If We're being real, we all have our big terrible things

​Last night, as Ross and Phoebe and Rachel and Monica and Joey and Chandler laid their keys on the table and walked out of the apartment for the final time, I was conflicted.

Do I wish they were staying, or am I glad to see them go?

A couple of months ago, I told you I was about to begin watching the television series FRIENDS for the first time. I'd never seen it, but had recently read Matthew Perry's memoir: Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing and I had to watch the show.

Most of you said I'd enjoy it. You said I'd laugh endlessly.

I did. But included in the laughter was a sadness I could never fully shake. Not even for an episode. I never settled into the rhythm of a comedy.

I loved all the FRIENDS characters, but I always found myself looking for Chandler. In every scene. Like a protector. And because of his memoir, I knew no matter where I found him, no matter where he was on the set, or where he was in a particular scene, or no matter what line he was speaking, I always found him hiding.

Hiding and acting his way out of a personal hell.

If you read the memoir, you know there wasn't a single season of FRIENDS when Perry wasn't actively using alcohol and drugs and battling the grips of addiction to both.

Even when he was winning the battle, he always knew he was on the verge of losing it again. Losing it in more destructive ways than the time before.

When the FRIENDS show began and it was clear it was about to become a monster hit, Perry recalled thinking in his book, "I was going to be so famous that all the pain I carried with me would melt like frost in the sunlight: and any new threats would bounce off me as though this show was a force field I could cloak myself in."

If you read the book, you know few predictions ever failed harder. Perry's pain only intensified as the series went on; new threat after new threat pummeled him.

Some episodes I found myself sad that Perry had to keep showing up pretending. He talked at length in the book about the obligation he felt toward his FRIENDS co-stars and to the audience to keep showing up funny.

He talked about becoming nauseous when a funny line didn't land.

Other episodes I found myself amazed that he could show up at all. Even though I could see the ebbs and flows of his health as the seasons progressed, most episodes he looked like he'd showed up ready to go. If you read the book first and then watch the series, this feels like witnessing a miracle.

I think the happiest moment of the series for me was when Chandler married Monica.

I'm sure it is.

The biggest thing I took away from the book about Perry was just how lonely he was. He went through countless casual relationships in search of something he really didn't know he was searching for, only to never find it.

I remember shedding a few tears at his wedding to Monica. I remember thinking that this made for television scene, this holy matrimony made up by some writer to entertain me and you, might have been the closest Perry had or would ever come to finding this thing he was looking for.

True connection.

Part of me wondered at the time if the writers knew this. If this was their way of honoring Perry's always showing up to help the audience find something they'd been looking for.

At the end of the book, Perry reflects on some childhood friends. Friends who weren't famous. And he said, "none of them had battled their whole lives with a brain that was built to kill them. I would give it all up to not have that. No one believes it, but it's true."

As I watched Perry set his key on the table and walk away, I believed him. Unequivocally. Acting can be exhausting, whether you're doing it to entertain or to survive.

So I think I am glad it is over. The show AND Perry's battle.

But his book is such a powerful reminder that what often looks entertainment around us, what often looks like joy and happiness and well put together, it is sometimes actually falling apart.

Sometimes acting is not for our sake but for theirs; it's helpful and loving to be curious about the people around us with a heart for knowing the difference.

You were a good friend Chandler Bing.

Thank you for openly sharing your battle with that Big Terrible Thing. I hope it will encourage more of us to be open about the battles with our own big terrible things.

I hope it will give us all permission to be a little more real, and a lot less reliant on being good actors and actresses.