But Now I'm Old Enough To Drive

     So yes, my last post and this have something in common: they're both inspired by songs.  It's not that I haven't had any original musings lately and I absolutely need music to help guide me, it's just that usually when I'm on the computer I'm on youtube and so it's a spur of the moment decision to blog.  So thank you The Secret Handshake for your amazing song "TGIF".
     We thought it would be easier, life that is.  We grew up with shows about families that could solve their problems within 30 minutes.  It was a world in that no matter what someone did, a generically loving conversation that concluded with a hug and cheery music playing in the background was all that was needed to fix the screw-up.  A world where everybody got their license and a car on their 16th birthday.  Where dances involved gaudy dresses, all lights on, and almost no physical contact with anyone else on the dance floor. 
     We looked up to the people in "Junior High" back then because they were the next step for us.  This shows in which kids face peer pressure and bad study habits in such a conspicuous way that they've got you convinced you'll be able to handle it just as perfectly as they did.  "Junior High" became middle school for us, and nothing so direct came across our paths.  We then remembered the shows of our "younger days" and felt silly for thinking that middle school was anything out of the ordinary.  Now we had high school to face.  High School was still called high school in those shows, so it had to be more realistic than junior high had been. 
     But now we're old enough to drive, even though most of us did not get our lisences and our cars when the clock stroked twelve on our 16th birthday.  We know now that those television shows are just that: old television shows.  We realize that peer pressure is a lot more surreptitious and it's not always so easy to point out.  Fights with friends and family last more than half an hour and more-often-than-not they don't wrap up nicely in a cute, heart-warming hug.  There is so much ambiguity out there that it's hard to say too many  things for certain.  The grey area that was so conveniently kept out of late 90's and early 2000's sitcoms becomes the dominant area.  Boyfriends aren't always the type of people you want to meet your parents and in keeping with that idea, you don't tell your parent everything because sometimes they really just won't understand. 
     Life isn't as easy as we had once hoped and prayed it would be.  But then again, now we get tired of watching those cheesy sitcoms with happy endings.  We've started watching dramas and shows with twists and turns.  We grow up, watch new shows, and get new expectations.  The good news is that life isn't exactly as hard as those shows either.  Life can't be defined by a genre of television and yet we're always half-expecting our lives to turn out with the same problems and dilemmas that come with these new and old shows.  Television is television and life is life.  They are two separate things and they cannot be combined (even reality shows!).