racoma.netI love to write. I write to live. I live to love.

After seven years of marriage, my wife and I have discovered a common passion, which is television. We find ourselves excitedly waiting for new episodes of our favorite shows to air. Sometimes we download them and watch series in marathon.

Maybe we’re just too busy with our everyday lives that we have no recourse but to be couch potatoes. Or maybe we just like the medium so much because of its convenience. And yet I think it’s deeper than that.

We’re not really TV persons. We barely have enough time to sleep or have time for ourselves, and spending time just sitting and watching is a luxury we can’t always just give in to. Heck, we can’t even watch the evening news in its entirety. But, perhaps, due to that fact, we’re consciously trying to use that downtime to spend quality minutes with each other. TV shows usually last for 43 or so minutes (sans the commercials), and so why not spend those 43 minutes of togetherness?

Add to that the fact that most of the shows that we grow a liking to are those with which we can relate, to some extent. Lately, our interest has been in this series called Life Unexpected. It’s not the most popular of shows, and it’s somewhere near the bottom of the US popularity/ratings ladder (considering the top 140 shows). But the series has a solid fan-base consisting of people who can relate to the show. It’s a story about family, albeit a quirky and unconventional one. It’s a story about loving in the face of difficulty, and understanding in the face of fear.

It’s not so much a drama as it is a lighthearted show. I find myself laughing out loud at the situations the characters are in, although online reviews elsewhere would also write about tearjerker moments. Truth is, being a young father, and having experienced dreadful losses in my family at this age, I have come to appreciate and relate to programs like this. It’s one of those shows where characters can be both the good guy and the antagonist. It’s one of those shows where you see how life can just drop a bomb on one character, who has to learn to deal with things. Yes, just like the rest of us.

I often tell my wife how I admire people who create and write good and watch-worthy TV series. As a struggling writer, one of my dreams is to write or create a concept that would eventually be produced as a pilot and then picked up by networks. It’s a far fetched dream, I know. But, I’ve read about someone who has gone that path and is now producing a show now in its second season. That person advises: just keep on writing.

And that’s just what I’ll do–along with watching, that is.