The One with the Sonogram at the End

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!”