GUIDING LIGHT. Although I cheated on it for several years with SANTA BARBARA...

In early years it was definetly OLTL but post 1998 or so its been solid AMC. PC also holds a very special place for me as its the only one I watched from beginning to end

Obviously, as many of you know, MY soap is most definitely 'Santa Barbara.' While I didn't watch in 1984 so I can't say I saw it from beginning to end, it felt like I did and I had a connection to the characters on that show that I never felt with any other soap, no matter how I fell in love with them.

I WILL say that DAYS has always been my family's soap and though it strayed far from that during the Reilly years and thereafter, both my parents watch it religiously to this day. I do too, as it is the only NBC soap left.

I have to give Honorable Mentions to 3 other soaps:

Another World- I watched from the early 80s until the end and while I feel the show lost its way in the mid to late 90s, I did feel it was finding its way back in its last 2 years and I was hooked all over again. It's also the soap who's history I find the most interesting.

As The World Turns- I fell IN LOVE with ATWT in the 2000s, though I did watch in the 90s as well (pretty much for Maura West's Carly at first, though I did get interested in other characters, such as Allyson Rice-Taylor's Connor). It's also the soap death that hit me the hardest, as I felt there was plenty more life left in it.

The Young & the Restless- I started sampling it in the late 80s, then more heavily in 92 and finally, when SB went off the air in 93, it was Y&R that filled it's place in my heart. The characters were rich, the writing was phenomenal and I LOVED how none of the characters were afraid of confrontation and more often than not, said what was on their mind. I still watch today, though I've found it harder and harder to swallow for the past 5 years. I try to comfort myself and accept that it will never again be what it once was, but what it was is the show I fell in love with. I do my damnest to find bright spots in it, much like I do with DAYS, and be satisfied with that.

I've watched pretty much all the soaps over the years but those 5 had the greatest effect on me, with SB and DAYS being neck & neck for the top spot, but for different reasons.