In this blog post, I will honestly look into my desire to stay in the memories with my friends and the reasons for my hesitation to grow up.
Looking at the people around me, I feel that life is like a high-speed train these days. Life passes by before it has even had time to make any sense, like a video with a rewind button that is broken and only plays at normal speed. Moreover, life is not even enjoyable as it is moving at such a fast pace. I should be the main character of my life, but it seems that only others are the main characters, and I am just a third-rate extra in my own drama.
I have a favorite sitcom. It is the American sitcom FRIENDS, which depicts the hilarious daily lives of six friends in New York. I have a very deep connection with this sitcom. When I was a child, I vaguely challenged myself to study English, even though I didn’t like it, and now this drama has been with me for over ten years, even though the memories of my childhood friends have faded. Is this what it means to be attached to a drama? Photos and videos remain the same over time, but FRIENDS grows old with me. Compared to today’s dramas, it is full of faded videos and old jokes, like an old man.
Nevertheless, I love FRIENDS, which is “out of fashion.” In fact, this is not something special. Everyone is sometimes lost in memories and thoughts. And some people even argue that these things are the true meaning of human life, which disappears quickly. For me, FRIENDS is a living memory. All of my childhood friends are scattered and I only remember their names, and all I do is check their Facebook posts from time to time. They are only the afterimages I left behind in the past. The reason I miss them even though I can see them whenever I want to is that I’m afraid that they, who were once my jewels, will turn into something that has lost its shine like me. The moment I face them, which I have left as a beautiful memory, I feel a sense of loss that all my memories will collapse.
But FRIENDS is different. The six friends in New York enjoy their time together while maintaining their friendship in a changing world. These six people have different personalities, like the parts of a robot, but when they come together, they create an organic world. They laugh and talk together in the big and small events that take place in and out of that world, and sometimes they cry in the face of adversity. Like the images in old movies, they age with me, but in their world, I can still catch a glimpse of their pure hearts. Just like me and my friends when we were young, it seems that the pure hearts they give to each other support everything.
When I first watched FRIENDS, I thought it was a blessing to have friends like that with whom I could open up to. But over the course of watching the show for more than a decade, all of the friends I loved have left me. My childhood friends, with whom I shared my innocence, are in Neverland, where I can’t return or look back on while I’m busy studying for college entrance exams. After that, the new friends I make feel like puppets that just act according to the situation. Neither I nor they see anything but an empty shell in each other, and we don’t open up our hearts to each other. We only let out our innermost thoughts little by little after a drink, but that’s only temporary. The only thing that comes with a terrible hangover the next day is endless loneliness and a sense of loss. Neither alcohol nor new encounters fill my empty heart. I can’t escape from my constant state of floating, and I can’t see what’s in front of me because I’m too busy dealing with what’s right in front of me.
But is this really just my friends’ fault? Maybe I’m trapped in the “true friend” trap because of FRIENDS. Those friends who made me shine in the past must have changed now. They, too, have grown up in a similar environment as me, and in their memories, I must now have a beard and be worried about money and livelihood. The passion of a 20-year-old left me before many years passed, and all that is left with me now is a worried heart.
Sadly, the path that will lead me forward seems to be to accept and adapt to the present rather than to chase after past ideals, obsessed with Peter Pan’s utopia. I need to break free from the shackles of the past, adapt to my current relationships, and learn to enjoy them. I need to leave FRIENDS and my childhood friends behind in my memories and continue on my journey. To grow up and escape the past, that is the path I must take. I cannot become Peter Pan. I must break free from the childish mind of my childhood. Still, I am left with lingering feelings for my past friends and the six friends in FRIENDS because, after all, I am a human being who longs for memories and still wants to enjoy them.
