The One with the Sonogram at the End

>> Monday, September 7, 2009

Air date: September 29, 1994
The One With The Sonogram At The End

I longed to be grown up.  My parents went out a lot.  My mom had this really beautiful wine-colored gown that I loved to play with.  She had leather high heels to match. And every time they went on a date she and my dad had a wonderful time (at least in my head).  Heck, even our babysitters seemed glamorous.  One of our favorites, Laura, was a cheerleader. She would bring her red and white pom poms over, and I dreamt of being a cheerleader... and then getting married... and having children... and leaving them home with the cheerleader/babysitter.  It seemed like a glamorous life.

Or it did until my parents got divorced. 

I was twelve when they split up for good, and I suddenly saw the reality of a mom who was tired all the time because she had to work nights.  It was a small glimpse into the ugliness of being an adult, and I think it tempered my eagerness to grow up.  But, I was no Peter Pan.  I still looked forward to getting married, having a job, having children.  That just seemed like what people did.

Rachel: “When did it get so complicated?”
Ross: “Got me.”
Rachel: “Remember when we were in high school together?”
Ross: “Yeah.”
Rachel:  “I mean, didn’t you think you were just gonna meet someone, fall in love, and that’d be it?”
I know I did.  My parents were high school sweethearts.  They’ve known each other most of their conscious lives.  And the story I knew growing up was that they loved each other, went to college, and then got married.  But when I got older, I found out that the story wasn’t that simple.  At some point my dad was in love with another girl.  And my mom had a thing for a hot guy who made leather sandals.  In fact my sister and I are pretty sure we could have been fathered by Doc Marten if she’d made some different decisions.  I think those crazy twenty-one year-old kids who ended up being my parents  were afraid of being alone and got married because that was what you did. 

And then one day thirteen years later my dad decided that he was done.  He didn’t completely abandon us.  But the years following their divorce were messy.  And it was the complications of it all -- dividing Christmas, living in two houses part of the time, constantly walking on egg shells -- the complications were exhausting.  And I kept thinking that it would get easier some day.  It just didn’t.

Divorces in families with kids are never over.  I laugh when Ross says, “Remember back when life was simpler, and she was just a lesbian?” But it is true.  Their divorce would have been a relatively inconsequential laugh if Carol hadn’t been pregnant. Carol’s pregnancy is more than just speculum-related humor.  It’s the death of that romantic fantasy that everything would just work out... or at least it should be. 

In the end, both Ross -- with his pregnant lesbian ex-wife -- and Rachel -- whose dumped-at-the-altar fiance took their honeymoon with the maid of honor -- both of them end up in the same place I did: believing in love all the same.  It took me awhile to find it.  I fell hard for a couple of wrong-for-me guys.  But like Rachel I always believed that my perfect future meant getting married and having kids... we aren’t there yet.

But I do still believe that good things happen when you grow up. 
Rachel: “If everything works out and you guys end up married and having kids and everything... I just hope they have his old hairline and your old nose!”

Read more...

The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate

>> Thursday, September 3, 2009

Air date: September 22, 1994
The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate

September 22, 1994 was a Thursday.  Just a few weeks before, I’d begun my senior year at St. Olaf College and my last year in the great cocoon of academia.  I lived in a pod in Manitou Dorm -- one of ten girls sharing six dorm rooms, a living room, and a bathroom.  We cozied up, ten wonderful friends, to write hundreds of papers, to celebrate birthdays, to read thousands of pages, to share bowls of ramen noodles, to study scores, to commiserate over broken hearts, and to make midnight runs to Taco Bell for Dr. Pepper and bean burritos.

And sometimes we sat down to watch TV together. 

I honestly don’t remember if I saw the pilot episode of “Friends” on that Thursday night. I know I had choir practice from 4:30 - 6 pm.  Then we descended on the Caf, noisy and ravenous as a flock of crows.  September in Minnesota is glorious -- the night may have been cool as we walked home from dinner.  I’m sure I had reading to do that night... perhaps a paper to write.  So, I may have watched that first episode.  But maybe not. 

I do know, though, that within weeks “Friends” had become part of our Thursday night routine.  The TVs in the dorm lounges across campus were tuned in to watch the six friends -- Joey and Chandler, Ross and Rachel, Monica and Phoebe.  We girls would huddle around the TV with a pizza and some sodas to laugh and laugh and laugh.

But there was also a bit of fear in each of us as we watched.  The end of our sheltered, happy college lives was close approaching.  Soon, we too were going to have to “go  get one of those job things.”  And like Rachel, I was worried that I’d end up with great boots and nothing else because as an English major I was also “trained for nothing.”  And unlike Rachel, I didn’t have my parents credit cards to cut up.  I knew my student loans were going to be due, and I’d have to pay them somehow. 

But for me, my greatest fear wasn’t financial.  I was afraid I’d be lonely.  The moment I stepped on the St. Olaf campus, I fell in love with college.  I lived on a beautiful hilltop, surrounded by smart, funny, interesting people.  Ruthie made me laugh harder than anyone I’d ever met and held me when I cried.  Terra and I had deep conversations about God and sex and travel and books.  Jelena and I shared an addiction to “90210” and “Melrose Place” -- our trashy escape from the ivory tower.  And what about John, Chris, Andy, Heidi, Tim... as a senior I couldn’t bear the thought that in nine months we would be parted. 

But “Friends” gave me hope.

They may have been fictitious, but here were six adults, not that much older than me, assembling their furniture and their lives together.  I didn’t know it then, but I would grow up with the Friends.  In the years since, I’ve dated, married, moved, been hired, gotten fired, changed haircuts and careers.  I’ve made friends and lost some.  Most of my best friends are the people I watched that first season of “Friends” with, but we don’t share a great apartment in the Village, despite my fantasies.  We are an architect, a writer, musicians, business women, mothers and fathers... and friends.

For my thirty-something birthday this year, my sweet husband, whom I started dating just weeks after the “Friends” debut, gave me the complete “Friends” series on DVD.  And thus begins my blog parked at the corner of reality and fiction... 

Monica: “Welcome to the real world! It sucks. You’re gonna love it!”

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Read more...

Monica's Towels & Other Categories

  © Blogger templates Palm by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP