I’m so tired of TV.
It’s poisoned me into thinking that everything in life can be solved within 30 minutes (unless it’s to be continued) and that every little thing can provide me with a poignant moral. These people have a team of writers working for them along with mood music, make-up and sets all designed to maximize the action. I have none of this.
I’m learning that the most important times of my life don’t happen when I have the time to appreciate them. The world is full of distractions and half the time I’m trying to do one thing while the meaningful stuff is happening under my nose.
What I need to do is quit trying to fight it. It’s never going to be like I’m used to seeing played out on TV. I’m never going to go running through the rain to profess my love to some doe-eyed beauty shivering wet with the moon playing flawlessly on her face. I’m never going to find myself deep in conversation in some abandoned theater with the snow falling outside.
What it’s going to be is me in the car, stuck in traffic while she asks a question and, distracted, I’ll answer awkwardly and spend the next few days trying to re-explain myself. I’m only a team of writers of one and half the time I don’t have the time or energy to come up with all the right stuff to say. Or it will be an almost-asleep conversation, with her head tucked into that place between my folded arm and my cheek. We’ll be mumbling about things and important stuff will slip out but, in the morning, we’ll both wonder exactly what was said and how serious the other was.
Which will lead to an awkward conversation later.
I can’t help but think of those guitar-played scenes on the roof of a building while everything just rolls out nicely like a velvet, red carpet with all the answers walking down on their way to the Oscars. They both maintain eye contact and there’s nothing distracting to get in the way except maybe the beautiful cityscape or a stunning display of fireworks.
But real life ain’t anything like that.
And I’m learning to appreciate those moments any way I can get ‘em. Whether it’s a hurried word on the way out the door or a shout from another room, I’m starting to understand. These are them – this is it and it’s so much better than TV.