First, I started watching drama's on TV in my junior year in high school. This memory alone is enjoyable for me because I was with a dear friend whom I haven't seen in years. Juan Pablo Busso, my Argentinian exchange student. He had a love for American Television. One night as we sat talking, we discovered one of his favorite shows was on. Smallville, the WB show depicting the early years of Clark Kent. The show introduces the characters from the popular comic, and shows their relationships intertwine through high school and college. Now I know that this show is completely insane to start with, but I became so interested. I started watching one single episode, which is usually how it happens I guess, and I was hooked. Since the episode was in the middle of the 3rd or 4th season so many questions arose about character development, and history of the little town of Smallville Kansas. I immediately downloaded the first 2 seasons and I have so many memories of my sister, brother, Juan, and myself laying on the ground in our family office, heads under the piano, as we watched episode after episode on the computer screen. Season after season we were caught up to the episodes as they appeared on TV. The love story between Clark and Lana, it captures me. I could related, I had a girl, a crush, a love, someone I would have, at that time, done anything for, and yet it was a secret. Now I am not saying at all that I had super powers like Clark Kent, but I had to keep it a secret, my unprofessed love for this girl, because she didn't see me that way, and never would. Yet every move Clark made gave me hope, and being able to see what Lana wanted, and was searching for, she knew... she loved Clark, and just wanted him to be honest with him. For years (in the show, a mere matter of months in my life) I watched them and their relationship grow, and shrink, and end abruptly, and start again fresh. I longed for the guts and courage to tell the girl in my life all my secrets and propose to her like Clark did as he exposed all his abilities to Lana in the fortress, but wait, that episode was too good to be true, on her way home she was in an accident, and died and Clark rewound time, and got her back, only to not repeat the proposal, and to lose his father in the end. I couldn't let it out, my secret was buried, and would stay that way, forever. Yet I could relate myself to Clark, and to this day, in season 8 with another season approved by the CW (formerly the WB) I continue to watch, and hope, and pray that one day, the love story of Clark and Lana will work out, because if they can do it, perhaps one day I could do it to, but I won't, and it won't, because its simply changing history and you can't rewrite a classic comic book, nor will I rewrite the choices I made in high school.
Wow, that was cool, I am realizing a lot about myself in this little rant. I have again discovered that I have a fear of realizing my true emotions because somehow it never seems to work out. That is one of my character flaws, and when someone can figure out how to figure me out, both that person and I will be very happy together, I have a feeling.
Secondly... My next addiction started my senior year. I remember this one vividly. I was in my room doing homework, (something that never happened in high school, so that speaks of itself to me) and I turned on the TV. Now understand, in my little farm town at that time I only had 3 channels in my room. Peasant vision, as it is called. Two of the three channels had news, and I was not interested in the news at that point. The other channel, at 9:45 PM revealed 2 beautiful girls in swim suits breaking into what appeared to be someone else's backyard pool. I was intrigued for sure, due to the exposure of these two teenage beauties and as I watched, not having any idea what I was watching, I saw one of the girls drive away with a boy, and a few seconds later she was being carried away from a wreckage, and in the arms of her lover, died. I was heartbroken. I had no idea what had just happened, but I realized what show I was watching, and it was one I knew a good friend of mine watched. The OC. We went out for shakes so he could explain where I had just jumped in, turns out that was the season finale of season 3. Within a week I had finished downloading and watching season 1, the next week season 2 was finished, with a near 24 hour marathon. I loved it. Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and Summer. The escapades of those four were real to me. I grew up with 3 best friends in a similar way. The "quad" we called ourselves. 2 boys, 2 girls, and our endless adventures during our adolescence. Ryan loved Marissa, and Seth and Summer had nearly every curveball a relationship could take, and yet Marissa dies. I could relate myself to both Ryan and Seth. Parts of both of their characters was me. I related to Ryan in the fact that I always wanted to save everyone. I have a complex I think, I can't let anyone go without if its within my means. I pay for people who can't pay, and I never let a girl go without. I want to be a rescuer to all that I can touch, and yet I fail, and Ryan failed Marissa, after so many times where he had to save her, he failed, and he watched her die, and their love, die. I can feel that, yet I don't want love to end that way to me. Seth, funny, sarcastic Seth, is just so clueless. I relate to him in the fact that I am a nervous speaker sometimes. I do things, act on an impulse, and can get in trouble because I run my mouth, or I talk under my breath. I loved it, I loved them, the characters, and yet despite their high rolling lifestyle in Southern California, we had differences. But I was addicted. Season 4 ended, early, and it killed me, but I could always remember the first three seasons, and how I felt when Marissa died.
