Rating: 5/5
I couldn't sleep last night, so I started my favorite TV show again
Growing up, TV felt more real than real life. Days felt like a liminal space — the waiting room for real life to begin. Years pass like seconds, and memory blurs and distorts.
Fathers were there as guards to ensure I lost any connection to myself. I sang along to a blink-182 song in the car, and my stepdad was so mad at how badly Tom DeLonge sang and how I sang. I kissed a boy on the playground, and my dad showed me two magnets — “See how they only attract when they’re opposites?”
This isn't normal. This isn't how life is supposed to feel
Memories are tied to products — a Veryfine fruit juice machine in the school cafeteria or an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark I turned off because it was too scary. My best friend from elementary school is dead. So now he’s a guitar riff from a Slayer song or Pyramid Head chasing me in Silent Hill 2.
Nostalgia is never for the thing itself — when I revisit things from my childhood, they’re smaller, more pixelated, and embarrassing. Nostalgia is for the time when I felt more authentically me.
There is still time
** Spoilers **
- Tara from Buffy!
- Pete & Pete are the two zombies outside his house
- Mr. Melancholy is the moon monster from the Tonight, Tonight music video. There’s even a cover of the song in the movie. Every color is perfect and felt like a half-forgotten memory