How ordinary moments, background noise, and old memories reveal what we didn’t realize we were living. And how the ordinary parts of life become the things we miss most.

When Everything Felt Shared

I’m one of those people who turn on Pluto TV and watch Three’s Company without thinking twice. The Golden Girls is permanently waiting in my “continue watching” queue on Hulu. And on nights when I really need to wind down, I’ll go hunting for old episodes of The Facts of Life or My Two Dads on YouTube. Anything to find that familiar, easy rhythm that feels like it belongs to another time.

I used to think I was crazy. I’m sure some people still do. Why on earth would I be watching tv shows I’ve seen a million times with familiar plot lines and leading actors from an entirely different era? I mean, didn’t Netflix just drop that new true crime docuseries that everyone’s talking about? I should have plenty of new options to choose from with the plethora of streaming services waiting impatiently for me on my Apple TV…right?

The Algorithm of Memory

Some nights when I’m feeling especially weird, the algorithm does this thing where it just hands me old clips of The Johnny Carson Show or The Dick Cavett Show. Things I wasn’t really searching for, but end up watching anyway.

The Comment That Stopped Me

On one particular night, as I settled in to listen to Johnny interview Audrey Hepburn in 1976, I read a comment that stopped me mid-scroll. My heart fluttered. A pang of something settled in my chest. Something like sadness, but not quite. It was heavier. More like recognition. That dull ache that something isn’t right, paired with that uncomfortable sense that somehow everything is exactly as it should be.

Two years prior, a user named @pickenit had watched this very same video and put into words something I had felt many times before but was never able to fully articulate or understand.

I'm 57, when I have a hard time sleeping, I put my iPad next to my head and listen to Johnny Carson reruns. Reminds me of when I was a kid laying in bed listening to my mom and dad laughing at Johnny in the other room....I sleep like a baby..

I read it more than once. Then I checked the comment again, almost convinced I must have written it myself in some half-remembered dream.

And then it hit me.

What if there are more of us than I ever realized?

I always assumed the worst about myself.

That there was something slightly off about the fact that I held onto these old shows so tightly. That maybe I was just clinging to the past in a way that didn’t quite make sense anymore. Romanticizing “the old days” in a way people are often quick to dismiss.

But after reading that comment, something changed.

What We Were Really Looking For

I realized I wasn’t just holding onto the past.

I was reaching for a feeling. One that used to exist so naturally in my life when everything felt shared, familiar, and full of possibility. A feeling that doesn’t show up in quite the same way anymore.

I wasn’t really yearning for old, campy episodes of Full House.

I was missing Friday nights when it played in the background while we ate pizza, my brother and I building race tracks across the basement floor, playing Nerf ping pong, and laughing without thinking too hard about anything at all.

Full House was just what was on.

Uncle Jesse saying “Have mercy,” Michelle giving her thumbs-up and “You got it, dude!” was all part of the noise of a night that felt simple in a way I didn’t even know I was going to miss someday.

Much like @pickenit was reliving their memories of safety, security, and simplicity, I too, was searching for the same. And somehow, I don’t feel bad about it anymore.

In adulthood, things sometimes get muted. Not because the feelings are gone, but because there’s so much else competing for our attention that we fail to recognize the significance of the moments we’re currently in. Maybe sometimes we long for the past because we can only fully understand the weight of a moment once we’re no longer inside it.

Background Noise and Real Life

And it’s not just TV shows. Music, pop culture, even the small everyday things that once filled the background of our lives without us paying attention to them.

We don’t usually miss them in the moment. But when we stumble across them years later unexpectedly, we’re flooded with memories and feelings we didn’t even know were still there. And sometimes the people or places tied to them are gone, or they’ve changed….or maybe we have…and all we’re left with is a feeling we don’t really know what to do with.

Being an adult is strange on so many levels. It’s something we spend our entire childhoods chasing, sold on the promise of freedom and endless possibility. And yet, once we get here, we can’t seem to stop looking back.

And maybe that’s what it is for me.

The Moments We Didn’t Notice

The smell of sunscreen on warm afternoons, suddenly pulling me back to long summer days at the pool with my cousins, time stretching in a way it doesn’t anymore.

The sound of game shows in the background, bringing me right back to my grandma’s living room, where Card Sharks, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy played like a steady, familiar soundtrack to her day.

Sitting with my dad, watching The Patty Duke Show and My Three Sons, not because I chose them but because that’s just what was on, and somehow that made it enough.

None of it felt important at the time.

But now I see it differently.

Those weren’t just background moments.

They were the feeling.

What We Pass On Without Knowing It

Perhaps without even realizing it, I’m creating those same kinds of moments now.

The ones my kids will look back on someday. The background noise, the routines, the small, ordinary nights that don’t seem like much while they’re happening.

The ones they won’t notice at the time, but might miss later.

@pickenit described a universal truth that I hadn’t even realized I was searching for. Not the corny TV shows, not the old Bob Dylan records stacked neatly in my console, but the feeling those things used to hold without me even noticing.

The feelings of safety, security, and sustenance.

And maybe adulthood isn’t the absence of that feeling at all.

Maybe it’s just learning how to notice it again.