Friends and Life

*As a reminder, I am part of the Netflix Streamteam. I am being compensated for sharing with you, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

When January rolled around, I knew how I would be spending all my free time this month (and some time that maybe wasn't so free).

It was going to be on my computer, watching Friends on Netflix!

When the show originally aired, I watched (and not every week) the last 2.5 seasons.

When it came to Netflix I sat down and started it. And laughed. Then laughed some more. And did some laughing. I was hooked!

I looked at my husband, who was passing through the room, and asked "Why didn't I watch this when it was on tv?" and he responded "Um, you were a bit younger than their target audience!"

My date and I sophomore homecoming

Friends first aired in September of 1994. Season one aired through May of 1995

In September of 1994, I was at the start of my sophomore year of high school.

I had a small group of friends. But we didn't hang out in a coffee shop, we hung out at the lunch table.

I was in mostly honors classes and I got good grades. I studied for hours. Good grades did not come easily to me at all - when I say I studied for hours, I literally studied for hours. I worked part-time in the fall and summer for my parents at their business.

I was a cheerleader. Aside from my small group of friends, I didn't really talk that much to other people. Despite being a cheerleader, I was socially awkward and introverted. I over-compensated by laughing too loud and being extra happy. Inside I was often feeling sick to my stomach. I'm positive now, had we known about it, I would have been diagnosed with social anxiety.
 
I had already had my first boyfriend. I hadn't yet had a first kiss. I went to homecoming that year with a friend. I wished he was more than a friend. We are still friends.

I was in a child development class, which only reinforced me knowing I wanted to be a teacher some day.

Later that year I started driver's ed, got a driver's license, a second job (in addition to helping my parents at their business). I tried out for cheerleading again and didn't make the squad. I thought my life was over and I cried a lot about this. I learned to move on. I started volunteering a lot.

I had my first friend break-up. I cried a lot about that and she was super casual about it, still talking to me occasionally but not hanging out with me. I was, in her words, just not mature enough for her.

On my 16th birthday

Somewhere in the midst of this I got a second boyfriend. And my first kiss. I started laughing. He thought I was laughing because he was a bad kisser. I was laughing because the whole kissing thing was so foreign to me I didn't know what else to do. We broke up when he said I could have sex with him, or he would continue to date me and screw someone else (his words, not mine).

That was my sophomore year of high school. There wasn't much in Friends at the time that pertained to me.


Fast forward 10 years. When season 10 of Friends aired ... from September 2003 to May 2004.

I was 24 years old. I was a recent college graduate and I was a stay-at-home-mom. My oldest was 4 years old. My second child was 1. My third was yet to make an appearance.

I was going on 5 years of marriage. We were living in a house - it was the first house we bought.

I loved being home with the kids, but I felt lonely. Many of my friends were not yet married or parents. I was very active on internet message boards to fill that void.

I had just learned to knit and quickly realized that I loved it! I was a voracious reader. We didn't have cable. I watched a lot of PBS (and not just the kids shows for the girls!)

We took our first vacation to Disney World.

As the season (and the show itself) neared the end, we had decided to move. We were fixing up the house to get it sale-ready. I was already packing things.

My husband was starting a side business. I was trying to help him. We learned quickly there wasn't much I could do to help him.

I wasn't a very good cook. I wasn't very good at cleaning. I was good at baking. I like doing crafts with the girls.

My youngest (at the time) was in PT, OT, and speech several times a week. We were told she had low-function autism and we needed to save up for long term care as she would never be able to live unassisted.

[Side note: she was extremely misdiagnosed and if you met her today you'd never know she has this history. Something was there. And the PT, OT, speech helped her tremendously, but she was still not autistic]

Naturally, I didn't watch Friends when it was new, but was drawn to it as the show continued. I have a lot of memories of the few seasons I watched it when it first aired, but I have to tell you, it was so fun to marathon watching it this month!

I'm 35 years old. I've got three kids: 15, 12, and 9.

Do you know what that means? My oldest is in a similar spot that I was when the show aired for the first time.

Isn't that crazy? Well, it is to me!

She's 15. 20 years have passed since Friends first aired. 10 years have passed since it ended.

Time keeps going and passing.

But it's fun to get some time (or, in the case of my Friends marathon a lot of time) to sit and relax in front of great tv show. And even more fun when it makes you sit back and reminisce about where you've been!