The Real World
Like many of us, or at least the readers around my age, I’ve been sucked back in to watching The Real World this week.
It’s not possible to watch just one of these shows. I refuse to believe it. You watch the first one and then you’re on to the next and before you know it, you’ve watched the entire first season of this now 30-season behemoth MTV created.
What a weird thing though, to see these cast members return nearly 30 years later, in the midst of a pandemic, saying where has all the time gone?
They still seem young….at least to my eyes. Thirty years ago, they gave an eighth grade me a preview of what my life could become. These seven people were all creative, all artists trying to forge their own path in this enormous city that to me back then was still a fairy tale.
Now they are like the Ghost of Christmas Future, saying here’s what your life could become if you keep going this way…oh, and there’s your gravestone.
They’re not talking in terms of, hey, how cool to meet other young artists and we get to do and say whatever we want?—”to find out what happens…when people stop being polite…and start getting real…” No, they’re talking in terms of, what if we let another 20 years go by and the next time we see each other is at our funerals? Meaning we won’t see each other at all?
I’m bewildered learning the actual location of the loft. And where it still is now—they’re filming it in the same spot. It’s a corner of the city that has always been one of my favorites.
***
When I first moved to New York, it was like this exodus. I got to feel free in a way I never had, which for me translated as coming and going as I chose and oftentimes touring NYC at all hours of the day…sometimes into the dark of night. I was a grown-up now, I could go home whenever I wanted. And it was always walking, never driving—I’d sold my car to have enough money to move there.
My favorite street to explore was Broadway and Prince, because it was like this outdoor mall but where you wouldn’t ever see anyone you know. Coming from a place as small as Delaware, this was welcome. I don’t care how long I’ve lived away from that state, you cannot take the Delaware out of the girl. The small town mentality of everyone knowing your business and everyone looking at you will always be with me, somewhere.
I didn’t know when I would get off that subway stop and step into Victoria’s Secret that I was stepping into the building that housed the Real World loft. That the famous “black/white thing” conversation between Kevin and Julie transpired at the ground level, right in front of those doors. That if I wanted to, I could stare at the spot where it happened, all while drinking coffee and eating a tuna sandwich in the window at Dean & Deluca across the street (which I’ve now learned has closed…thanks a lot, pandemic).
I didn’t know that the New York these seven strangers encouraged me to pursue would be short-lived…that my innocence and wonder in those first three months would transform when my father died that August and I would be taken to a very dark place in a very big place…and a very busy one.
Nobody on the Real World ever talked about what it is to grieve. I guess because it’s so uncommon at 22.
It’s hard for me to watch this generation of 20-somethings inevitably go through what I did, while in the prime of their lives. I say “inevitably” because I just read today that a full third of the country is currently grieving a loved one lost to Covid. That’s a lot of 20-somethings in that one-third.
Eric Nies didn’t show us how you go on enjoying your 20s after losing a parent in a blink of an eye, with no warning. I had to learn how to do that by myself.
I regret now, now that I’m close to 43 and truly in the prime of my life…like for real, this time…that the person I am, one who is so open and joyful and generous and giving…that it required this much pain to get here. I regret that there was a time when I couldn’t let myself be happy, when I assumed this grief would always define me, as though it was some badge of honor I wore. This happened to me at the very same time when you are supposed to be making your dumbest mistakes.
But I guess what I understand now is that age is nothing but a number.
I am writing a book about these experiences. I am writing about how to live a good life. I am writing about how I reconnected with my dad when I got married, how I chose to take the path he didn’t. And how it has made all the difference. How I learned to find understanding and forgiveness for him and therefore now, finally, for myself.
And how by doing all of that, I’ve opened myself up all the more to let love and happiness in.
***
I wish that 25-year-old me wandering down Prince Street could have known, sometimes…I wish she could have known all that was to come. What she’d have to face. That life was going to be so much more than how many hours can I spend in Sephora before I miss my train back to Jackson Heights? How can I stretch out this $50 I have left in my bank account with no job and no future paychecks to speak of? How can I make the right decisions in love and friendship and life? How can I choose the right career for me?
I wish I could tell her, you will figure it all out. And the fact that you’ve been brave enough to be here, to be right where you are, alone, that you can learn how to enjoy yourself so much, alone…well, my friend, that’s a hell of a good start.