Tonight I walked into the family den to find my father watching Jerry Maguire on the flatscreen. "Oh! I love this mov--" I started before noticing that he was gazing intently at his phone. I realized the tinny acoustics in the room were not the sounds of Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger, but upon closer inspection something rather peculiar for a respectable businessman to be watching on a Sunday night. "Wait, what are you watching there?" I asked.
A dowdy, rosy face appeared on the handheld screen.
"I'm watching Susan Boyle!" my father chirped (as if it was an obvious assumption). "Have you seen it all the way through?"
"Um... yes?" I wondered if maybe, during this whole summer of transitional living, I'd unknowingly time travelled back to 2009. It certainly feels that way most days when I wake up in my high school bed, eat my standard high school lunch (PB&J ftw), and generally generate as much--if not more--angst as my seventeen year old self.
Had my lifestyle become so akin to that of eleventh grade that I was now reliving 2009, right down to the viral video hits?
"I watch it from time to time. It's very inspirational," my father mused.
And with that my existential crisis dissipated. In its place, uncontrollable laughter.
Because sometimes, even when you grow weary of living at home, miss all of your friends, and ceaselessly wonder whether you will EVER be gainfully employed, you must remember the Susan Boyles of the world. Those who overcome all adversity and demand to be cultural phenomenons in their own right.
You must also remember that there are high-powered, seemingly stoic men who occasionally watch silly viral videos on Sunday nights to feel hope, inspiration, and empowerment for the grueling week ahead.
(And if anything, I'm certainly collecting enough stories to compile into a memoir.)
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