be my person

my musing for today:

I've been watching Grey's Anatomy for what seems like forever. I've been on board since the second season and we're up to season 9 now. Early on it was established that the title character, Meredith Grey and her best friend Christina Yang are each others 'person.' I don't know if labeling someone as your 'person' was a thing before GA, but it definitely is now. Of course people had 'persons', but did they think of them in those terms? Anyways, I read an article detailing what makes someone your 'person' and I liked some of their points. It's that person you can say anything to, do anything with, would do anything for, and under no circumstance would you ever not be in each others lives permanently.Are you starting to think about your person? If you even have a person that fits that description?

But an interesting thing happened a few seasons ago. Once these two besties were certain they had found their significant others (SO), being each others person became a bit of a touchy subject. The SO in these relationships needed to feel like the besties were their person and vice versa, but the besties already had a person -each other! I guess it would defeat the purpose of having a person if you were going to allow a few people to be your person and so they each had moments when they realized their SO had become their person. Is there pressure for your SO to automatically be your person? I guess this would be all be easier if you just called people what they are - best friend, boyfriend, cousin, whatever it is - but I've come to appreciate the roles people have in your life and I like the idea of there being 'that person.' For most people going to be your SO, but if it's not, I think that's okay too.

In another show I love, Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw calls her three best friends her 'soul mates.' They are people in her life who have transcended the levels of friends, family, and lovers. They could arguably be called her 'persons' as well, but a) the word implies that there is only one which is kind of what I was hinting at above and b) also going along with my earlier thought, being someone's person might not have been the way to term this kind of relationship before GA came along. Personally, I don't consider a person who you are not romantically involved with to be your soul mate, but maybe I just need to expand my horizons a bit more. Or maybe, SATC would have worded it differently if they had the term to begin with..

Your person, your best friend, your soul mate. Based on how you define these things or want to define these things, you can either have one of each or one for all.