My outsider story
I shut off the faucet, took off my dish gloves, and paused the audiobook. I opened the junk drawer and took out paper and a pen to write down the quote I had just heard: "The stories you choose to tell are the stories that make up who you are."* When I heard this, I thought: "Whoa. I'm going to use that one day." That was last week, so I just didn't realize how soon that would be.
A few days later, a friend texted me after she read my blog about adding color to my previously beige house. She said: "It's like when Big said 'Beige is [BS] on Sex and the City." I chuckled and replied to tell her I've never seen Sex and the City -- and should really blog about that "fun fact" one day. Again, I had no idea how quickly that day would come until I paused the audiobook once again, later that night while cleaning up the house, to jot down another quote: "Whatever makes you an outsider makes you a writer."*
It was a eureka moment, connecting the earlier quote and text to lay the groundwork for today's entry. So, here goes: the story of why I'm definitely an "outsider" for being a 40-something-year-old woman living just 19 miles west of NYC... who has never seen Sex and the City. (Or The Sopranos, if we're going to get real!) There are three main reasons:
My parents took HBO (now Max) out of the house when I was in high school. Unsurprisingly, they weren't fans of shows like Taxicab Confessions with a teenager in the house, not to mention my brother is four years younger than me.
When I graduated high school and went to college, my school didn't allow students to have cable in their dorm rooms. The student lounges had cable and our dorm room TVs were for VCRs. (Cable? VCR? Tell me you went to college in the 90's without telling me you went to college in the 90's...!) When I lived off campus, we had the basic cable package -- and really never watched TV.
When I graduated college and went to law school, I threw myself into my studies. The only TV I watched were reruns of Will & Grace and Friends to unwind in the evenings. I loved those shows and watched the same episodes over and over. I didn't have cable in my apartment and when I moved back in with my parents, they still didn't have HBO.
So there you have it: in those formative teenage years, TV just wasn't a part of my daily life. By the time I was a young adult, my habits were set and that was that. I didn't know what I was missing, and somehow, 20 years have gone by and I'm still an outsider for having "missed" this content.
But I'm ok with it. After all, it's a story about who I am: a writer. So I ask, what are the stories that make up who YOU are? Regardless of whether you're a writer, will you choose to share them?
P.S. Will I ever binge these shows? Probably someday. But if given the choice between TV and a book, you know which one I'm going to choose!
*Quoted from Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land
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