Last night my husband and I watched this cute, sleepy little documentary about a sweet, young German couple and their dog, who refurbished a school bus into an adorable little traveling cottage and drove from North Carolina to Niagara Falls to Alaska, down the Pacific Coast to the tip of Mexico. Now I have to admit, when we first started watching the show I was wondering if we were getting a divine intervention. I started fantasizing about a few years from now, when our youngest, our daughter goes to college, that possibly, my husband and I could sell everything and do the same thing. Except that we would be the older, slightly less hip, American version with two dogs in tow. I even made a mental note to check Craigslist for old school buses. However, by the end of the documentary it became evident that the bus never had air conditioning, it broke down a lot, the couple met some shady characters from the Mexican drug cartel, and their dog almost died of heat exhaustion. By the end of the documentary, both of them must have said at least 17 times something to the effect of, “It will feel so great to be home and to be settled.” So then I thought to to myself, “There’s no place like home, Dorothy. Scratch that idea off of the list.”
Today’s blogpost isn’t about future retirement plans, however. This blog is about the fact that like many Americans, my husband and I have become Netflix/HBO series binge watchers. Some may call it an addiction. My son says that he now understands the true meaning of the term deja vu. He says it’s like Groundhog Day every time he comes home from whatever activity he is doing that night whether it be work or a date or a workout, only to find his parents in the same exact position on the couch staring at the television like zombies. (When he said this I thought how interesting life is when you start role reversing with your children.) Here is a short list of a few of the series we have finished in just a couple of years. Breaking Bad. Game of Thrones. Ozark. West World. Stranger Things. Peaky Blinders. The Unabomber. Are you noticing sort of a disturbing theme? If I look at that list with a little self awareness, if I consider it from my armchair psychologist point of view, I find it concerning, too. When I fervently recommended Ozark to my long time friend and hair stylist, a middle aged woman just like me, she told me that she felt dirty and like she needed trauma counseling after one episode of it. I noticed that she now carries her scissors with her when she goes to mix my hair color. My other friend is a well regarded English teacher. For years she has had the misconception that I have some kind of higher literary mind. For a long time I think that she actually thought that I had a sophisticated palate when it comes to the arts. She asked me in all wide eyed earnesty, “Why do you like Game of Thrones so much?? I hear that all it really is, is a lot of sex and violence.” The best response I could muster was, “Well, um . . . . Yeah.” I think her misconception of me is finally debunked.
Now in all fairness, I have a good rationalization for our kind of “over the top”, bloody choices for our series addiction. Have you ever done one of those crazy hardcore diets where you supposedly can lose 20 pounds in five days, or one of those carrot/celery juice cleanses where you can effectively clean out all of your internal organs at once or have you ever decided that even though you love burgers, you should probably become a vegan? And after trying one of these diets/lifestyles for a little while until you’re starving and gnawing on your own arms, you finally stop doing it and the pendulum swings so far the other way that you find yourself bingeing on McDonalds, pork tacos and buttercream frosting? Well, my husband and I are just at the “buttercream frosting” stage of our TV watching experience. For years and years (remember we have four kids) our TVs were under the lock and key of Parental Controls. We watched more Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Full House reruns than anyone I know. It wasn’t until our kids became teenagers and they were always out or even when they were home, they were always in their rooms Facetiming their friends, that we got full, uninhibited access to our TVs again.
The thing that heartened me about our TV viewing choice last night was that it was soft, pleasant, rated PG and it wasn’t going to give me any nightmares. It might have been slightly boring, but it kept our interest and we watched it all of the way to the end. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to center now. And that’s the whole idea, right? That no matter what stage of life you’re in, no matter what activity your partaking in, you just want to feel centered, no matter what. In the meantime, I’m waiting impatiently, with bated breath for the next season of Ozark and Game of Thrones.