Living my life or The West Wing’s. What’s it going to be?

Epiphanies. Oprah calls them “ah ha” moments. I had one yesterday centered around The West Wing.

I have been watching reruns of The West Wing on TV for the last few weeks and loving them. I never watched it when it was on, so watching an episode each night has been a blast. In fact, I cancelled a dinner plan last week to come home and watch it. Zoe (President Bartlett’s daughter) had been kidnapped by Terrorists, and while I figured they weren’t going to kill her, I really needed to get home and make sure. While I was watching, it occurred to me that it is so much easier to be a part of their amazing lives than to make my own life amazing. So much easier.

It’s simple really. Turns out, I like the love story of When Harry Met Sally so much more than any of the five or so love stories of my own life. Or Pretty Woman. It doesn’t get better than Pretty Woman. A stunning down and out woman finds love with the handsome and rich man who takes her away from her pain, and she maintains her standards, doing it all her way, sacrificing nothing. And, to live these fabulous lives, you always look great and you don’t even have to do things like make the bed, pay for things, or say anything other than the perfect retort. Why wouldn’t I prefer their lives to my own?

But here’s the thing. Does this make me pathetic or just honest? It wasn’t until the seventies that movies were presented on the screen as if they could be our own personal lives.  Maybe it’s one of the reasons divorce rose? Who could compete with Love Story’s Ryan O’Neal and his perfect man, boyfriend, husband persona? And, let’s face it, he turned out to be a personal mess rather than someone’s personal best. But, when I was watching it in the eleventh grade, I thought that man was somewhere out there just for me. He wasn’t. But it wasn’t until I saw The West Wing last week that I realized it was the reason I was never satisfied with the love of some decent men in my life. OK, I’m so exaggerating, and my personal failures are mine alone, but perhaps if my expectations had been the real life unfolding around me, rather than the movies without bathrooms on the screen, I might have had a better outlook on what is a good day, or a good man.

Ok, my friend Claire and I have a deal. If those we dislike (yes, though I strive to like everyone, I have not reached that holy land yet) have a bad moment, we are allowed to gloat for five minutes and then must reach in deep and find empathy or we believe their demise will become our own. And, if we have regrets, we say them and then move on. So, hear this oh readers. I’m done believing that the programs in a box before me, or a screen in front of me, are real, are more entertaining than my life story.

I will start this as soon as the reruns of The West Wing are finished. In the meantime, I’m CJ and shall henceforth be known as such. Or, maybe tobe the real me, I will be known as CM.

Yours in living our lives ourselves and not vicariously through the lives of others, CM.