I'm in the mood to write. Why? Cause I'm thinking too much to talk.
Even if they aren't called Friends, good sitcoms are about friends. We watch them. Follow the storylines and then in daydreams, play out our lives according to these thirty-minute recreations of what we're supposedly—yet obviously not—living ourselves. Maybe it's the anonymous downtown apartment with its light speckled skyline bright enough to be New York, but just ambiguous enough to pass for that other city you went to once and liked better.
But wherever, it's all about the cast of characters. You've had them hand picked from high school. You imagine the story of your freshman flubs becoming recurring themes throughout the seasons of maturity (we're gonna talk about the time x did x, forever!)
But then, they all move away.
“Maybe it’s the anonymous downtown apartment with its light speckled skyline bright enough to be New York . . .”
Take two: College.
You're on your own now, doing more sitcom-worthy things. Sure, it's not the same kind of drama as high school, but this is good, too. People have STDs here! (I'm kidding.) So, you mope about the cast revision for a little bit and promise yourself that there will be plenty of high school cameos.
Years go by and finally the hour is ripe: you've graduated! Here comes the condo and the social life unimpeded by classwork! Even the cast you once thought of as second string, are headliners. Hell, you're even sitcom age! And then just when you least expect it, your beefy jock gets drafted to play somewhere. Your adorable snowboarder bro finding his calling in Colorado. The fashionista finds love in the arms of the Big Apple. And your best friend, your supporting actress, moves away. Jobs cause fragmentation. The show gets cancelled. I know what you're thinking. What the hell kind of show is this?!
“What the hell kind of show is this?!”
After years of envisioning this time of your life the stage is set, but the actors are on strike. Now, like it did at the beginning of high school and college, shit is new and unfamiliar. Now, you're the new person at work, there are no school functions to force socialization and just like that you face that fact that there is no sitcom life. Because if life were a sitcom you'd get to write the episodes, audition your love interest, and you'd choose the people you share it with.
Yep. Joey and Chandler didn't go to college together. They have cubicles next to each other and met at work. Ross and Rachel are really just friends through other people from that dinner party they didn't want to go to. Phoebe moved to the state a few months ago and still really just wants to go home. And no one knows that Monica used to be fat in high school, not even Ross, because brothers and sisters don't stick around each other that long.
And now you know why we have sitcoms in the first place. Because once your life long pals have been gone long enough, you'll need a distant reminder of what it could have been like.
~ For My Twin Who Moved Away
And the sitcoms I accidentally cancelled every time I moved away.