I started watching Supernatural just 6 months after my 18th birthday. I am turning 30 in less than a month. It is the one defining, consistent thread of most of my adult life, &, since the finale will air after my birthday, all of my 20s. Nothing has shaped me more than our show.

It is not an exaggeration to say this show/fandom raised me. The older & wisers I met when I entered challenged me to be a grown up & better person. I've stumbled, especially when young; there were always people here to say 'that was shit' & stay open to goof with & respect me.

I'm not going to lie to you guys: this is not going to be a feel good thread.This is not going to be about how we will all still be hashtag family forever. I'm really really happy so many of y'all are feeling that but it would be incredibly empty of me to pretend I do.Wish I did.

Maybe there are others out here grappling with what I am who will find comfort in at least knowing they're not alone, but if not, I still need to express it. I can't clean it up & make it look nice. I don't have bittersweet remarks. I am messy & raw & hurting & only those things.

I have been in fandom to some degree or another since I was 11.5 years old. The age I would be today if I was born the day I first set eyes on Sam and Dean. I have seen fandoms live and die. The way new ones explode into bustling excitement & the way they drift out quietly.

I have watched Supernatural in ebbs and flows where it felt like those things already happened, but for almost 12 years it has been my one dependable thing. Supernatural, it felt, would always be here for me. The people who thrill over it with me will always care as much as I do.

Listen, here's the reality. A lot of us are saying we will always care this much about it and we will always be here for each other. That's not true. That's always what people say when a fandom is coming to an end, when we're all right in it & can't imagine not caring.

That doesn't mean it won't still move us or this incredibly meaningful decade & a half didn't matter, because that's not even remotely what I'm saying. What I'm saying is in just a few months & certainly in years, many of us will go long stretches without thinking of Sam & Dean.

It's impossible to imagine I might be one of those people, but I can't honestly say what I'll be passionate about in years. Right now, I can't visualize what my life will look like past November or what will give it meaning, because the thing I've leaned on is being taken away.

I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that there are friends I've made in this fandom who I will be close to my whole life. I have guesses who they will be & I have hopes who they will be & I even have a handful of folks I would put good money on. But that's as chat as it gets.

As I said, I've watched fandoms die or folks move on from them. It's not always the ones you expect who stay close to you when you aren't sharing a fandom anymore. Sometimes you get to keep someone you weren't expecting to. Sometimes the ones you thought were forever disappear.

The majority of us will drift apart. It's nothing to be ashamed of. There was a glue here holding us together & it won't be there & that's how things go. Realistically, this was always gonna be the way of it. Everything ends, even TV shows. People move on. It's, like, healthy.

You do not have to tell me how lucky I am that I stumbled on something beautiful 4 whole years into its run & I still got to live in it for another 12 freaking years. Jared & Jensen were expected to walk away the year I joined fandom. instead they carried us over a DECADE longer.

&here I am crying about it. & writing my little Twitter thread that's turned into a big Twitter thread that is more of a meditation on grief than anything. I'm aware I'm melodramatic & spoiled. But the same thing that made me lucky is the reason I'm aching so much it's physical.

12 years is almost half my life. Somewhere around year 7, when SPN was 11 & showed no signs of slowing down, it became a given. One thing I can stop stressing about, take for granted that it'll be there. My little show. My boys. The wonderful weirdos who scream about it with me.

I remember falling in love with Sam&Dean & their dynamic & Jared & Jensen's chemistry that is so central to why Winchesters feel realer to us than most actual living human beings we meet. It felt, as finding new fandoms always does, like rush of falling in love. All encompassing.

That's a great feeling, new fandom spark. I wish I believed I would ever feel it again & maybe I will. But here's what's different this time: 12 fucking years. Does it still feel like new love? No. It feels-I know this sounds unhinged but it's where I am right now-like marriage.

Sometimes...most times these days, watching spn makes me so mad I can't think straight. We've had our ups & downs, my show & I. Fandom too. But boy, did I ever live here. Fucking never doubt that there was a home for me. Old, familiar, settled, & safe. The truest, steadiest love.

There has never been a place for me I knew was mine way I know people in this community care about me & value what I have to say. There is no easy joy that matches knowing I can choose an ep I've seen 100x & absolutely lose my shit over how much I jUST REALLY LOVE SAM & DEAN OK?!

Most isolated I've ever felt was not fandom wank or poorly written arcs. It was 12 days in Cuba with no wifi, no Twitter friends. Then a relative recognized my tattoo. There was a language barrier & bad opinions but bickering in my broken Spanish, SPN was how I finally connected.

Thought that J2 may never have that on-screen chemistry again after today kills me. That in 2 months I might know everything there will ever be to know about Sam & Dean's story terrifies me. That I will cease to feel valued the way I do in this community hurts beyond measure.

I know instinct here may be to point out that Jared & Jensen have said they'll be happy to work together again or that they are both down for a return to the characters some day. I know that. That's just not going to comfort me in my current state. Because that's not the point.

What I have been circling around here in this thread & what I am struggling with is uncertainty. A thing I have not felt in this one aspect of life, fandom, for as long as I have had adult responsibilities & worries. When everything was turmoil, Sam&Dean were always Sam&Deaning.

Maybe they'll return someday. Maybe it'll be soon. Maybe Jensen will direct Walker or Jared will guest star on some future show Jensen stars in.Maybe Sam&Dean aren't done Sam&Deaning. Will I still care? I can't say. Maybe they won't return &I won't even notice. I've got. No clue.

Will anyone care about things I write about these guys or will I be the last idiot sitting here crying over them? Maybe I'll fall in love with something new tomorrow, but I've waited a long time to feel even a reflection of what I do for Sam & Dean...I'm not holding my breath.