This week, my English 101 students did peer review (where they read and respond to their peer’s essays) for their personal narratives, and one of the questions they were asked was “What is the most important line in the narrative? Highlight that line. What makes it important?” They had until midnight to send their response sheets to me, and so, in the evening, as I distractedly watched The OC (which I’ve been binge-watching), the sheets arrived, and as I opened them and read them, those lines—the important ones—shaped themselves into a kind of narrative for me.
Watching The OC has been interesting. I didn’t watch it the first time around, and I’m enjoying the nostalgia of the early 2000s. Everyone is beautiful, and the clothing is terrible (I do not miss low rise jeans). The show is campy in so many ways, but it’s not really trying to be camp. There is an earnestness there too—this is a show that takes itself seriously and wants to be taken seriously. I found myself unexpectedly crying during the first episode when the Cohens told Ryan that they were going to be his family from then on. It was a level of pathos that I hadn’t expected, but also a kind of mythology.
Like a lot of middle aged women, I weirdly enjoy programming that’s oriented towards people younger than me. I’ve watched every single episode of Never Have I Ever, and the first season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and all versions of The Kissing Booth. When To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before came out, I watched it in the dark while my son slept upstairs. I was a single mom getting my PhD at the time, and my life had not turned out the way that I’d thought it would. When Lara kissed Noah in the hot tub, I felt that build up of romantic expectations that one has in high school, then the release of having those expectations met. I started bawling quite theatrically all alone on my couch.
Sometimes it makes me feel better to be dramatic about my disappointments. If melancholy is a sadness we enjoy, then drama, too, can be enjoyable. Drama can be a kind of catharsis.
As I’ve been watching The OC, I’ve been thinking, “Whatever happened to drama in teen television?” The fictional shows that I watch that are made for teenagers tend to be quite subtle, even in the moments of conflict, and yet the contemporary shows that are truly dramatic are shows that are made for people my age. Want some drama in your life? Then watch The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City or The Kardashians or The Bachelor. Why is this? Did my generation (I’m at the tail end of Gen X) take all of the drama with us?
But as I get to know Gen Z better and better, both through my teaching and my teenaged son, I realize that the subtlety I see in texts that are about and for them comes from having lived the kind of lives that have always had measured expectations. When I was 18, the age of most of my English 101 students, I had grandiose expectations for how my life would turn out. I had no reason to think otherwise. There had been no wars in my lifetime. My parents owned a home. My father would retire with a government pension.
In high school, I had a teacher who would tell us, “Yours will be the first generation to do worse than your parents,” but I didn’t take him seriously. How could he know that? Yet here I am, the most educated person in my family, and I don’t own a home and don’t know if I ever will. When my son and I travel home to see my parents, my parents pay for our plane tickets. I have no college fund for my son because I’m still paying off my own college loans. I have struggled more than I ever imagined I would. And who has observed and grown with me during it all? My 17 year old son.
My son doesn’t have the expectations for life that I had. And maybe that’s a good thing in some ways, but it’s also unfair. There is a kind of realism present in this generation that was forced upon them by the world that they inherited. Still, this is the kindest group of young people that I’ve seen in my 14 years of teaching. They care about other people because they know the value of community care. They come into class with such good humor and sensibility. They’re inclusive and nonjudgmental. Gen Z isn’t lazy or privileged or entitled. They’re pragmatic and know how to mediate their expectations.
I had lunch today with a former student, Sarah, who is now getting her MFA. She stayed in Ashland after her graduation for personal reasons. I asked her how it felt to still be here, and she said that it’s good but weird. She said that she feels like she was on a train, and she got off at a stop, but the train kept going without her. I liked that metaphor. It pretty accurately conveyed how I, too, felt when I was 22. Even though my generation is so different from hers (and the generations before mine), there are things that we all share. Everyone of us has had to be on a train and had to decide when we would get off. No matter how old we are, we’re all just hoping that we get off at the right stop.
I asked my English 101 students today if I could share some of their lines on my Substack, and they said that I could. There is a beauty in the juxtaposition of words that are without context and from different writers but tell a story nonetheless. That beauty is a gift.
My grandma always tells me that we make plans and God laughs.
Maybe I won’t carry a slice of bread in my pocket so not to starve as she did, but most likely I will do other weird things as a war-affected person, which my kids, I hope, will never understand.
The fourth state of matter isn't a destination but a continuous journey.
I am stronger because of the struggle and I am always blessed to be in good health every day.
But with the time I have left I need to make sure I spend more time, because no matter how much time I spend with them, it won’t be enough.
I constantly wish I could go back to being younger.
Everyone thought being normal would be easy.
Two-faced. Everyone you know is two-faced.
When I listen to Little Miss Magic now, the lyrics feel different. One of the final lines goes “Little Miss Magic, just can’t wait to see.” I cringe whenever I hear it.
The narcissistic behavior you didn’t recognize until you were 18 but still ignored it.
Sometimes you have to cut the rope.
There it is again, that moment you realize how much you impacted everyone
It is extremely hard to live with.
Despite what the song says, everyone has an idea of who Little Miss Magic should be.
One day you will wake up and realize it all happened for a reason.
Loved this. The lines from your students = the cherry on top. (Now thinking I’ll have to re-watch the OC this winter, since there won’t be any new-new TV for a while.)