Living the Central Perk Life...


Life isn't like being at Central Perk. If that were my life, I wouldn't be sitting alone at Starbucks sipping my non-fat hot chocolate and typing on my laptop, feeling all alone in the world. The chair wouldn't be stiff, wooden, and hard. I'd be on a plush, chocolate brown sofa surrounded by my best friends. Instead they are thousands of miles away on missions, living in other cities, newly married, or trying to figure out their own lives and if there's room for me in them. In so many ways, so close and yet so far.

Amy, Sarah, and I spent our three years of college together watching all 10 seasons of Friends. Over the years we've reenacted many of the episodes, some by choice, others not so much. The one where Ross buys a couch and it's a disaster, well...I bought a crappy couch that smelled so bad it made Amy and I sick. We almost threw it off the balcony which would have produced about the same effect as Ross's apartment tenants trampling his sofa. The complicated relationship of Ross and Rachel...the whole falling for your best friend's good friend (not brother in my case but close enough)...yep, I've lived that too. Still trying to figure that all out, and let me tell ya, in real life that scenario is just as, if not more so, complicated than it is on TV. The one with Monica's boots that she LOVES but kill her feet...Sarah knows what that's all about.

We've all embodied the varying personality traits of our favorite friends. Although, thankfully, with us good Mormons, sex has never complicated our friendships, loves, or life equations.

Extensively organized and immaculately clean aka Monica...that's darling Amy. Joey, player with a soft side, that's Josh-ua. Completely outspoken and quirky aka Phoebe...Emiline! Chandler, hilariously funny who has a hard time being serious but still feels deeply, that's Chris. Ross, kinda quiet but pretty smart with funny, endearing quirks...Chadly. Overly emotional but she can't help it aka Rachel...me.

See I had the Central Perk life once, for a brief passing time. Although it wasn't in a coffee shop in New York City and it most definitely wasn't on a plush, sofa the color of milk chocolate. It was in a little apartment in Logan, UT on a 70s orange, flower-print nightmare of a sofa.

Those days are gone now. I won't ever get them back, but I'm grateful I had them at all. I never thought I would have a group of friends who would do things together and who I could love and they would love me back. Some people grow up with friends they've known forever and who they experience tons of life's adventures with year in and year out. I've never had that. I didn't have real friends until college. So while life has changed yet once again, and my dear friends and I seem to be forever apart, I take comfort in the knowledge that for however brief, I lived the Central Perk life.

Seasons and series may end, but I have a store of real-life episodes in my cache of memories that will last a lifetime.

2 comments:

jjfid said...

<3 <3 <3

Krissy Wagoner said...

Oh I totally loved that!!! I'm pretty jealous, haven't had something like that yet!