How Lost Changed My Life

Well, here we are. Hours before the finale of a show that has brought all of us here (wait... does that make me Jacob and this blog my island??). We are all fans of TV. Not just Lost, but television. Over the years I’ve laughed and cried along with Buffy and Angel, felt excitement shoot through me to see Omar Little in ANY scene, fallen in love with Jim and Pam, delighted at the sheer wonder of Pushing Daisies, sleuthed with Veronica Mars... my formative years are filled with memories of Sesame Street and Little House on the Prairie. When I didn’t have my nose stuck in a book of some kind, of course.

Too often, we use the hyperbole, “such-and-such changed my life.” I released two collections of stories from fans about how a show changed their lives. Is it true with Lost?

I remember the first internet fandom I became a part of was on a Simpsons listserv (yep, way back in the day), talking about episodes, dissecting favourite quotes. And then I became a full-fledged Xenite, in Gabrielle groups and Callisto groups and talking about Ancient Greeks and filking... there was such a close-knitness to that fandom. Next came Buffy, and that one was more spread out... they couldn’t even decide on a name for what they were: Buffites, Buffaholics, Buffyphiles. That show was one where I decided to recruit pretty much everyone I knew in real life and I found that to be more of my discussion point. Angel spread from that, as did Alias.

And then along came Lost. Like Buffy, it attracts demographics across the board: men, women, all age groups. Teenagers are watching it alongside grandparents. Academics devour it. Physics majors, literature scholars, specialists in linguistics. And yet despite the disparity of backgrounds, we all found Lost together. In places like this blog and countless other spots around the Internets, people came together week after week, day after day, to talk about every aspect of this show.

Did Lost change my life? Absolutely. When Lost started in September 2004, I had a one-month-old baby. My first. She was my perfect, perfect little girl. I still remember sitting in the big comfy green chair when the pilot of Lost started. I was probably breastfeeding her at the time, my life was in upheaval, I was in the whirlwind place of being a new mom, with all of its gloriousness and overwhelmingness. And sitting with that little bundle on my lap, I watched people in a similar place of upheaval and confusion try to recover after they’d just been dealt a horrible blow in their life – they’d crashed on an island. I didn’t have a blog, I’d just released books on Angel and Alias and I honestly thought that after my daughter was born there would be no more time to write books. Those books were to be my swansong, and now I was just going to watch TV for the fun of watching it.

And then “Walkabout” happened. A show written by a former Buffy writer, it was one that changed the series for me forever, and took the writing to a completely new level. This wasn’t just a fun show filled with action and adventure... it was going to offer me twists and turns and mysteries and reveals. This was the rollercoaster I’d been waiting for. And by the beginning of season 2, I’d found a show I absolutely HAD to write about.

My first book covered off the first two seasons. I read Brothers Karamazov and The Third Policeman for the first time, and reread Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness and 1984 (the latter was one I read on a beach when I was at a resort for my brother’s wedding... a very odd beach book choice!). I had to revisit my philosophy classes and political science notes. I had to remember a lot of the critical theory I’d taken in university. This was a show that challenged me in ways I’d never been challenged before, and when that book came out, many of my friends – chiefly Jeremy – succeeded in convincing me to start up my own blog. So, at the beginning of season 3, I began blogging about Lost live. A few of the regulars who are still here today were among my first readers. I would get 15 comments on a post and be so excited that I actually had READERS!! As the season went on and the book was out there and selling, I started building up a bigger audience. And then I convinced my publisher that this show actually merited a book a season, something that took a LOT of convincing, several meetings, and a reluctant and nervous commitment.

And now, we’re in the final stretch. That one-month-old little girl is now five-and-a-half going on 24, full of determination and stubbornness and joy and wonder. And she has a brother, who is two-and-a-half and starting to develop his own voice and has this high-pitched giggle. My daughter can’t walk by a piece of paper – be it a post-it, newspaper, empty paper towel roll – without drawing something on it. She’ll either be a painter or a writer or a graffiti artist. She loves writing little stories, and one day she was leaning over her papers looking very serious and determined, and I asked her what she was doing and she looked up innocently and saying, “Oh, just writing a book about Lost.” Because to her, that’s what mommy does. And it’s perfectly normal. She tells teachers and parents of friends that her mommy writes books about the TV show Lost, and they smile and pat her on the head and don’t believe her. Until I smile and say no, actually, it’s true. And then they look confused.

