When I heard the news that the main stars of ‘The Facts of Life’ were reuniting for a Lifetime holiday movie, I thought that this might be the first and only thing that could get me to watch a Lifetime movie. I grew up on ‘The Facts of Life’ despite my parents’ best intentions to stop us from watching it (they didn’t appreciate the sarcasm that bled into our voices after we watched an episode) but I didn’t enjoy the wisecracks as much as I did the idea of a group of friends that became each other’s family. My heart longed to belong like that, to forge my own tribe of misfits. As much I wanted to be Blair, I wanted to find my own Jo – the person who became an unlikely but inevitable friend for life.
Looking back on my friends, I consider myself lucky for having found a few Jo-figures over the years. Suzie, Skip, Missy, Chris and to a large extent Andy – they are all completely different from me in major ways, and on paper our personalities wouldn’t obviously blend. But life is not about finding those who are exactly like us – most of my favorite people have those traits I lack and/or desire. They fulfill a need to make myself better, even if it’s just by proximity and the rubbing off of their goodness onto my flaws.
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