What I learned about myself. I always root for the underdog. Always. I want that underdog to succeed, and excel. Ryan came from the slums and with a little help and a few good friends succeeded. I want to succeed, or help someone else. I always root for the underdog.
I could keep going about every way I discover a new show, and how I relentlessly watch them, episode after episode commercial free, but I will wrap it up with a few more of my favorite characters. I love Derek from Grey's. He is almost always so straight and honest. Almost, because obviously cheating on a spouse is not honest, but he has pure desires, and he is the best at what he does. I love thinking that I can one day become the best. I love Jason Street from Friday Night Lights, a superstar quarterback, who had everything ripped away from him with an injury. Being paralyzed it not something I wish for myself, but I can relate to his strength in having a trial. Being hurt sucks, missing a game you love sucks, and yet he found something else to utilize his talents. I love Dr. House in House MD. He is so smart, and always right. Always. I may never achieve that feat, but I want to be good, great, at whatever I do. I don't want to always be an ass about it like perhaps he is, but I want to the the go to guy. The guy with the solution. I can live up to that. I feel its an admirable aspiration. I love Michael Scoffield from Prison Break. He went to Prison for his brother because of unfailing love and trust in his brother. I do not condone breaking out of prison in any way, but I do value the unwavering trust in his brother. Trust to the point that the last option was to break out, and in the end he died for his brother's freedom. I wish I had a mind like him, a perfect, genius mind, and yet I don't, but perhaps I can have his love, and trust in my family and friends. I would be willing to do a lot of things for them, but when you lose my trust, it takes ALOT to gain it back, and if your not willing to work for it... good luck. I love the broodiness of Lucas Scott, and the struggles of Nathan and Hayley. I love the relationships and follies of Brooke Davis, and I hope that one day I will find my Peyton Sawyer. Lastly, in my newest addiction, Private Practice, I want to say that I relate to all of the characters, but mostly because in all the episodes that I have watched the reoccurring theme is that they are all searching for something more than a physical relationship. I feel that most everyone in life has had those. Purely physical attraction, and while it is important, I am starting to realize more and more that it is not the most essential. I think I am finally at a point where I am searching for something deeper. Something, someone, that will make me a better person as a whole. Not a physical partnership, but a personal, intimate, loving relationship. Something deeper, and so I can relate to the struggle of Addison, Naomi, Sam, Violet, Cooper, and Pete as they search, and experiment, and make mistakes, and find... as they find that other.
Time will tell if they do, but I know with patience and with a little luck things will work out for me. I love these shows. I love how I get into them, and how I feel for them and with them for all their triumphs and sorrows. I love them because they are clever. I love them because they are fun. I love them because they intrigue me, and make me think. They make me feel, they make me search, and I want to find most all of the things they find.
To some this seems insane, but to me its part of my life. I love my sitcom life. I love the character that I am becoming, and I can just see, in a slightly humorous way, God sitting there, watching me, and feeling with me, and loving with me, and hoping for my triumphs in my journey. This is not meant to be sac-religious in any way. I am a son of God, a creation of him. I am his character, and he, the co author of my screenplay called LIFE. As I make choices, good or bad, I know he feels with me. I know he loves me. You may not make this same connection, but hey, this is who I am. The more I realize about myself, the more comfortable I become with who I am.
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