Friends

I finished watching Friends tonight. Season 10, episode 17. Nostalgic.

I wonder if the title seemed dumb when it first came out: Friends? But it's provided the possiblity for fun comments. "I bought more Friends today!" "My Friends are in your car?" hehe.

I liked seeing Rachel grow up from a ditzy Daddy's girl who can't do laundry and can barely hold down a coffee shop job to a strong confident woman at the top of the fashion industry. Because Joey was typically so shallow, I loved the times when we got to see depth and kindness in him - like when he proposes to Phoebe (and then Rachel) when he discovers she's pregnant. I liked seeing Monica & Chandler's marriage and how they both have freedom to be themselves within the relationship. I like the episodes that a friend previewed for me. "Haven't you read Flowers for Algernon?" "Oh de feuf!"

I've been watching the Friends DVD sets over the past ten months. It's been nice to have something to come home to this year after work or school. But as I've gotten to the last few seasons and I've noticed this appreciation, I've realized that when my involvement in their lives is over I'd have to focus on my own life.

I think that for them it was all built on proximity. If they all lived far apart it would have been much different. They never phone each other to make plans for the next week - they just walk across the hall into each other's apartments, or down the street to the coffee shop where they know someone will be hanging out (and where they never get accused of loitering or asked to leave). My life's not like that. And I don't know if it could be like that. My friends are not my neighbours. I don't have common areas, and I feel awkward about dropping by and making myself at home at someone else's place. I don't really tend to make the sort of friendships where we spend all our time together. My friends come from a variety of groups, and I like time alone. As I've come to recognize that, I've come to realize that's okay. I think.

It's not real. The roommates almost never fight. Feelings rarely get hurt. Rachel's life hardly changes after she becomes a mother. They never miss things because they have to work.

Still, they're more than just friends. They're family. They spend Thanksgiving together; they attend each other's parents' anniversary parties and family funerals. They drop by for breakfast and they take each other to the hospital.

I had a conversation with a friend last night where we said that we kinda feel like our little group is family. We've made it through seven years of friendship, and as we look far into the future we see holiday visits and brother-in-law-esque relationships with each other's husbands. But... will it actually turn out that way? Already it's more of a long-distance-family feel than a daily-family kind of thing. Will we stay close and grow closer, or will we drift apart? Are we... family?

Even for them it doesn't last. Monica and Chandler move to the suburbs, changing everything. (I hope I didn't ruin that for anyone.) Friends leave. The end. Although... in real life it's not the end when friends leave - but neither is it the same, and neither is it better.

My real-life community won't be like this fictional one. But they inspire me to ask the question: Is mine enough?