You may have noticed I have some quirks. Some would say I am a quirky person, and others would say I am mostly a sack of quirks wearing a trenchcoat. One in particular though is my habit of not finishing childhood favorite shows.

It sounds odd in today's world, but when I was growing up, shows were generally only available on television at the times they were on. I had a VCR and recorded an episode of a show I enjoyed here and there, but for the vast majority of anything I saw, it was generally understood that I would probably never see it again.

The digital age changed that with widespread releases of old shows and movies, and for ones that could not be released for one reason or another, piracy made available and prevented the complete vanishing of many a show.

And so, as I came into adulthood, I took the time to re-acquaint myself with many a childhood favorites, most of them having aged poorly, but still delivering that sweet nostalgia that sad people like me crave so badly.

My absolute favorite show when I was in early elementary school was Sonic the Hedgehog, also called Sonic SatAM by the fans, as there were two sonic shows at the time and this one aired on Saturday mornings. It was a more dramatic series, following Sonic and his friends hiding and fighting a guerilla war, sometimes touching topics of characters having to deal with loss or hopelessness, which struck a chord with me somehow.

It became the thing I waited for all week, and I learned to set my alarm clock to catch Sonic SatAM. I've mentioned before that I loved all the cartoons on Saturday morning, but I would wake up as early as 5am to make sure I didn't miss this one. My favorite character ended up being Princess Sally, and I was drawn to her quest to find her father.

It eventually was cancelled though, when ABC decided to put it up against Power Rangers. Power Rangers was another big thing for me at the time, and I remember feeling conflicted having to choose, but ultimately I chose Sonic.

When I was in my early 20s, a close friend from high school sent me a DVD set of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and it made me unbelievably happy. I had been very lonely for a while in my early 20s. I had moved with my family to another state, and had a hard time starting my life over. All I wanted was the lost days that had come before, and the Sonic DVD brought me a tiny slice of it. I cherished it.

I watched episode after episode, laughing and crying and generally touching a faraway place that doesn't exist anymore. But then I stopped at the last episode, almost as if I ran out of steam.

The episodes I hadn't seen became more and more scarce, as I approached the end, I was taken by a kind of melancholy, something similar to the last day of summer. I didn't want it to end, so... I didn't watch it.

That was a very long time ago, now. I've since traveled much farther than I had before, and started over enough times that the life I had then is as lost as the one I had before that. But still, that DVD set sits on my shelf- it's a lovely box, covered in fan-art.

I noticed I do that a lot, though. For certain specific, special things from long ago, I just don't finish them. I save them so that some part of me is still waiting, that over-excited child eager for Saturday morning, I still strive to keep him looking forward.

Of course there is way more than just Sonic sitting in that pile. The original DuckTales is similar, with me having seen most of the episodes aside from a handful of the last. Some say the show degraded a bit by then, but I think most of that talk is overly harsh. I do not mind Bubba the Cave Duck, and even enjoy a few of his episodes.

This is not to say I've never finished any of my favorite shows. Quite the opposite, really. I am rather obsessive about finishing things I really like. There are just a few shining gems here and there that are so good I want them to last forever. It's less about how good they are and more about what they represent within me.

I've watched the entirety of Gargoyles a few times, and I it inhabits a similar place with me, and there is a bit of sadness in having consumed just about everything that Gargoyles has to offer (do not recommend to me the "third season"). I even keep up with the sequel comics.

But say something like the 80s Transformers, whose last seasons I adore because of the shift to nonsensical space opera, I can't bring myself to watch the last episodes of. There are just a few seemingly random shows that feel like not watching them is maintaining some kind of pillar within me.

Still, I do find myself thinking I will finish them someday. It's a pleasant thought. I wonder if it should stay that way.