*WARNING* Incredibly lame Dawson's Creek reference below:

I think that the current appeal of Dawson's Creek, at least for me, is due more to the coincidental fact that the series is ending at the same time that I'm graduating and going through all the same nostalgic poses and goodbyes that the show is depicting. Good lord, you'd think real life would be emotional enough, and I wouldn't need the talking box to...remind me? enhance my feelings? who knows, that's not the point. What I was going to say was that I've decided to watch the final Dawson's Creek episode ever, and TBS has been helping me to get caught up on the old story lines by re-running all the "old" episodes, including the penultimate episode this morning. And I know the whole reason why shows like this are successful is because at least half the audience is sitting there thinking, "oh! that's me! that's how I feel!" so I realize that what I'm about to say is hardly novel. But nonetheless, the end of this particular episode struck a chord with me. Joey provides a voice-over, touching on a lot of the things that I've been thinking lately - the sad fact that as we get older we make fewer new friends, how incredibly lucky I am to have people who love me, not because they're related to me, but because they choose to love me, and, the kicker, "maybe that's not how it was...but that's how it *felt*." Because it rapidly stops mattering whether or not that last day of freshman year really was perfect or whether time spent at Ford was ever not fun...all that matters is that it felt perfect, and that for a time, Ford was more than fun, Ford felt like home.