Life on Repeat

I recently read that people who tend to watch reruns of the same shows over and over again are people who like predictability in their lives. As one who watches reruns of my favorite shows on a regular basis, I tend to believe they are right.

Netflix is the answer to my childhood dream. As a child, I remember the feeling of loss at the end of watching Bewitched, my favorite half hour sitcom. I wished there was a way I could watch it over again and again. I hated having to wait an entire week for the next episode. As a teen, I remember taping Sonny & Cher on my audio tape recorder long before VCR's were invented. Just so I could listen to what I just heard. Over and over.

As a young adult, I thought I was living the dream when I could video tape my favorite shows on TV, fast forward through commercials and rewatch the tape whenever I chose. I started collecting my own series of shows. DVD box sets of TV series were yet another dream come true. Then came Netflix and all the video streaming options that are readily available.

These days, we have anything and everything we could ever want to watch readily available, any time of the day or night, every day of the week. Remember when the TV stations shut down for the night and the standard "test pattern" was all that aired until the next morning? No music. No diversion. If anything at all, there may have been the sound of static that accompanied the pattern. Or was it a high pitched squeal? 

Oh, the creature comforts we have come to know and expect. TV on demand. 24/7. No need to wait a week until the next new episode if you happen to find a new-to-you series on any one of the streaming networks. 

 Streaming, repetitive viewing, movie or television series marathons of sedentary, mindless entertainment. Not only is anything you could ever hope to watch always "on tap", there is no lapse of memory between episodes because you just watched it a few minutes ago.

Yes, I love that I have found an oasis of predictability within this highly unpredictable world of ours. I anticipate losing myself in the world of whatever television series of the moment I happen to be watching. I am comforted by the knowledge I can watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it. If I fall asleep, I don't lose a thing. I just rewind, restart and rewatch what I missed. 

Some people smoke. Others drink. There are many drugs of choice that people lean into when the going gets rough. Me? I like to tune into wherever I last left off in Grey's Anatomy. You have no idea how excited I was to find Private Practice (Grey's Anatomy spin off series) offered on Amazon Prime...

Spin offs. My childhood dreams dared not anticipate some of my favorite characters branching off into a series of their own. 

Life just keeps getting better and better. And smaller and smaller, as I retreat into the mindless, predictable world of all my favorite TV series on repeat.

I'm living in my Field of Dreams. Over and over and over again.

P.S. I may be isolating just a tad too much. Not that there's anything wrong with that!