Day 3: Favorite TV Show

When I watched this show I was instantly taken by the fact that, unlike most of the shows during its time, it doesn't sugar coat or glance over any of the life choices made by any of the main characters. The ever present conflict between one of the main characters, Lindsay, and her reinvention of herself from superstar academia and all around model student to a grunge wearing teenager that hangs around with the freaks/slackers is not only relateable to each of us but engaging. We can all find a little part of Lindsay within ourselves. The disapproval from her parents, the pressure from her school to remain on top, and the need to be anything but who she is expected to be is the very heart of the teenager's struggle that we can all reach into and understand through our own adolescent experiences.

The reoccurring theme of trying to fit in somewhere unfamiliar was where I settled into my own with this series. I honestly and openly understood the need for Lindsay to reinvent herself as a teenager to try and find a different place then where she had always stood firmly on the ground. It is a little embarrassing to say, but there are absolutely no pictures of me from my early high school days and for many of the same reasons as the main character. My parents had a very worried disapproval of me going from a girl who was an extroverted person who hung out with the semi-popular crowd to a person who was now quietly foreign in her black clothes and "freak" friends. At the time I thought, like all teenage reinvention phases, it was worth the struggle if it meant me being someone else and having a definite place. I didn't know where I was going but, like Lindsay, I just wanted to go with the moment and forget myself in the novelty of the new ground I was standing on.

Like all the main characters, even though we are blindly striving for something else we always find that balance between who we want to be and who we are. The series slowly shows us that the path to this, like real life, is never ever remotely easy or worth it. Being who you are is the only thing that you can ever truly be.