Those 15 comments per post have exploded into 400 or more (ack!), and where I used to respond to every one, the few sporadic readers I had in here have become a tight community of people who follow each other to other blogs, reading what everyone has to say instead of just me, and I don’t have to moderate things so closely because people aren’t here to talk to me, they’re here to talk to everyone in our community. I love it. I love that I have this place where people respect and truly like one another. Where we could get together in person in NYC, not having met each other, and actually be able to sit and chat to one another for hours. The 150 readers a day I used to have has grown to thousands per day.

I have been exposed to ideas of physics (in high school you had to take two sciences, and I chose chem and biology, foregoing physics... boy, was THAT a mistake!) I read Stephen Hawking and enjoyed it. Ulysses had been sitting on my shelf since 2000, when I’d gone over to Paris and bought my copy in Shakespeare & Co, the bookstore where Joyce actually sat and wrote it. And despite being totally overwhelmed by it in places, the ending of that book is possibly my favourite of all time. I read Valis and Flannery O’Connor and this season I’m working through Notes from Underground and Kierkegaard. I’ve been exposed to new ways of thinking, different philosophies, new ways of looking at myself. I find myself thinking week after week, How different would my life have been if I’d made different choices early on?

I used to be the Buffy gal. Now I’m the Lost authority. But that word – authority, expert – always makes me wince a bit, because I don’t think any one person is a Lost authority. We all are. I’ll never forget coming on here and saying after seeing “Whatever Happened Happened” that I was kinda with Hurley, and didn’t understand how you could shoot Miles in 1977 and he would still get on the freighter in 2004. That admission garnered several thoughtful and amazing responses that eventually turned into one of my most popular chapters in the season 5 book. I can now put out a note, “Hey, if there’s a police officer/lawyer/person who speaks Korean/physics major out there...” and ask a question, and get answers. It has entirely changed the process of writing these books from a solitary experience to a shared one that is very community-based. It’s the reason I thank every person on here in my acknowledgements (and then feel bad when I forget someone (sorry Erin!) or spell someone’s name wrong (sorry, Zari!)). This blog and the community that has built up around it means so much to me, and I didn’t know ANY of you before all of this started in September 2004.

So YES. Lost has changed my life. I will sit on that couch tonight, alone in the actual viewing of the episode, but not alone because ALL of you will be there with me in spirit, laughing at Hurley’s jokes, crying at the death of someone we love, secretly hoping for an appearance by Nikki and Paulo... we have created inside jokes on here that are pretty much specific to Nik at Nite (and yes, I DO believe Jacob is hella-palatable, though Man in Black is even more so). People have announced birthdays, births, deaths, sicknesses, and anniversaries on here, and like family and friends, we all band together for everyone else.

The overriding message from Lost that I think tonight’s episode will come down to is, “Live together, die alone.” Jack’s been saying it since season 1. And I think a less dramatic version is definitely applicable to what we’ve built up here: because we’ve discussed this show together, no one ever feels alone. Even if you go into work and not a single soul watches it and none of your friends understand you when you talk about Dharma and time travel and compass bearings, we all know we have kindred spirits waiting for us here, who will dissect and haiku until the end of time.

I’ve been saying one thing all season: that when the finale happens, the speculation can end, and the discussion can truly begin. While I’m simultaneously excited and saddened by the finale coming tonight, I can’t wait to share the experience with all of you out there, and to spend tomorrow chatting about all of it. And the rest of the week. And the coming months. And then maybe we’ll find another show that strikes our fancy, and we’ll all come together to watch and discuss it. There’s no shortage of good television out there, just a shortage of good discussion about it. And that’s where WE come in!!

So thank you, Damon and Carlton. Thank you, Lost. But mostly, thank you to everyone out there reading my words and commenting on my posts and just being there so I know I’m not sitting here typing out into a wilderness. You have helped make the experience of watching this show a richer one for me, and I am so grateful for it. You have changed the way I write my books (I mean, without one particular reader on this blog, I wouldn’t have the last two books covers!) Lost isn’t the only thing that changed my life: you did. Thank you, and enjoy the finale tonight.

See you on the other side, bruthahs and sistas.