Sometimes, I will blog often. Though each entry takes me hours because I need for it to be perfect, I will occasionally tackle the challenge more than once a week if I’m in crisis or if I really need to say something. Today, both are true.
I just finished watching the television show, Mad Men. It first came out in 2007, and it was the stunning Jon Hamm’s breakout role. He was an advertising executive, and the show’s 7 seasons plunge you into the hedonistic, overindulgent, and, quite frankly, unrestrained world of advertising in the 60s. Excessive smoking, drinking, infidelity, and backstabbing (which, coincidentally, is probably also what Jay told the kids is the name of my autobiography), were all over every episode, and I won’t even begin to touch on how the show embodied the message that women should make dinner, look pretty, schedule appointments, and rarely think.
I have to say that this show was riveting. Dark yet funny, aggravating yet auspicious, realistic yet unlikely, and sexy yet repugnant, all 92 episodes, at some point, left me feeling sad, envious, unfulfilled, energized, defeated, frightened, stirred, galvanized, hopeful. The writers and the actors certainly did their jobs effectively, as one can argue for days about who, in fact, realized and reached their happy ending.
What, actually, is a happy ending? Once upon a time, it was the name of an ice cream sundae that one could get at Friendly’s. It was small, but it did the job of topping off that Fishamajig or SuperMelt with something yummy. A happy ending is also what some people get at the end of a massage, where the masseuse brings you to orgasm after putting you in a relaxed state of bliss. (Did you think every blog would be PG)? A happy ending is what we’re used to and hoping to read about in fairy tales, especially since the heroine has usually gone through the tortures of the damned before she can even think about her happy ending.
My happy ending will have the 3 who matter most, their spouses, and my grandchildren (who probably won’t be babies anymore). I, woefully, will have missed out on the “I’m pregnant!” announcements, the pregnancies, the births, the “What do I do, Mom?” and the “Did this happen to you, Mom?” The delicious scent of a newborn mixed with the intoxicating combination of Dreft, Desitin, and Johnson and Johnson Baby Shampoo will have to be a memory I pull from storage, when the 3 who matter most were small. I won’t get to play my famous “Oh, I Don’t Think So” game that elicits such giggles and squeals of joy, and the indentations on the chubby little wrists and ankles will probably have filled in.
Maybe, however, if I’m lucky, I’ll still get to give my renowned foot rides, attend sporting events, dance recitals, and school plays, cook my medicinal and traditional matzo ball soup, and embrace my religion again. Just as my 6th grade students share their weekend plans during our five-minute, end of the week, “Gibbering with Jaffe” sessions, perhaps my grandkids will tell their teacher that they’re having a sleepover at Grandma’s or that Grandma is picking them up from school to go to a Sabrina Carpenter concert. And maybe, just maybe, that Grandma will be me.