A Thank You Letter to the Girls
I always tell therapists The Golden Girls got me through high school. Where I grew up in a mostly-conservative slice of suburbia, there wasn’t a lot of space for my queerness. Add to that an all-male Catholic high school where “homo” and “faggot” were daily hurled and it’s no wonder I used to spend my lunch hour alone under the stairs in one of the back buildings. But whatever happened during any one of those days: I assured myself everything would be okay because at five o’clock I would be home spending time with my girls. It was there on television, with four women in their 50s, 60s, and 80s, where at last I found my people. For one hour each evening with two back-to-back episodes on Lifetime, I could watch these women talk openly and freely about sex and men and throw loving shade at each other across their kitchen table. And through the power of TV, I could pull up a chair to that table. I could be right there betwixt them on the wicker couch, saunter off with them down the hallway, or blow off steam in each of their beautifully distinct Floridian bedrooms. And yes queen, I could hang out on that fabulous lanai—perfect for cookouts, confessions, midnight parties, hot dates, and tense receptions. It was a safe, albeit imaginary, place where I could finally be myself among friends.
Dorothy was my favorite—the patrician figure with her oak-barreled voice who served as a water level for the household. Then the favor swayed to Blanche with her fuss and fierceness, flitting and preening like a sequined bird of paradise. Later it landed on Rose—the innocent, feet-in-the-dirt ex-farm girl who believed there was a little man in the refrigerator who turned the light on and off. Then just as soon it shot to Sophia—the critical, cutting matriarch with her tough-tongued love and “picture it” stories. In the end though, I had to give up the game of favorites and decide it was all of them together. They were four corners of a table and I cherished the gold in each girl, how their particular blend of sarcasm, horniness, wise-ass, and naïveté always made for a great cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake. In fact, if ever I go on a trip or nab an acting gig out of town I usually take along a couple seasons on DVDs. Sometimes it’s easier to fall asleep in a strange bed hearing them gossip, giggle, or give each other the what for.
Without knowing it back then in high school, what originally attracted me to that home on 6151 Richmond Street was that, like me, those four women were somewhat outcasts too. They were divorced, or widowed, some of their family didn’t speak to them, some were discriminated against because of their age, made to feel less than, or not enough. What made them strong however was the family they created in each other. I must have sensed that my life would be held together by similar friendships. And because of that they became very real for me. They resonated in my chest cavity, as my boyfriend says. I studied their home as if it were my own, everything from the funny exclamation point carved in their front door to how a background mug was usually sitting in the refrigerator’s ice dispenser. Without actual friends, I discussed their episodic shenanigans at our family’s dinner table as if they were current events. When Rose was in the hospital, I prayed along with the other three. When the heat went out during a freak cold front, I curled up right alongside them under Sophia’s electric blanket. And when Dorothy [SPOILER ALERT!] left the house to be with Blanche’s uncle in the end, I huddled with the remaining three (and cry to this day).
I wasn’t crazy. I needed friends. And The Golden Girls were mine. Traveling down the road and back again with those ladies over the years indeed gave me the biggest gift: that friendship is the family we choose. They will always be part of my chosen family—so Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia—thank you for being a friend.