Grey's Anatomy: Love/Addiction

jeez... Tuesday again. already.
::shakes head::

i think i'll jump right in with the fact that i really liked this episode. far better than the season premiere. and Izzie and the deer.

there were all sorts of bits & pieces that i loved. like...

..."Would you look at all the residents. Big snazzy residents, standing around, playing with housewares." i love Bailey lines. she always gets right to the heart of the matter. says it like it is. peppered with just the right amount of snark. there's one Dr Bailey moment in every episode & i look forward to each & every one.

...human Cristina. this whole Burke thing, an experience which would give most of us a harder edge, a more impenetrable outer shell of self-preservation, took the callous & often harsh Cristina, and softened her just enough to make her human. oh, she's still Cristina. i don't think anything could truly erase that. but there's something softer there now, too. something like... understanding, born of pain. compassion for those who feel a little lost, a little scared, a little unsure of what to do to right what's wrong. you see it, just for a flash, before it vanishes behind the Cristina exterior. when she asks Mama to take away the gifts... and when she quietly asks in a way that is really more an admission to herself that Burke isn't coming back, even to say goodbye... and when she's alone in the room with the woman whose whole life blew up in her meth lab kitchen, a woman who feels like she doesn't even know how she got here in the first place, not just in the hospital, but in this supremely messed up life, one she never intended to have, and Cristina is there, reminding her that she will be strong & get through, but right now, to just breathe. Cristina finally sees a little of herself in her patients, and somehow this is going to make her an even better doctor.

...how Alex *needed* Bailey to yell at him for making a bad decision. and what it did for both of them when she finally did. Alex, and the others, still respect Bailey. and they rely on her guidance -- something we haven't seen Callie provide much of, for all sorts of reasons. and i think, not only did Bailey need to let loose, simply for yelling's sake, but she needed to feel needed too. especially after the displacement of not being The Chosen One after all.

...that exchange between Mer & Lexie. and how they really don't have the same dad. Mer's had it harder than Lexie. Lexie had these parents who doted on her, loved her, encouraged her. she inadvertently "stole" Mer's dad in that way, and left Mer with no father, just a mother who beat her down, again & again. Mer & Lexie don't see the man that is their father in the same way at all. and i can't help but feel Mer has every right not to want to jump right into the big sister role for the girl who had the dad Mer should have had, and deep down, always wanted.

mostly though, what i really liked was the theme of addiction. there are the obvious addictions. the ones we're warned to guard against. we're taught that drugs are bad. and that we need to treat alcohol with respect. and that cigarettes can kill us. but addiction comes in all sorts of forms, not all of them illegal. whatever form it comes in, addictions have a good chance of taking on a life of their own, and spinning wildly, often unintentionally, out of control. it doesn't matter what form the addiction takes for it to have the potential to be destructive, and so often its effects sneak up on you, and you never see it coming. how it hurts. how it hurts you. how it hurts the people that love you. how it destroys your family & the things that are important to you. how you get caught up in it. how sometimes you don't even see -- sometimes not until it's too late. how sometimes it's obvious to the naked eye. and sometimes it isn't. the obvious addiction in this episode was crystal meth. i thought the writers did an excellent job of hitting all these angles of people who were affected by it. not just the user but the good people who found themselves in a bad situation they never ever intended to be in. how it hurt their baby. and how it tore apart their family. and how it hurt someone who considered them his loved ones, the family he never had. all these people hurt by an addiction.

but the obvious addictions aren't the only addictions. sometimes there are the subtle addictions -- and not all of them harmful. like Mer & Derek, and their addiction to each other, and the demons neither one of them seems truly able to face. and maybe in this case the addiction is to something that's actually very very good... if only they could shake themselves free of those demons.

on the Grey's blog, Debora Cahn says: "Don’t you just want to shake Derek and Callie? Don’t you want to shake them and say, “These people keep telling you they can’t give you what you want – believe them!” But shaking them wouldn’t help. Because they’re addicted. They can’t walk away even when they want to. Maybe it’s okay. Maybe you can’t avoid addiction, all you can do is pick your poison. Special English tea is better than meth, and love’s better than special English tea. It may put you through the ringer sometimes, but when it’s good, it’s really really good. Worth coming back to, time and time again. Worth getting hooked on."

pick your poison. don't we all have something good... something wonderful we could, and probably *should*, just allow ourselves to let go & get truly addicted to? something that supersedes any need for all the harmful addictions. something that brings us a lasting joy & not just a temporary high that only ends in a long spiral downward into the inevitable crash, to a devastating end, to a pile of heartache. sometimes that very very good thing is right in front of us, and the demons keep us from seeing it. or we see it but we're just too afraid to let it close. it seems the harmful addictions are so much easier to find & fall into.

i think that's why, mostly, i loved the end of the episode, when Derek gives in, runs down the stairs after Meredith. because when it's good, it's very very good. and i think deep down they both know it. even though it's hard for Derek to have Meredith holding him at arm's length because she's damaged, and dark & twisty... even though it's terrifying for Mer to let Derek anywhere near her, because she just can't love another person who will just end up disappearing on her in the end... the addiction, the wonderful addiction of being in love with the right person, it just won't be denied. if only we would just stop fighting the good addictions...

why is it so much easier to allow ourselves to become addicted to the things that hurt us -- not just the obvious ones, the illegal ones, the ones that hurt our bodies, but the less obvious ones too, the ones that hurt our hearts, and our souls, and our dreams, the ones that offer empty promises, the ones that pretend they will make us feel good when the reality is that their lies deceive us, and in the end, we find we've allowed ourselves to be fooled by the fancy outer package -- when the good things are right there, and they would be so much better than any short-lived, hollow "high" that, in the end, is the "best" the harmful addictions can offer...? wouldn't it be so much better to "hide" inside something real & good & happy? and how many times is *that* the addiction we keep running away from instead...? why do we seem to gravitate toward the addictions that hurt us, and why are these the addictions we turn to so easily & hang onto when the good is so often right there for the taking...?

favorite quote from Grey Matter: "And don’t get into relationships with people who can’t handle them."

favorite quote from the episode: "Because no matter how badly a thing is hurting us, sometimes letting it go hurts even worse." (Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy)