Day Three--Must See TV

For years I'd been a LOSTie. C and I got hooked on it in Season 2 and never looked back. We were such LOST nerds we watched Season 1 on Netflix in anticipation of the final season this past spring, looking for clues, trying to find parallels. Every day after the previous night's episode I'd go online and read recaps, trying to piece together the puzzle.

Last fall and winter as the commercials started airing for the final season, I realized the first episode was dangerously near my due date. "Oh no!" I'd lament, "I CAN'T be in labor for the first episode!" To paint a little picture, we would not make plans on LOST nights. We'd CANCEL plans for LOST nights. We were mainlining LOST and had no interest in rehab.

Cut to January 8th, when we realized Calla was dead. It was little solace knowing I'd have plenty of free time to catch any episode I may want to watch. But still we did.

LOST's premiere was a pinpoint on the endless horizon, something that gave me direction as I put one foot in front of the other on my aimless, rambling path, stumbling through the shallows. It sounds silly that a television show gave me focus, but I clung to just about anything in those drifting days.

It would be overly dramatic to link my state of emotion to this show, but LOST indeed I was, and was desperate to be found, to be understood, to be told everything would be OK.

So each episode was a stepping stone--I leapt from episode to episode, week to week. Something to look forward to. C and I would discuss what we thought was going to happen, how it all came together, how it would end. It was a welcome distraction and escape from our grief.

And then I joined a group of friends every Thursday for Project Runway. These guys have all been friends for a LOOOOOONG time, and I knew a few of them individually from various places in my life. S and E, who live two blocks from us, invited me to join their Thursday night FASHIONS! parties, and, once again, they became pinpoints on the dark horizon. Somewhere, like watching LOST, I could step out of the immediacy of my life and just escape.

And then Thursday night FASHIONS! became stepping stones, making the leaps shorter, more manageable. It was less about PR for me--although we loves some fashions!---and more about laughing, eating, making new friends who knew about our loss and weren't weird about it. Supported me without the awkwardness.

In those early days and weeks after Calla's death, I immersed myself in music, television, books, the internet and online shopping.  Watching television might be a guilty pleasure, but those two nights a week really helped me feel human again. Sometimes a step out of life helps put that life back into focus.