dawson's Creek did the best of depicting "the wandering years".