With You I'm Born Again/Grey Matter

Krista Vernoff on "With You I'm Born Again"... Original Airdate: 9-23-10

My favorite scene in this episode is the Chief dancing it out in his office.

I just love it. I love Jim Pickens and I love what I know to be true – that life, even in its darkest hours, has moments of great joy, great lightness.

While my Dad lay in the hospital dying, I cried harder than I ever have before or since. But I laughed harder too. Darkness requires light. And the human spirit will always find its way to the surface.

Rebirth. That was the theme of this episode. How do you recover from the worst day of your life? How do you go on?

I know a little something about rebirth because a little more than a year ago, I made the excruciating decision to leave my marriage. In the early years of Grey’s Anatomy, I waxed poetic on this blog about my marriage – I was a newlywed with all the love and hope and joy that that entails. And then things changed. This year was the darkest and hardest of my life. There were days that Shonda Rhimes was my life raft and there were days when even she couldn’t hold me up… (In case you were wondering? The non-judgemental loyalty that Cristina and Meredith give each other? Where they let each other be as dark and twisty as they want to be and they never ever judge? That’s Shonda. She’s the friend you call to help you bury the body.)

Recently, I came through the darkness. Emerged from the tunnel. Remembered what unadulterated joy feels like. Came out, into the light… And last night I was looking at pictures from this past year, and in some of them, I barely recognize myself. In some of them, I look like the saddest person I’ve ever seen, even though I’m smiling. And that’s what I tried to put into this episode. All of that.

I can’t relate to people who’ve survived a shooting. I’ve never experienced the kind of trauma our characters went through. But I can relate to the concept of Rebirth. I can relate to the idea that in life, stuff happens that we never could have imagined and that somehow, unimaginably, we survive.

Our people survived, but they will never be the same.

The highs will be higher. The lows will be lower. Life will be sweeter. Love will be, as Callie might put it, even more awesome.

I love the Chief dancing. I love the look on Owen's face when Cristina says, "I do." I love that out of darkness comes light. And I also know that sometimes when we think it’s as dark as it could possibly get, it gets darker before the light comes in…

I know some of you are going to hate on me for writing about me and not our characters but the thing is, I am our characters and so are you. And the other thing is, I can’t say much more about our characters without spoiling stuff that’s coming up. Because we are still telling this story. Traumas aren’t over a month later. Derek still doesn’t even know about Meredith’s miscarriage, for God’s sake! There’s more story here. A lot more. So tune in next week. And kiss all the people you love in the meantime.