It's Not You...It's Me

I’m one of those people who gets so caught up in movies and television shows that I think I’m in them. Everyone else is tuned out, my pupils dilate, I stop breathing correctly, and then *BAM* I am living it 100%. If it’s going to happen it happens quickly – much to the irritation of whomever I’m watching with - and then the character's pain is my pain, their joy is my joy, their weird-o family is my weird-o family. I’m there. This can be a problem for more than one reason. Here’s one of them. I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy, and for a hot second I was excited about this season’s premier – then I forgot to watch it. I seriously used to love that show. I watched it religiously and cried along with Meredith every week, but somehow I was disappointed last season and now I’m done. My friend watches it still (along with several other good shows – check it out), and I kind of wish I could get back into it, but mostly I’m annoyed with it. The same thing happened with Alias. Talk about obsessed! I would cancel plans to watch that show…and tape it at the same time just in case the phone rang or I had to blink.

On some level I wanted to be those people, or I related to those people. Who wouldn’t want to be an international woman of mystery, saving the world while wearing awesome clothes and always looking hot?! Not to mention Sydney’s beau Vaughn. I mean, hello! And then there’s Meredith - cute, smart, slightly awkward, and always living out some sort of crisis that we can relate to a bit, and of course, her McDreamy along with McSteamy and now apparently McArmy. So, on the one hand we want to be these people, and on the other we already are these people…and then at some point, it happens. The show deviates too far from what we connect to and we’re done. At least, I’m done. I was so right there with them through it all, and then all of a sudden I’m not and it pulls the rug right out from under me. And the connection is gone. The show might be just as entertaining, but I can’t get into it anymore and that annoys me. I mean it really annoys me. It annoys me so much that after that happens I’m usually done with it. It’s like we broke-up, and while I care about the show’s overall well-being I don’t want it to be that much a part of my life anymore. I’m glad it’s happy, but I need my space.

In some cases it’s called “jumping the shark,” as in Alias was really great until they got into weird sci-fi stuff and then it jumped the shark. That might be enough of a classification for Happy Days (the phrase’s originating point), but it doesn’t seem to do the trick for my kind of upheaval. I think it comes down in two categories: 1) I can believe it enough to be transported out of my current situation and into theirs, or 2) it is relatable enough that I feel like I'm not the only one doing, feeling, being whatever it is that I am currently doing, feeling or being. Whenever it ceases to be whichever of those categories I was in, it is no longer a show that I can watch. And I get mad at it. For some people who may have been, or depending on the above category, want to be abducted, brainwashed by choice, left in an alley in Hong Kong, and then awakened to find that they have donated eggs to some potential attempt at birthing the chosen one (or something along those lines), Alias continued to be a show that they wanted to watch. For me, it wasn’t so much what I was looking for in life and I got annoyed at how they just didn’t get me anymore. So I broke up with it.

And, you know how it goes. It was your choice, things just weren’t going where you wanted them to, and so you broke it off, but deep down you know you miss it. And, then you google it (note the above reference to McArmy) to see what happened recently, and you’re tempted to get back into it, but you know it won’t last too long. Too much water under the bridge. So you don’t, and you’re annoyed that they did this, even though it was your choice, and you’re annoyed that you are that way…and you look for something to make you feel better about the choice you made and the show you miss. So to get your mind off of things, you turn on the tv…