Leaving San Francisco

In 1995, I sat on the couch with my dad and watched the series finale of my favorite show. The show, Full House, that was watched during so many sleepovers with my best friend, now had the audacity to end. I can remember so vividly crying, thinking I was too old to do so, and asking my dad why it had to end.

“Sometimes, things have to end so we can get to the next great thing.” (My parents would divorce a year later. Looking back, this comment may not have been about a TV show…)

Other shows came and went. I got to start a dream career, at the studio I’d always wanted to work at, on a show I loved (#LongLiveTheHart). Things were great. I was doing great.

And then.

“There’s a Full House situation happening…”

That’s how I found out about Fuller House. Through a friend who had a meeting at WB and at the end, on a whim, just casually mentioned — “if there’s a Full House situation happening, please let me know.” There was. They did. And then she told me. I immediately started trying to find my way onto this show.

By coincidence, a friend I’d worked with before was working on the “Full House reboot” and sent me an email out of the blue asking if I was free to temp on the show. Three days. I pulled over on the side of the road to respond to his email. “Fuller House? I’m in!”

I didn’t care that it was only for three days. I didn’t care that it was technically a demotion. It was Full House. I was always going to say yes.

The nature of working on a tv show is that you’ll meet a huge group of people at the same time, and so it’ll take a couple of days to know everyone’s name. But then, just a half-second later — they’re family. You see them more than you see your actual family. Literally. You bond. You laugh together. You slam your head against the wall together. You all work so hard to make something that is so incredibly important and yet, is also not.

Then, one day, it’s done. It’s a pilot, or 13 episodes, or 5 seasons later, but eventually, that will change. This thing that you spent so much time with, one day becomes “oh yeah, I worked on that too.”

And yet.

Sometimes.

Fuller House was never going to be that for me. It was never going to an, “Oh yeah.” Even when I was only going to be there for a few days. Even when I would ask, every Friday, if I should come back the following week. Even when it took until the green crew list for me to be added (if you’re unfamiliar, this means they went through five other versions of the crew list before finally deciding I could stay). This show was always going to mean something to me because it had always meant so much to me.

I was a temp. I wasn’t even supposed to be there.

And yet.

Sometimes.

Every once in a while show comes around and suddenly it’s more than just a show. A crew becomes family. You experience real things together. Multiple weddings. An engagement. A funeral. We have loved and cried together.

I’d known these characters my whole life, but somehow it quickly felt like I’d known these people my whole life too.

This show brought people into my life that I didn’t even know I needed. Now it seems impossible that they weren’t there from the beginning. This wasn’t just a job. It never could have been “just a job.”

It wasn’t always easy or perfect. In fact, some days it was really, really hard. Tears were shed — more than once. I slammed many phones. On more than one occasion, I just laid down on the ground — impressive considering the size of the office I was lucky enough to share a stranger who, in the quickest amount of time, became my best gal.

No, it was not always easy.

And yet.

Sometimes.

It was perfect.

It was a crude photoshop of any random picture I could get my hands on. Hearing a laugh all the way across the stage, and not even knowing what the joke was — the loudness of the laugh was enough to crack you up. An impromptu photoshoot, three heads popping out of a trailer door. It was the swing of an imaginary baseball bat. Teaching kids to drive a golf cart. An audience that didn’t clap. The show night sprint, Club AD, Jodie signing all the props, and Porch Talk Time over any other time.

It was… moments.

The moments that were hard? Those were real. Those were hard. But at the end of the day — I have loved this show. I have loved these people.

It was silly. It was real.

It was inevitable.

I will love again. There will be other shows. Time is a flat circle.

There will be other shows.

And yet.

Sometimes.

A loquacious soliloquy is needed for a show that was always incredibly generous with me. It gave me things I didn’t even know I needed. People I didn’t even know I was looking for. So, I will leave it with this: a simple, and heartfelt — thank you.

For everything.

This show. These people. This family. You changed my life.

PS — the audience is, and forever will be, killing me.