The grief of being denied a choice ft. Robin from How I Met Your Mother

One of my favourite episodes from How I Met Your Mother is an episode in season 7 called ‘Symphony of Illumination’. The episode begins on an unusual note - instead of Ted narrating the story to his future kids, it’s Robin doing the narration. She is telling her future kids the story of how she found she was pregnant and told Barney about it as he was the father. As the episode progresses, we find out that Robin is not only not pregnant, but she can never have kids. And of course, Robin being Robin, she doesn’t share the news with her friends fearing their excessive reaction, and tells herself that it’s okay, she never wanted kids anyway, and now she could truly be free and build the career and life she always wanted.

Yet, at her core, there is grief over having been denied that option if she changes her mind at a later point in time. So when Ted, who recognises that she is really upset about something but cannot figure out what that is, sets up the Christmas lights at their apartment, she can’t help but break down.

And the listeners to her story? Well, the kids never existed because they never could.

There is a great shot of the kids disappearing when it is revealed to us that they were imaginary. I loved the concept of this episode for 2 reasons

• It flips the script by not only changing the narrator for the episode but by inverting the premise itself - of a parent telling their kids the story of how they met their significant other, it becomes the story of how the kids could never be.

• It really captures the loneliness that can come with this realisation that as an unattached, child free person, you might literally end up alone. For a verbose show, the shot of Robin sitting alone on the bench really speaks for itself.

Robin has always been a character of contradictions. Unlike so many women on TV who are made to fit into a box, she is selfish, ambitious, considerate, soft and rough at the same time. Growing up as a tomboy turned teenage popstar, Robin has always ‘played a role’ in front of an audience throughout her life. She has been the girl denied of accepting her gender in front of her father, then been exposed to the masses on camera all while being a teenager, and through her adulthood has wanted to be a famous journalist - her relationship to men and attention was bound to be a little more complex than usual. Her cool girl persona - the Scotch drinking, unfeminine yet hot girl at the same time- has been both her shield and maybe deeper, simply the personality her experiences have shaped her into.  

When we meet her, Robin wants to focus on her career and finds love to be a complication on the way that she is not ready for. Ted immediately falls for her and spends the entire season trying to change her mind; and we accept it - because that’s the narrative that has been fed to us. That this woman is eventually going to be ‘domesticated’, that all she needs is enough persuasion to wear her down. Practically though, this relationship was always bound to end, and so it does. 

What I find refreshing is that Robin is not only not asked to change or diminish who she is for Ted, but the show does not treat her refusal to settle as a moral flaw. Her decision to prioritise her career comes at the cost of her potentially being alone, but that choice is not treated inferior in any way. It’s just life- you just make your choices and accept the tradeoffs. There is no inherent judgement to it. 

Robin though, has deeper problems. She is so closed off to her own feelings that she does not know how to fit love into her life. We get a rare insight into her mind in season 2 when Robin suspects Ted of cheating and goes on a wild goose chase trying to track him down. Of course, she is wrong, but her bigger shock is her own emotions - they catch her off guard. She wonders if she was just better off being by herself because then she wouldn't have to explore her own complicated feelings around jealousy, possessiveness and vulnerability. It’s so much easier for her to simply put away those pesky emotions so she can just move at her own pace. (“Opening up to another person means that you’re opening up to a lil bit of crazy. Thought about how much easier it was just to be alone). But Robin is not an unfeeling person. She is just really closed off, even to herself, and as a result is prone to two extremes - making completely practical and hard decisions (like uprooting her life and moving to Japan for her career) OR getting utterly swept up in the moment and making impulsive decisions (like … everything related to Barney).

Given her characterisation, it is no surprise that Robin grows in her career throughout the show, but she also evolves as a person, just more quietly than is apparent. In season 5, despite her initial instincts, she gathers the courage to choose love over her career and is betrayed for it when Don takes the very same opportunity she gives up for him. 

In season 7, after cheating on Kevin with Barney, she and Barney decide to be together for real - but this time she isn't brave enough to make that same leap of faith to commit to him because she doesn't trust herself OR Barney (yet) to follow through on the moments AFTER the big moment. Instead, she chooses Kevin who viewed her from the lens of what she could be over what she really is.

But there is growth happening - even if she doesn't make the ‘right’ choices. Robin begins acknowledging her messiness and gets more in touch with her emotions, even letting Kevin go at a later point in the season because she could not let him give up his dream of having a child for her.

So when Robin, who has never wanted kids, learns that she can never have kids, she is confused. She is denied a kind of love that you give despite the sacrifice that comes with it, yet she cannot articulate the pain of not getting something that she was never even sure she wanted.

She spends the episode rationalising how the news might actually be a blessing in disguise, how this child would have been an impediment to her growth, a bond tying her down and not allowing her to be who she wanted to be, and yet, she cannot push down the pain. 

Motherhood is such a complex topic and its representation on screen can feel quite binary. It’s either a woman who has always wanted kids, or an evil woman who hates kids. Rarely have I seen on screen a character really explore that very wide spectrum of ‘maybe one day, maybe not’. And Robin might be the perfect character for that. She is flawed, she is tough, she has other priorities in life and is often framed in the context of her love interests Ted and Barney; and yet she is alone in her grief, and feels a fear of possibly, a lifetime of loneliness. Her character is not diminished by the arc but is given access to another dimension within. Her ambition is her key trait but she is allowed to mourn, for just for a moment, the paths not taken - or in this case, the one she has been pushed off from.

The end of this episode always makes me tear up because after an episode of denying her breakdown, she finally allows herself to just release the pent up emotions and cries on Ted’s shoulders, yet chooses to not share this deeply personal loss with him. This moment is not used as an opportunity to push her toward Ted, resort to guns or drinking, or emerge from the ashes as a girl-boss. Instead the show addresses that fear of loneliness quite head on, assuring us that she will always be loved, she will become the famous journalist she always wanted to be, but in the moment, there is no regret, resentment or anger, what she needs is to sit in the quiet acceptance of her pain of this reality, the path she cannot take.