Being Erica Season 1: Living in the Past
The moral case for understanding why you're trapped in the past.
Most of us remember the things we did in the past.
It's one of the down sides of having a memory. We can think about what we did and wonder if something better would've happened if only we'd made different choices. How would our lives have turned out if we'd said yes to the date we really wanted to go on but were too nervous to say yes to. Or gone to that job interview and gotten the job rather than staying home because it felt too big for you. It could even be as simple as saying something different in the moment and feeling like you stood up for yourself when in reality you didn't. These moments feel important to us. Sometimes they can feel like turning points in our lives where things can and did go wrong.
Part of us wants to believe that these moments define our lives. They make us who we are which isn't who we wanted to be. We wish that our lives had turned out differently, which we think of as inherently better. It's hard not to obsess over what could've been. But part of the reason we think that is because we didn't make those other decisions. We made the ones we did. If we made different choices, we might think that the ones we did in fact make were the wrong ones. So you don't ever really have a way to get out of it. In large part because we can't go back and change our decisions. We can't actually see how making other choices would affect us.
Which leaves us with only really two options, either continue to think about what happened in the past or to let it go. Actually doing this is much harder than it seems. Our past is always with us. Every moment that passes is another chance to look back and think about the choice you made. It can feel easier to just live in the past and think endlessly about how your life went wrong. There's a comfortable feeling in thinking back. After all, you can't change it so you don't have to worry about what's happening now or how your current choices affected you. But is that actually better?
Previously in this space, we've looked at concepts of regret and the way in which it's important to try and make up for past decisions. How people can look back on their lives when they've done terrible things. Wanting to do something that makes either us or the people around us feel better. These are all worthy goals but there are some things you can't make up for. It doesn't have to be the kind of thing where you actually killed or hurt someone physically. Maybe it was just a relationship that ended because you didn't make the right decision. Where does that leave you though? With endless regrets and serving other people's needs more than your own. Or it can if you don't let go of these painful events and move forward. How do you do that? What happens when you wake up and you know that your life has gone wrong?
“You know that friend you have? The girl who seems to have it all figured out? She's got the great job, the great guy, the great life... well, I'm not that girl. My name is Erica Strange, I'm 32, still working a dead end job, still sleeping with my cats. I know people wonder why the cute girl with the great education and the great friends can't get it together. There's a simple answer... bad decisions. I could teach a course on messing up your life, really I am that good at getting everything wrong. The worst part is it wasn't always like this. I used to be a rising star but these days? I just feel like a flame out.”
Erica Strange is the kind of person who can't stop thinking about the past. She's made so many decisions that she feels were the wrong ones. Enough that when we meet her in the beginning of the story, she has so much trouble thinking of anything else. Her life hasn't turned out the way she wanted to in any way. Despite having accomplished a solid amount, including having a university education in literature, she is caught up in what could've been. To the point that the only job she can get and maintain is a job at a call centre selling insurance. Although it's a solid job, she feels as though if only she had made better decisions, she could've had so much more.
Thinking like this often begins when you're a kid. That first time you do something you think is going to be the right thing. Yet it doesn't necessarily work out that way. It can be when you defy your parents for the first time, or when you have the opportunity to do so and you choose not to. If you don't do it and those you were going to spend time with have a great time, you regret not going and wonder what it would be like to go when you weren't supposed to. Or you can choose to go and when your parents find out, they punish you for it. Maybe you had a good experience at the time, but it could send you down a path you didn't want to go. Something that when you get older, you think about as a mistake. You couldn't have known that at the time, but in looking back, it's hard to see it as anything but a bad decision.
“The egg. Perfection, both in function and in form. It has a double arch, top and bottom. It's what makes an egg so incredibly strong. But the minute that we begin to chip away at its integrity, the egg collapses in on itself until, in the end, we're left with only... breakfast. It's still an egg, but it's not the same.”
These decisions don't have to be the big ones where you go to jail and become a criminal or take drugs and become a drug addict. But the more experiences you have, the more opportunity you have for regrets. The person you had sex with for the first time, or the person you wanted to lose your virginity to but didn't. All of it impacts your future, but you don't know that when you're doing it. Only later in life does it become a problem. If only you could go back and change them, make them better in some way. But you can't, and even if you could, there's no guarantee that you will end up in a better place.
