Reminiscing on "My So-Called Life"

Recently, a friend of mine lent me the first and only season of "My So-Called Life". I hadn't watched it since it was on, in 1994-1995. I myself was a sophmore in high school when it was on tv. And I remember identifying with the characters and the show itself. This is what made it so popular- because most everyone could relate on some level. Because we are all connected by similar experiences.

Watching the show again, the memories flooded back. My high school, in the mornings, where my locker was, eating lunch with my friends outside almost everyday, the boys I had what I was positive of at the time, the greatest love of all for. (I was the Queen of unrequited "love" back then.) I made art. I wore Birkenstocks and clogs. Hootie and the Blowfish, The Spice Girls, and the Cranberries dominated my tape player. I didn't have a car yet, and can still feel the texture of the green vinyl seats of the bus on the back of my legs.I remember my biology teacher, pretty and young- she was surely a cheerleader in high school, herself, always had outfits that were perfectly coordinated- right down to earrings. I remember the smell of the art rooms, and the freedom I felt to be myself in those spaces. Watching "Friends" and "Seinfeld" on Thursday nights on the little black and white tv in my room, while doing my homework.I recall reading " A Tale of Two Cities", and discovering Jane Austen during my solitary lunches in the library. * sigh* The nostalgia grips me like a vice for a moment, and then passes into relief for the fact that I am not there but I am here now. Looking back, I couldn't wait to get out of there. To hurry up and make the grades, get the diploma and start living my life.
And yet, watching this show again, bubbles up parts of the girl I was then and how she still influences me ever so subtly today. I wonder what it would be like to go back and do it all over again, except as the woman I am now. The wisdom and knowledge I have gained about life in my tool box of survival against my peers and my parents. Would I have partied more? Probably not. I was in a hurry to grow up, but not nearly as hurried as some of the kids I went to school with.
I waited for sex, drugs and rock and roll until years later. Thankfully, the wait made those experiences easier to handle, because I had the mature emotions to deal with those experiences. God, I would have been a wreck if I had been partying it up in high school! Drinking on a school night? Man, I can barely have a glass of wine and function now!
Somewhere among my boxes of keepsakes, I have a letter that I penned to myself from that era. It's a time capsule of sorts, as it has it written on the front not to open until 2015. At the time, it seemed like an impossibly long time away- light years away. Now that its 2011, I realize if I can hold out for 4 more years, I will have followed my own instructions. Sometimes, I get very curious about that letter, laying in bed at night. What did I write to myself? What bits of information did I want to be sure to pass on, because I was so sure it was necessary for me to remember, years later?
I do know, sitting here in my Magic Cottage, I am living a life I didn't quite see for myself. Not that I had an exact vision then. But if feels like its all happening simultaneously. Sometimes, if I wake up in the middle of the night, before I open my eyes to get up and go to the bathroom, I can put myself right back there- to the house on Brogden Street. The house quiet, except for the dog's snores. My family asleep. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. My cat, curled up next to me, and the ticking sound of my alarm clock. I am back in my room with its lavender walls and also in my bedroom at the Magic Cottage. Because it is all happening at the same time- those moments tucked away in my mind, happening all over again, as I am in the here and now.
The questions I had then, have evolved into new questions now. And some mysteries have been reve4aled while others remain elusive. Like Angela getting into Jordan Catalano's car and driving away, on the cliffhanger of the century- the possibilities and the not knowing are kind of perfect, hand in hand, in their own way.