What TV series, cartoon or movie could depict your dating or love life?
I swear I was going to work through this prompt last night. I got distracted thinking there was another prompt just like it fairly recently though, and went down a rabbit hole of my old prompts. There is some good stuff on here that I barely remember writing. With 350+ prompts over 450+ posts, it’s no small wonder I don’t remember half of them.
The sporadic posting through the end of the year didn’t help, and I’ve basically forgotten everything I wrote during the summer, but I did remember titling a post “My TV Life.” That one related to how I wished my life could be, rather than how it is. And it pertained to my life in general, not my love life specifically.
“Sara, you’re doing that thing again where you overthink the prompt.”
I know, but this is one of those prompts that I don’t want to write to so much as work through my thought process on how to come to an answer for it. In this case, the journey is as important as the destination for me. Mainly because I don’t think I’ve ever really seen a film or series or cartoon that depicts the sort of relationship I have with my husband.
“There are plenty of stories about married couples on screen, surely you relate to some of them?”
My first reaction is to look to sitcoms. We certainly get into plenty of shenanigans because neither of us really grew up even though we play adults at work. But to be honest, I haven’t really watched much syndicated television in years and the shows that I used to watch were all reruns of older sitcoms anyway.
The married couples in most of those shows were also typically parents who had little time left for each other at the end of a long day of work and caring for the kids. Sometimes they would make time, but more often than not they were foils of each other, playing off each other and against each other like a game with one winner. They only came together as a team for Important Stuff™ or because the audience needed some vulnerability in amongst all the goofiness.
This is gonna come off sounding kind of silly, but the closest relationship I can think of is that of the Criminal Minds BAU, circa seasons 2-7. Yes, the entire unit. They were a family, and they helped each other through ordeals great and small. They teased each other, pranked each other, fought for each other. Any pair of them could reflect an aspect of my love life. Because my love life is all about my family.
Actually, I’m an idiot. I do have a better answer for this. I wrote them down two and a half years ago in the letter I wrote for my husband to read on the morning of our wedding. Why that only just occurred to me now, I will never understand. (Don’t you just love reading my streams of consciousness? This is what it’s like in my head 24/7.)
Rather than the overall series/movie/cartoon depicting my love life, there are a handful of couples I feel like we’ve channeled over our decade together. Rapunzel and Eugene from Tangled. Perrin and Faile from Wheel of Time (not technically a movie or TV series…yet. SOON though.) Wash and Zoe from Firefly.
That last one stuck out because I remembered one time I did one of those silly facebook quiz things that was like “What fictional couple are you and your significant other?” I don’t remember if it was specifically constrained to science fiction or what, but my result was Wash and Zoe. I rarely do those quizzes, and when I do, I never share the results to FB. I did save a screenshot of it because it amused me. The result read:
Zoe and Wash from ‘Firefly’ were the ultimate geeky couple! Zoe was a strong-willed woman with a soft spot for the silly yet smart Wash. But boy, did they mesh well! They were cute, loving, faithful, and above all, in complete and utter love. If this describes your relationship, congratulations—you’ve met your match.
I guess it was a “what nerdy couple are you,” if that opening line is any indication. And it did describe us pretty well; I’m strong-willed, he’s silly yet smart. We balance each other well. And if the quiz might have been a bit hokey, as they are wont to be, it isn’t the only one to come to the conclusion that my husband and I are Wash and Zoe.
We had a coworker who we were close enough to/fond enough of that we invited her to our wedding. She was one of a select group of his coworkers who we invited, but the reason I mention her is because she once told me that she loved hanging out with us because we reminded her of one of her favorite fictional couples. (See where this is going?) I laughed when she told me it was Wash and Zoe. The quiz was on to something!
Anyway, I sure hope we have a happier ending than they got. “I am a leaf on the wind.”
That’s more than enough rambling for one night! See you tomorrow! For real this time. I promise I won’t get sucked into the black hole that is my old writing, again. Have a great night/day!
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Closet Full of Notebooks 