"Let me keep it."

I just watched one of my two favorite episodes of That 70's Show. It's yet another example of a good show that I didn't discover until syndication as I was pretty busy with babies for most of the late 90's and rarely watched anything that didn't involve a Disney character or a big purple dinosaur. However, by 2002 I remembered that I was an adult and that there were entire TV series debuting and going off the air completely unnoticed by me while I rocked babies and picked up toys. So, when the children were distracted, I started tuning in here and there. I found I could live without most of it, but That 70's Show was kind of cute. (And "was" is right-the 2005-06 episodes are starting to air now and-ICK! What happened?!) I think what hooked me on it was an episode from the first season. With the exception of Jackie and Kelso, none of the other show's love connections had been made yet; and the whole gang was headed to the local disco for all kinds of dancing and other mischief. Without making any real one-to-one connections, the characters reminded me an awful lot of myself and my friends at that age-except we could ALL dance and didn't need to be taught by Phoebe-from-Friends' sister-in-law Alice (a.k.a. "Kitty"). I had memories that paralleled just about every scene from that episode and loved that it ended with Eric and Donna dancing and singing to Abba's "Fernando," after Donna makes it clear to Eric that she's just too happy liking him a little and having fun to commit to anything serious. Of course, we viewers knew all that would change and not always work so well for the two of them, so to roll the credits while hearing "If I had to do the same again, I would my friend..." held an even more special meaning for those of us watching after later episodes had aired.

My other favorite episode surprised even me. It is the one just after Eric and Donna break up for the first time, and it features special guest star Wayne Knight. I wasn't sure I could sit through it because, unlike every other American, I'm not a Wayne Knight fan. My favorite Wayne Knight scene ever is when he is eaten in Jurassic Park. He annoyed me in both Seinfeld and the few episodes of 3rd Rock that I watched, and yet, as Eric's 'guardian angel' he wasn't half bad. This episode appealed to me so much because, like Eric, when something hurts me I always wish I could just erase it. Unfortunately, my writer's propensity to feel and remember in rich and vivid detail every. single. thing. that happens to me doesn't allow for that as easily as it does for others. And that makes looking back on the past both a more enjoyable and infinitely much more painful experience for me-depending on what I'm recalling. At times, I've been known just to take what hurts, shove it aside, and pretend it never happened. But, if I've learned one thing by keeping this blog, one thing from some choice experiences this summer, it's that doing something like that keeps you from moving on, learning from, and healing old hurts. Even though hearing an unexpected "our song" from my past felt like a little punch in the gut as I worked out this morning, I'm still glad for my past and grateful for the people in it, whether they are part of my life today or not. So, in the words of Eric Foreman, "let me keep it, let me keep it."

*And also help me write a clever screenplay about it someday, if that's not too much to ask. Don't you all think Wayne Knight could make a good Dad L?*