I Hate the Sadness that A Breakup Brings, Even on TV

My poor heart is weighed down with sadness today, burdened with grief, sick with despair. I hate to be sad and I hate using the word hate but I am so bereaved. I’m almost thoroughly depressed.

Recently, I viewed the episode of Doc Martin (British TV show) where Doc and Louisa are supposed to get married. I was so happy for them because he is such a belligerent, rude, obnoxious person and yet sweet Louisa, the local school headmistress, loved him in spite of all that. It took the Doc the longest time to admit that he loved Louisa too, and when he did I cheered with joy. Still, so many times throughout ensuing episodes of the show it looked like ol’ doofus Doc was going to blow his chance with Louisa. Then he finally asked her to marry him and I was in total celebration!

Unfortunately, because this was TV, and a marriage of the two stars of a show is supposed to spell doom for a series, the script writers threw every obstacle they could think of in the way of Doc and Louisa’s wedding; a drunken vicar, an angry substitute vicar who tried to talk Doc out of marriage; a florist jailed by the local constable at exactly the wrong time; a flooded reception hall; the bridesmaid’s untimely giving of birth to her baby. And in the end, Doc and Louisa walked away from each other – not down the aisle together – but alone in separate directions - convinced they would be doing the wrong thing to spend a lifetime together making each other miserable.

They might have been right of course. I cannot help but appreciate a Lacey churches’ reader board this week which says, “Marriage is a commitment to annoy another person for a lifetime.”

Still, I was so angry and upset about the collapse of Doc and Louisa’s nuptials, I hardly slept that night. I do not like unhappy endings – especially for two characters I have managed to fall in love with in spite of myself, and whom I have watched on TV in spite of how much I dislike TV. WHY do we have to have sadness in this life? Why does love always have to be doomed? Isn’t there enough sadness and strife and horrible crap going on in this world without a nice couple breaking up and having to contemplate a future without each other? How bleak is that?

I should not watch such TV shows because as Neil Sedaka once sang, “Breaking up is hard to do.” Been there and done that. I know I’m a silly dreamer but why, at least, couldn’t Doc and Louisa get married and live happily ever after? Why do we have to be possessed of personalities, and face situations, that force us apart? Shakespeare was dead wrong when he said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

B.S.! I say it’s better to never love at all. Don’t even start down that path. It only leads to sadness.

I want happiness. I don’t want despair. I was so angry about the way the marriage episode with Doc and Louisa ended I told Kathleen I would never watch the show again. But then I did. I had to keep my hope alive that Doc and Louisa would work things out and that he would turn out to be a decent, caring human being, who in the REAL end would wind up genuinely loving Louisa and caring for the people of Port Wenn as deeply as the ocean that surrounds the town.

In the next episode Louisa, who had left town for six months, shows up on Doc’s doorstep pregnant. Now, I’m cautiously hopeful again. But I can’t help but think about American patriot Patrick Henry, who possibly could have said, “Give me happiness or give me death.”