What can I say? It’s really over, my friends.
Very few TV series have ever moved me the way Outlander has, and it feels right to write a few words to ease this tightness in my chest.
Jamie and Claire matter to me not because they are perfect, but because they represent love, home, refuge, goodness, family. And Sam and Cait gave us a love story that felt profoundly real.
Back in 2013, I was 19 years old. I was a college student, terrified of the future. Fragile, emotionally inexperienced, scared.
Many people will say it’s just a TV show, just fictional characters. But when I started watching Outlander in 2017, I felt at home. I fell completely in love with everything: Scotland, the landscapes, the atmosphere, the way Jamie and Claire loved and cared for one another. And now, after reading the books countless times, writing fanfiction, and rewatching every single episode over and over again, I truly feel as though a part of me belongs to that world.
This July, I’ll finally go to Scotland. It’ll be a girls’ trip with my mother. We haven’t traveled together in over ten years… because now I’m no longer 19, but 32, and real life is certainly messy. I bought a house and I’m still trying to get used to the idea of it. I may be changing jobs soon (pray for me!). My mother is getting older, and I’m beginning to see the first cracks of time. Outlander was our shared escape route. And that’s why I can’t wait.
So… Jamie and Claire are alive and nothing else matters. THEY ARE ALIVE, AND I WILL ALWAYS IMAGINE THEM THIS WAY: ALIVE, IN LOVE, SURROUNDED BY THEIR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.
Here’s to new beginnings (maybe a movie someday? And definitely the tenth book!), to old and new loves, to new adventures even when they terrify us, to family, to life, and to all the small things that help us keep going forward.
