Being a senior is kind of like being the star of an aging TV show. You have the cool house, the awards and accolades, often a solid following of fans. You are recognized on the street. You're on the invite list to every significant soiree east of 42nd Street. Still, everyone's dieting is getting more severe, people are checking into rehab left and right and the good magazine covers keep going elsewhere. You still glance at the Nielsen ratings and hope for top 10 shares and high viewing numbers, but cancellation is imminent regardless of success. All of the old timers you started out with have been off the air for eons, and have beer bellies and mortgages and are doing infomercials for acne care products, if they're lucky.
You've had a good long run, but now it's nearing over, and though you're not dead yet, the new girls are already at the buffet and they've eaten all the steak.
At this point, you start considering what you might have done differently had you realized, three episodes in, how quickly time would fly. Maybe you would have signed more autographs, hugged more babies, cheated on your second husband less. You might have given up the good Christian act sooner. You could have invested your earnings, rather than blowing them all on booze or clothes or omelets from Izzy and Zoe's or blow. Maybe you would have spent more time improving your craft and less time doing pilates at the gym. Maybe vice versa. But most importantly, you realize that even if the network had a sudden change of heart, even if your costars decided to renegotiate for one more year, well, it just wouldn't be the same. Something this good, be it Sex and the City, My So-Called Life or college, can't last forever. And if it could, it would kind of suck.
Of course it's the temporality of college that makes it great. There's only so many times Ross and Rachel can get back together before you want to change the channel. The first time they kiss -- God, I still remember the moment. I was eating pizza with my sister on the floor of my parents' bedroom. Ross stormed into Central Perk. It was raining (on TV). It was awesome. But what seems funny after two seasons is stale after 10.
All of the fun is in the fact that it is finite. If you knew you were destined to filthy bathrooms, hangovers and Smokes forever, you'd probably cry. (I would.) But like telebrities, we just want to make other people laugh, want to make them sob, want to make them love us as much as we intend to (pretend to) love them. And as long as we appreciate how short it is, we can see how good we've got it. And definitely get Tivo, 'coz you're probably kind of busy, and shit's going down that you won't want to miss.
Happy New Year --
- Yona
