I mean, Jim Carrey, Muppet-style puppets, and on ‘for adult eyes only’ Showtime. What’s not to love? …then it got real. Like really, really, really, really REAL.
I had NO idea what I was getting into. I had seen the internet commercials about what I thought was Avenue Q for adults. I love a bit of smart adult humor {unless it’s just dirty jokes and 4 letter words for the shock factor} especially when it looks like it should be for the kiddos.
Sitting here – doing some research at my computer on a rainy Saturday afternoon – another one of those adds popped up for the show and I thought to myself ‘I should really see what this show is all about’. Literally, to this point, I had only seen the picture above. Clicking the picture took me to the series premiere on YouTube. Why watch just the trailer when I can watch the full episode? Like I do with most TV shows when I’m working, I squeeze the screen really small and put it in the top of my computer monitor so I can keep working and just glance over when it sounds like there is something exciting is going on.
The ‘problem’ was, within about 2 minutes of listening to the show I had stopped everything else I was doing and was staring ‘deer in the headlines’ style at this little square in the top right of my screen. My heart sank, all the air was sucked out of the room and I couldn’t turn away.
Mr Pickle’s (Jim Carrey) story is MY story. It’s everyone’s story that has ever lost something that can’t be replaced….especially if they feel that loss is their fault or should have been prevented {That’s all of us, right?}. I know that feeling all too well and was instantly taken back to shortly after Madelyn’s death – where nothing made sense yet I was expected to be ‘normal’. Where my house was a mess, my hair was crazy, and all I could think about was getting a tattoo to ‘prove’ Madelyn existed.
I think I’m hooked on a show that I already know the ending to. I’m hooked on this car accident of a show that makes me feel my deepest, strongest emotions all over away…and I just can’t look away. There’s something about seeing for the outside, yet knowing the emotions from the inside, TRUTH. Not bubble-gummed, glammed up, sexified ‘truth’ but the real, true, essence of emotional experiences.
I’m not sure I could have seen this even a year or two ago but it is here, at a time and place I am ready for it. So, I must need it now.
Do you have something in your life like this? A song, a story, a thing that you probably shouldn’t be so emotionally drawn to but you are? I’d love to know your thing in the comments…
