In this blog post, I take an honest look at the desire to linger in memories with friends and the reasons for hesitating to grow up.
Looking at the people around me, I feel like life these days is like a high-speed train. Like a video where the rewind button is broken and only fast-forward playback is possible, life passes by before it can hold enough meaning. What’s more, even flowing at this breakneck speed, it isn’t enjoyable. I should clearly be the protagonist of my own life, yet only others seem like protagonists, and I feel like just a third-rate extra in my own drama.
There’s a sitcom I love. It’s FRIENDS, an American sitcom depicting the cheerful daily lives of six friends in New York. My connection to this show runs deep. As a child, I vaguely challenged myself to study English through this drama, even though I didn’t particularly like the language. Now, over a decade later, it’s still with me, even as memories of childhood friends have faded. Is this what it means to grow attached to a show? Photos and videos remain unchanged over time, but FRIENDS ages alongside me. Compared to today’s dramas, it feels like an old man—filled with faded visuals and dated jokes.
Yet I love this ‘past its prime’ FRIENDS so much. Actually, this isn’t unusual. Everyone gets lost in memories and reflection. Some even argue that the fleeting nature of these things is the true meaning of human life. For me, FRIENDS is a living memory. My childhood friends are all scattered, remembered only by name, and checking in on them occasionally via Facebook is about all I do. They are merely afterimages I left behind in the past. Even though I could meet them if I just reached out, the reason I long for them yet lack the courage might be fear that they, who were once my jewels, have now faded like me. Because the moment I face them, preserved as beautiful memories, I fear I’ll feel a sense of loss as if all my memories might crumble.
But FRIENDS is different. The six friends in New York maintain their unchanging friendship amidst a changing world and live happily. These six, like parts of a single robot, each possess different personalities, yet when they come together, they create one organic world. Amidst the big and small events unfolding inside and outside that world, they laugh and talk together, sometimes crying in the face of trials. Like images in an old video, they age alongside me, yet their world still offers glimpses of pure hearts. Just like my childhood friends and me, that pure heart of caring for each other seems to hold everything together.
When I first watched FRIENDS, I thought how fortunate I was to have friends I could open up to like that. But over the decade I’ve rewatched this show, all the friends I loved have left my side. The childhood friends with whom I shared innocence were left behind in Neverland while I was consumed by college entrance exams, now in a place I can neither return to nor even look upon. The friends I’ve made since feel like puppets acting according to the situation. Both they and I only show each other empty shells, never truly opening up. Only after a few drinks do we slowly reveal our inner thoughts, but even that is fleeting. The next day, along with a brutal hangover, comes only endless loneliness and a sense of loss. Neither alcohol nor new encounters can fill my hollow heart. Trapped in this perpetual state of drifting, I’m too busy handling immediate tasks to see what lies ahead.
But is this truly only my friends’ fault? Perhaps it’s because of FRIENDS that I’m trapped in the shackles of the ‘true friend’ concept, unable to break free. Those friends who once made my past shine have surely changed now. They too grew up in similar circumstances, and in their memories, I’m probably just a guy with a beard, worrying about money and making ends meet. The passion of my twenties left me before even a few years had passed, and all that remains now is a heart full of anxiety.
Sadly, the path forward for me seems less about chasing past ideals while trapped in Peter Pan’s utopia, and more about accepting and adapting to the present as it is. I must break free from the shackles of the past, adapt to my current relationships, and learn to enjoy them. I must leave FRIENDS and childhood friends in the realm of memories and continue my own journey. Breaking free from the past and becoming an adult—that is the path I must take. I cannot be Peter Pan. I must shed the childish heart of my youth. Yet, the lingering attachment I feel when I see my past friends and the six friends from FRIENDS—isn’t that because, ultimately, I am human too, longing for memories and wanting to savor them even now?
