“Excuse me miss, do I know you from somewhere?” She stops looks around and asks, “Me?”
“Yes, you. I swear you look so familiar and it is absolutely driving me bananas!”
“Bananas, huh…. That’s a funny expression. I’m sorry, but you just don’t look familiar. Sorry.”
I thanked her for her time and she found a table to sit and eat. I finished my lunch and was in the process of throwing my tray away when it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I ran over to her table, which was full of about twelve, 18 to 21 year old women that looked like the cast of 90210 and I exclaimed, “Holy shit! You’re Winnie Cooper! You look just like Winnie Cooper! I’m sure guys tell you that all the time!”
“Who?” she asks…. If you only saw the look on her face, you’d swear I had been speaking Vietnamese or told her about a cowboy that rode into town on Tuesday, stayed two days, and left on Tuesday!
“That’s Samantha….. What the hell are you talking about?” asks another one of the lost dozen.
“Winnie Cooper, she was a character on the Wonder Years….. She was Kevin’s dream girl….. She was everybody’s dream girl! You know; from the TV show…. Not ringing a bell?”
As I’m staring at 12 zombies, I fade off with a, “yeah, I think her real name is Danica Mackellar or something.”
“Oh, you mean Danica Patrick? She’s super hot! Are you trying to tell Samantha that she’s hot? Are you asking her out? Who are you?”
I put my head down and walked away with a “sorry to bother you” and “enjoy your lunch.”
I don’t generally get embarrassed, but that encounter left me at least a little anxious, to say the least. So I threw away the rest of my lunch and headed off to my next meeting. After the meeting, I’m walking down the hall and I don’t believe it; I’m crossing paths with Winnie Cooper, or Samantha whomever, for a fifth time today! I keep my head down as I pass, but she puts her hand on my shoulder and stops me.
“Hey…. I wanted to thank you…. That girl, Winnie whatever, she’s like really pretty. That was a really nice thing to say, and you don’t even know me. I’m touched.”
I just about jumped out of my skin. It wasn’t because of the hand on my shoulder, or her level of attractiveness, but because somebody actually understood what I was saying! I kept my bone structure inside my skin, washed all emotion from my face, cleared my throat (unsuccessfully I might add), and responded in this raspy, emphysema type voice and said, “Oh… (throat clear; this time successful) you do know what show I was talking about.”
“Oh no….. I’m sorry,” she replied. I looked up the Wonder Years on IMDB and that girl is really pretty, but uh….. Maybe I’ll watch that show sometime.”
“You know,” I responded, “I wouldn’t bother. The show was pretty terrible and Fred Savage hasn’t been in anything good since The Princess Bride (again, blank stare), but that Winnie Cooper was something spectacular.”
And as I was walking away, something occurred to me….. Where have all the dream girls gone?
By dream girls, I mean the type of women guys would fall in love with on network TV and resent their girlfriends for not being as hot and cool as those Thursday night beauties. You know, the beautiful dream of some poor sap’s life that was so unattainable that she could be considered the antagonist of the show. The match that wouldn’t ever happen in a million years, but as the show’s final episode would premiere, this hapless son of a bitch gets the girl and America celebrates in joy and relief as Kevin and Winnie ride off into the sunset or Ross and Rachel finally make it work!
I used to all but pray to see that moment when I was growing up. If Ross could end up with Rachel, then maybe there was a hope with the girl I was smitten with on the cheerleading squad or even the girl in the science club. And in the final months of my long trip down to the bottom of the barrel, as I lived “protected” from the world by my piles of pizza boxes, empty liquor bottles, and newspapers from the floor to the ceiling, I was inconsolable as Dr. Shepherd left Meredith Grey to get back together with his wife. Meredith was heartbroken, and I’m ashamed to say so was I. I thought he could see past her dysfunction and love her no matter what, and as my weight climbed to one quarter of a ton, and the depression continued to sedate the neurons in my brain, I too was losing faith in that dream girl to save me.
I will clarify by saying that I was no doubt extremely drunk, but the general trauma stuck with me for weeks. Why would Meredith (me in this case) go on living if she didn’t have anybody that understood her?
And the problem was that these protagonists, in my mind, we’re totally deserving of the glory. Of that group of friends, Ross was the smartest and most successful. Kevin’s determination was admirable, to say the least. Ed was an accomplished lawyer, handsome, charming, and charismatic as he perused after Carol Vesey. Meredith was a surgeon from a famous family, but season after season, America would scowl together as asshole after asshole joined the show and didn’t appreciate the gift of America’s dream girl as our hopeless little hero would be devestated before trying to find new ways to steal away her heart. For me, it was just too close to real life, but there I was, looking for the instance that broke the rule.
Now all of this talk no doubt seems pretty irrational, but that's just it. I was absolutely irrational! I was operating under a very misguided set of ideals. I was emotionally ill.
What’s funny is that type of show doesn’t even have an ounce of my interest for me anymore. If it isn’t Entourage or Heroes, then it isn’t even worth my time. I just don’t care if “Grey and McDreamy” get back together and I think Scrubs is over and I don’t even want to know what happened to “JD and Elliott,” because the truth is, I found my dream girl. She’ll be the first to admit that she doesn’t look like Jennifer Anniston or Sarah Chalke, but through episode after episode, she’s got me inspired to overcome and endure whatever obstacles arise to bring about a happy resolution at the end of the day. I find her absolutely irresistable. She is my happy ending. She is my best friend.
I wasn’t intending this to be so sappy, but my “Queen” has been out of town for the last few days helping a good friend who is being treated for breast cancer that has metastasized to one of her lungs. I couldn’t believe just how lost I was when she was gone. Not to mention that when I was presented with the opportunity of doing just about anything I wanted with my free time, I watched a few movies, caught up on some sleep, did some laundry, straightened up the house, and read a little. This beer swilling, overindulgent, life of the party has finally found his life’s center. I have finally found home.
Thinking back about all of my dream girls, both from television and friendships in the past, I don’t think that I really wanted them, but I wanted to be good enough to deserve them. I wanted to have the appearance, skill set, and confidence to be somebody that the “top girls” wanted to be with. It’s almost as if it was a way for me to imagine that my inabilities and insecurities didn’t exist. That would also mean that these issues have been developing inside me since I was in junior high school! I wanted to be Ross, Kevin, Ed, JD, and Dr. Grey because I was going to mixers and running away from girls that asked me to dance!
"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone
tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were
often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking
for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I,
could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my
expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born
with: that I am nobody but myself."~Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royale”
I can’t believe it, but I finally found me! It took me almost 27 years, 507 pounds (less my 165), countless trips to Taco Bell, pounds and pounds of skittles, more beers than I’d like to admit, a few recreational drugs, and a minor arrest or two, but I found my center; my peace. With this knowledge in my back pocket, it is only upward from here. Sure, there will be the occasional bump in the road, there always is, but as long as I stay true to who I am, happiness and peace will be close by for the rest of my days. What’s funny is that I actually planned on having it all figured out by now. Since I was 14, I had it all planned to be done with graduate school, get married at 27, and to live out my days in peace, harmony, and bliss. So, I’m not married and I’ve broken just about every moral absolute I grew up with, but as I see it, I’m right where I wanted to be, when I wanted to be it. I thought I was lost. It turns out that I’m right on track!
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