Echoes

I've been immersed in Thirtysomething. It's funny the things I remember, like complete lines of dialog. And the things I forgot, like how beautifully the scenes are lit and composed. Then there are the new revelations, things that stand out to me in light of my own life experiences since I last eavesdropped on the lives of Hope and Michael, et al. One striking realization is how much Michael Steadman, played by Ken Olin, reminds me of my brother Cullen. At the time, twenty years ago, Cullen was a twentysomething, and I never saw a resemblance. The passage of time, though, allowed me to experience my brother as a thirtysomething, and it is in that retrospective view that I see the similarities. Startling as well, since Cullen died not quite four months ago. It's oddly reassuring at the same time, in a way I can't quite explain. In watching the episode where troubled married couple Nancy and Elliot go to therapy, there was something that I found very interesting. There were three therapy sessions, and in the first two, they sat in the same chairs. In the final one, their positions were reversed. This detail sent a little chill up my spine. As a veteran of couples counseling prior to the end of my own marriage, a very similar situation occurred. We had been to a number of sessions over the period of a couple of months, and each time we followed our therapist down the winding hallways to her office, we went directly to the same chairs. Never varying the routine. For what would turn out to be our final session, I very deliberately headed for and occupied the other chair. I don't know why I did it. But I do remember a frown and a bit of a pout from my husband as he settled into the chair I had resided in up to that point. At that moment I felt something akin to exhilaration. Freedom. Some little crick that had resided in my neck for maybe as long as ten years loosened up and melted away. I didn't know anything else for sure, really even if that defining moment represented anything greater. Except maybe that I was ready to move on and he was still focused on staying precisely and rigidly where he was. Was switching up Nancy and Elliot's seating a visual cue for us to interpret? I only know that I noticed it tonight for the first time. What they did twenty years ago was captured on film and remains the same. That scene both echoes and foreshadows an event in my own life. Like Billy Pilgrim, I feel a little unstuck in time.