On March 10, 1997, I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in my mom’s bed, just shy of turning seven years old. Was this wildly inappropriate material for a first grader? Pretty much, but I’m so glad for this particular disruption to a normal childhood that could never be mine.
In this reality, I grew up with “vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness” on a weekly basis. I saw Buffy’s woes, wins, and tragedies and they helped me through my week. “People hate Tuesdays? Why?! That’s when Buffy’s on!” I’d think to myself alone because who talks to an eight year old about Buffy?
Buffy shaped me. I learned who I wanted to be from her guidance. Who I thought I was. She just wanted to be a normal girl, and here I am at 32 wishing I had been one too. I thought I was, and maybe we’re all “normal” in our hopes and desires, but I wasn’t living a normal life from most people’s definition. But Buffy wasn’t normal either. She was chosen. I don’t feel chosen but I’ve lived through hardships that Buffy could recognize. We’ve made hard choices, handled more than we should have had to at our young ages. How I’d love to take a sip of a drink at The Bronze (90s version with the funky bands) with Buffy, Tara, and Cordelia (what a fun quartet we’d be!) and hear Giles croon onstage with his guitar. I may be blending seasons but all of it was beautiful.
Buffy ended at the close of my 7th grade and so did the end of my strength. In eighth grade, I had finally experienced enough pain in my life without seeking professional help. I was exhausted. Exhausted from being neglected, abused, disregarded. I may have excelled so much academically, but at the expense of my own well being. I had never stopped to consider I didn’t deserve all of the traumatic events of my childhood. I didn’t know I wasn’t at fault. I didn’t know I could feel better.
But at the end of Buffy, in “Chosen”, there was a moment I felt inspired. I had known I would never be invited to a certain British school of magic but I didn’t need it because I FELT I could be a slayer. I knew I was physically strong, but was I ready to be Buffy strong?
Little did I know that to do that I had to face my pains, embrace the Radical Acceptance notion that bad things can happen and even if you don’t deserve them, they happened. Acceptance is the final stage in grief but I feel like I’ve only now learned it can happen over and over for you. It’s not one and done. Not for me anyway.
After Nana died, I felt the need to watch “The Body”. I thought I needed to cry through experiencing Buffy’s lens of grief, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I’m watching “The Gift”, one of Buffy’s most influential finales. If Buffy could take on a hell god and win, surely I can survive my grandmother’s passing and the pain it produces. I can survive the pains my whole life brought.
Even as I age way past Buffy’s age in this season, Buffy will always be an older sister, wise and benevolent. I needed her then and I need her now. I am forever indebted to her. She’s been with me for the majority of my life, I come to her when I’m in pain, when I need a laugh, when I remember her story and how it moves me. I share her with people I love and bring them into my Buffyverse family. My own Scoobies. I watch “Once More, With Feeling” when I’m depressed even though I hate watching through the sixth season. (I’m a Bangel girl, through and through, but I digress.)
I hope one day I will be back to full strength to create something as wonderful as Buffy.
“The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”
I’m trying Buffy. I have been and I will.
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