I’m emotionally wrecked after watching this. Normal People is one of the most relatable shows I’ve ever experienced & one that changed my entire emotional outlook on personal relationships I’ve had in my life. Throughout the duration I spent watching this miniseries, I continuously felt reminded of my ex-best friend. I can confidently say this show helped me finally come to terms & accept that I was truly in love with her. I knew in the entire 4 year long friendship we shared that I had feelings for her, and that I loved her. The iconic line in this series “It’s not like this with other people” is EXACTLY how I felt with her. She was my first kiss and my first of a lot of other intimate moments/activities. When I no longer had family to spend the holidays with, her & her family embraced me on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc. (just as Connell’s family took Marianne in) I could not envision my future without her, really. We would have conversations very late at night about how I have never felt the way I do with her for any other person. I felt truly understood by her, and she felt understood by me. She lacked communication though, like Connell & it brought about a lot of problems. I think this is why I had a hard time relating to Connell at first & why I felt defensive towards him. He was terrible at communicating & I’m truly scared of people like him. Eventually, I felt continuously hurt like Marianne because of this. (which I think intensified my emotions whenever I related to her). What hurt most at the end of our relationship is that eventually it felt like I was the only one keeping up effort to recover it. This miniseries taught & made me realize I didn’t properly grieve that loss. I feel changed because of this show, and I feel scared. I feel scared because as much as there is such a beautiful human experience with love, it is terrifying how much pain there is on the other side if things don’t work out. I feel scared that I’ll never see her again & that the relationship we once had is truly gone now. Normal People is the best romance I’ve seen and it’s a life lesson I’m going to hold onto tightly forever. As much as I love reading books (& especially books that were source material of shows I love), I don’t think I’ll touch the novel by Sally Rooney this show is based off of. The only reason is because I’m worried the book will emotionally destroy me worse than the show did. I’ll always consider Normal People as one of my favorite stories ever told. Love is beautiful & scary to lose once you find who you believe is the person you don’t think you’ll ever feel the same towards for anybody else. I loved her, and I miss the special relationship we had for the years we spent making each other’s lives better & happier.