WILSHERE: I see myself in Meredith Grey

After my parents got divorced and my mom began investing in digital streaming, I hid myself in different medical shows. I had fostered a probably unhealthy relationship with “Grey’s Anatomy” and its characters. I fell in love with the characters as they fell in love, I cried when they cried, mourned the loss of its doctors and patients alike and tried to find myself in Meredith Grey. When Shonda Rhimes introduced the concept of having a “person,” I instantly cast my best friend as mine. I found solidarity in the chaos that mirrored my own, and formed attachments to a relationship that never seemed it would end: Meredith and Derek’s. I began to believe that their relationship mirrored my own.

My own knight-in-shining-whatever was perfect on paper: traditional American-made looks, a guy who looked like he stepped out of a J. Crew catalog, a poet, the sensitive type who was wicked smart and could keep up with my quick wit. Our courtship was short — one poetry workshop, one cup of tea, multiple run-ins at the gym and one French movie later I found myself talking Socrates and Sinatra with him into the late hours. Maybe, if only just for a moment, I had something that seemed like it could last. The guise ended as time struck down faster than I could blink. He moved on with his life and I moved back to New York.

In the next few weeks I pretended like nothing had changed. But Derek’s death and the end of my relationship never went away. It was staring across from me on a bleak Wednesday morning, cutting into its omelet. It now took the form of a guy I had fallen for in high school, but never pursued because of my own personal fears. This was a typical move for me — to get over the loss of one guy, I would try to replace him and pretend like nothing happened. I had replaced something lost with something new, and tried to call this practice “part of moving on.” Instead of moving on, however, I was caught in a cyclic procedure I had now dubbed as normal. When he casually brought up the death of Derek, I caught myself being taken back to that night, the teary phone call with my “person,” and my guy, the closest thing I could find to a McDreamy, ice-cream and popcorn in hand, staying up late with me to talk about what legacy we’d leave behind.

For the longest time I held on to the belief that if I didn’t recognize the death of Derek, then it didn’t happen. If I didn’t acknowledge that my own relationship had ended, then there would be no reason to grieve. The guise ended quickly and the curtain fell as I was almost forced to acknowledge the end.  Coming home after a soul-baring late night drive with my “person” I finally broke down and cried for both the death of Derek Shepherd, and for the end of all that was and what could have been. Both were fantasies that felt real, like there could have been more to a story I was willing to write. As each tear fell, I felt myself freed from holding back my feelings. I could start to heal.

It was only after I had grieved, had I been able to start to move on. Recognition of loss is the first step to recover, learn and slowly begin to move on. In the current season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” Meredith still grieves for Derek, but he was only part of her story — he was not the end. She continues to be a surgeon and a mother, celebrating her life and friends but never forgetting her loss. She made a life with him but she still manages to live without him, however difficult that may be. Similarly, my own relationships will be parts of my story, but they will not be the end of my story. The words of Cristina Yang echo through my head. “He is not the sun. You are.” I may have thought that he was my sun, but every day I move on, I realize I shine brighter.

The truth is, we are unsure of what tomorrow holds for us. Relationships end, fictional characters die, sometimes we invest too much in both and get hurt in the end. Most days we don’t expect life-altering change. Most days we don’t expect the people we pass on the street to become our friends, our lovers, our exes. The key to getting through what life throws at us is to grieve when life calls for grief, laugh when life calls for laughter. And for everything else that gets thrown our way: just dance it out.