The Office brings me light on dark days

I’m a very fortunate person. I’m married to a clever, funny, beautiful woman. We have two uncharacteristically well-behaved children. I have a remarkable group of friends.

I’ve been teaching elementary school for 21 years in the same great school, and in the same classroom for almost all of that time. I’ve also been fortunate enough to launch a successful writing and performing career.

My dreams have truly come true.

I might be the luckiest person I know Having once been poor, homeless, and jailed, I try to cherish every day.

Still, there are days when life does not cooperate.

My dog passes away. My garage roof leaks. My friend is diagnosed with cancer. My former boss turns out to be a sexual harassing scumbag. Some punk at school bullies my daughter. The Patriots lose a playoff game. My son discovers the Power Rangers. A highly contagious virus spreads around the world, unchecked by an incompetent President who ignores intelligence assessments and calls it a hoax.

On those days, I sometimes turn to the television show The Office, not for entertainment, but for the comfort of friends.

I love The Office because I love the people of The Office. Not the actors who play those characters, and not the characters themselves, because they ceased being characters to me a long time ago. I know on some basic, cognitive level that Dwight is Rainn Wilsom and Pam is Jenna Fischer and Creed is Creed, but in my heart and in that place in my mind where suspension of disbelief reigns supreme, these are real people.

Honest to goodness human beings, and I love every one of them.

When The Office was first airing on television, I lived and died by the machinations of Jim and Pam’s romance, perhaps because at the time, I also had a crush on a woman at work who was also engaged to another man. I connected with Jim as deeply as I’ve ever connected with another human being. Watching him fight for the love of Pam was like watching echoes of the fight I waged for the woman I love. 

Happily, love won. Jim and Pam were married.

I won, too. Like Jim, I got the girl.

On those very rare mornings when I rise and can’t find the spark that so often infuses my heart, I turn to YouTube and watch Jim and Pam get married again, and it makes every day brighter.

I have watched that wedding ceremony no less than 100 times. I have noticed the infinitesimal details in that sequence that can only be seen after more than 100 viewings:

The glasses-wearing man sitting in on the groom’s side of the pews, enjoying the proceedings more than anyone in the church.

Who is that man? I love that man.   

The cars passing by the church during the musical sequence, leading me to wonder if the producers purposefully placed this traffic or if honest-to-goodness folks were driving past the church while you filmed?

The Canadian flag flying on the Maid of the Mist, leading me to wonder if Jim and Pam were married in Canada or the US, and if Canada, did they obtain a Canadian marriage license?

Probably not.

If it’s an especially bad day, I might instead turn to the cold open lip dub or a YouTube clip of Jim’s greatest pranks or the scene at the end of the series that simultaneously broke my heart and made it soar.  

Spending a little time with these people so often turns my day around.

Since watching the show as it aired live, I’ve watched it from beginning to end many more times. Last year I discovered the deleted scenes on YouTube and watched them in order, relishing in new, partial seasons of The Office.

More time with my friends.

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey now have the Office Ladies podcast, and as they discuss each episode, I’m re-watching it again, following along as they do.

I’ll suspect always be watching The Office in one way or another. When my kids are old enough, I’ll watch it with them, too. Constantly moving toward that final episode, and those final moments, when the people I love say the things I love most.

Creed, speaking to the young man in me who was once homeless and wondering if he’d ever have another roof over his head:

“No matter how you get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home.”

I hope that Creed knows much truth is contained in those simple words.

Jim, speaking to the storyteller and relentless chronicler of life that I have become:

“Imagine going back and watching a tape of your life. You could see yourself change and make mistakes…and grow up. You could watch yourself fall in love, watch yourself become a husband, become a father. You guys gave that to me. And that’s…an amazing gift.”

I try to give myself this gift every single day.

Then there is Andy, speaking to my heart, making me think about my mom, who passed away far too young, and my daughter, now eleven, whose diapers I once changed at the end of the table from where I write these words. Reminding me of the people with whom I once shared a workplace – Jeff, Tom, Plato, Rob, Amy, Andy, Donna, Elysha, and so many more – all moving onto bigger, brighter things, leaving me behind:

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

My Office friends make me cry every time I watch this final episode. I miss my friends. I miss knowing what is happening in their lives today.

The Office makes me laugh every day, but laughter is cheap. It’s fleeting and not so hard. Tenuous at best. These funny, beautiful, crazy, wonderful people live in my heart and mind. The show is brilliant because it is populated by real people living real lives and allowing me to step into their lives from time to time.  

Honestly, I don’t even need to watch The Office anymore to find the joy that they offer. Just thinking about Jim or Pam or Dwight is enough to make me smile.