Erica actually has the opportunity to change her past. She's given this through meeting Dr Tom and the therapy he provides to her involves reliving past events and trying to change what happened. To fix the past mistakes which are haunting her. Yet one of the things she learns is that her life doesn't necessarily become better. She can make minor changes to the decisions she makes, but ultimately something else will come along and cause more problems. It's only by accepting that she can't necessarily fix all her problems by changing the past that she learns what to do with these opportunities. Mainly, treat them as learning experiences rather than mistakes.
“Have you ever had a feeling that's like an uwelcome guest. It invades your mind and no matter how hard you deny, misdirect or avoid it you just can't make it go away. You tell yourself you can control it but the truth is, it's never that easy. Deciding not to do something? No problem. But deciding not to feel something? Whole other ballgame.”
Which isn't to say that the past is entirely a bad thing. Having a history with someone has all kinds of benefits too. People like Judith and Jenny have a long and complicated history with Erica and that's a great thing. They know each other so well and care enough to show up for each other at the worst moments if they have to. But also to cheer one another up when they need to. A history is something that helps in many different ways. Especially when Erica has to go back and wants someone to rely on. It allows Erica to see how much she and her friends have changed over the years. Compare herself to who she used to be. Maybe even use these to repair problems in their current relationships.
It's not just Erica who is living in the past. Her friends and family are doing the same, both literally and figuratively in many cases. Obviously, in travelling back to the past, Erica is seeing people she may have lost contact with in the years since these moments she's reliving. People who either moved away after high school or college, like Katie or Ethan and Claire. This gives her a sense of time and these memories can be fairly positive. Even the bad ones have good parts to them. Katie and Erica used to be really close friends. At least until their relationship ultimately fell apart because of decisions they both made.
“They say the greatest mistake is giving up. That true strength lies in the will to keep trying. Keep hoping things will get better, keep reminding yourself of all that you've accomplished. Keep everything in perspective. Keep up the fight, because at the end of the day, that's what you're left with. The knowledge that you did your best and you'll wake up tomorrow and try again.”
On the other hand, Leo is literally living in the past. Mainly because of decisions he made that ended up getting him killed. So when Erica travels back, she can see him despite his tragic circumstances. Part of her wants to fix not only her mistakes but also the mistakes of her brother. He made so many bad decisions. Though not all of them feel like mistakes at the time.
Erica's mother Barb and her father Gary have their own regrets, not just regarding their son Leo but other people. Though obviously what makes things so difficult for them is how they treated him. In retrospect, it's difficult to get over the way you spoke to your child knowing what it ended up leading to. This gets to the point that they can't maintain their relationship with each other. Erica's parents can't be together knowing what happened to their child.
“Dear Mom and Dad, I wanted to write this to explain myself. I hate fighting with you guys and I need you to understand that the reason I'm fighting so hard is because I feel I'm stuck, like I'm treading water and I need to take a risk and try something new. It's easier to stay here in some ways where everything is familiar but then I think about how much more there could be for me if I just took the chance. I don't want to look back ten years from now and regret that I didn't follow my heart. Even though I don't know what I want to do with my life, I don't think that matters. I know the kind of person I want to be, unafraid of a challenge and willing to face whatever comes. I love you guys.”
What you need to do more than anything is to realize that your life is not a mistake. The things you did that you regret aren't good or bad. At least not in the every day sense. You might have done something you shouldn't have and it might have even hurt yourself or other people. Maybe you've changed the relationship you've had with a family member or a friend. But ultimately, there's nothing you can do about that. The only thing you can do in the end is move forward. Live with what you've done and the circumstances you've found yourself in.
In doing so, you can focus on the now, what is happening today and how it might impact your future with a thoughtful and honest perspective. Only then can you live in the present.
But we'll get to that when we examine season 2. You can also read about season 3 and season 4 will be out later this month.
You can check out Being Erica on CBC Gem in Canada as well as Hulu elsewhere and the first episode is available on YouTube.