I couldn’t stay awake during last week’s episode of This is Us. That is unusual for me and my current favorite television show. Abby and I had been up late the night before, at the So You Think You Can Dance Live! 2018 Chicago tour stop, followed by stage dooring.
As I dosed off and woke up periodically throughout the show, Bob would laugh at me trying to make sense of what was happening. I kept meaning to watch it again, on my own, while fully awake, and finally got to it today, whole folding laundry.
SPOILER ALERT: If you watch This is Us and haven’t seen the most recent (October 30, 2018) episode, you may want to stop reading until you remedy that.
As with most This is Us episodes, there were many things that touched me and/or I could relate to in this one. There was also an analogy that spoke to me, it was shared during a scene when adult siblings, Kevin and Randall, were talking about why certain things make them curious and lead them to want to learn more and sometimes take action, based on what they find out.
Kevin asked Randall if he recalled a time when they were peeling wallpaper as kids, in their childhood home, wondering if there would be something interesting behind it. They ended up finding wood paneling. Randall did remember and that they got in trouble for doing it. He also appreciated the point his brother was making, that, even as adults, sometimes we get curious and want to explore things related the past, having the benefit of our present day perspective.
One of Randall’s “wallpaper peeling” storylines on the show began with him finding his birth father, William, during the first season. Eventually Randall and his wife, Beth, bought the apartment building where William had lived (before he died of cancer). Now Randall is running to represent the neighborhood, where the building is located, on the city council.
Kevin’s current “wallpaper peeling” storyline deals with him want to learn more about their dad’s experience in Vietnam, something Jack didn’t talk much about when they were kids, before he died (when they were teenagers).
Recently we discovered that one of our kids, it turned out to be our daughter, had been peeling paint off the wall in their bathroom. We didn’t get too upset, as we’re planning to repaint it soon anyway. I thought of that incident immediately, while watching this episode. I appreciate how curious Abby is, especially when she started peeling off the white paint and found green underneath it.
There have been many times throughout my life that I have done some “wallpaper peeling.” Most recently, processing and grieving the death of an old friend led me to revisiting, and eventually sharing, my journal entries from my London Semester Abroad, during the spring semester of junior year of college, here on my blog.
I didn’t initially intend to add my current perspective to every entry I share, but started adding “Note from Present Day Kathy” with my first post and kept going from there. It has become the most interesting part of the experience for me, navigating how my reflecting is relevant to me at 43.
Hearing the character Kevin, on This is Us, make the analogy of why he feels compelled to learn everything he can about his father’s experience in Vietnam, to why Randall and he couldn’t help themselves from peeling wallpaper in their childhood home, helped me validate why I felt drawn to dive into my London Semester Journals and what they mean to me 22 years later.
I have certainly grown and matured a lot since I was 21, studying and traveling across the pond for four months in 1996. That said, I continue to be fascinated by what my younger self is teaching, or more so reminding, middle-aged me about life and relationships.
Have you done any “wallpaper peeling” lately?
If so, what has the experience revealed to you?
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