Not every person we like gets to stay in our lives. Often, we have to leave behind a majority of our friends, family members, and acquaintances. The episode of New Girl titled “Clean Break”, really explores this concept. This episode focuses on the idea of leaving people behind, and whether you should try to take things that remind you of them.

One of the main characters and roommates, Coach, is moving away with his girlfriend May.

Coach and May

Coach explains to Jess that whenever he moves, he “makes a clean break”, and does not like to get sentimental. The episode starts off with Coach only wanting to take the essentials with him and leaving everything else behind. Coach then convinces the rest of his roommates to do the same thing and get rid of unnecessary things in their lives and clean up their rooms. Nick, who is basically a hoarder, is unable to and claims that everything he owns has significance. I really like this episode because it contrasts the different ways people deal with moving. Coach tries to be completely apathetic and only wants to pack essential items, whereas Nick hoards everything including candy wrappers.

I can really relate with Nick since I like to keep mementos from every milestone in my life and have a really hard time throwing away sentimental things.

Later, Coach who is adamant about leaving all memories behind, argues with Winston- another roommate- about what he should and shouldn’t pack. Winston insists that Couch keep a frying pan they bought when they were really drunk because it symbolizes their friendship and pancakes. However, Coach refuses to take it with him. But before Coach leaves, he accidentally hits his suitcase, and it is revealed that Coach took memories of his friends with him and that he wasn’t truly able to just pack the essentials.

When Coach leaves, a song played in the background, that solidifies this as one of my favorite episodes. The lyrics of the song goes “a year from now we’ll all be gone. All our friends will move away. And they’re going to better places. But our friends will be gone away”. This line from the song really impacts me because of all the people in life I left behind to be where I am right now.

This episode really resonates with me because I have moved so many times in my life. I have this desire to keep every friend I ever had in my life, however, that is just not realistic. At the end of the day, the people in your life change and evolve and most the people you love can’t stay by your side forever. You have to move on and meet new people, as hard as that may be.

The message of this episode