Today marks the airing of the final episode of Friends. I know I'm supposed to be besides myself with grief, or some other emotion appropriately teased out of me by the NBC promo (by which I mean news,with all the Dateline coverage) department. What I'm actually feeling, though, is more akin to when Macy's bought out Jordan Marsh or when BU West Campus institution Ellis the Rim Man closed its doors. It's the mild unease of change, a minor signpost that the march of time continues.

Part of what feeds that is that the characters are, theoretically, contemporaries. I say theoretically given that I know no one like them. But even so, they are of a similar age and have, over the last year, transitioned into full-on adulthood with weddings and babies and the like. Given my own recent past, that does resonate a tiny bit.

Overall, though, the end of Friends isn't going to alter my life. It was a reasonably fun show that I'll be able to see from time to time in reruns or on DVD (Sarah's affinity for the show will lead to the eventual purchase of the set, I'm sure). Anything more that I take from it will come from reflecting on my own past decade. Which isn't so bad, really.