The other night, I watched the 20th anniversary special of a show I used to watch when I was in high school. Ten minutes into the special, I suddenly laughed and said, “I feel old.” 20 years, how fast time flies!

I was living in Austin, Texas at the time and remember excitingly waiting at the gate of the apartment complex each weekend for my step-grandmother to drive up so we could exchange paper gift bags full of VHS tapes. She would hand me new tapes she’d made for me that week while I would hand her the tapes I finished and rewound. These tapes would be my entertainment for the next week as it was full of TV programs I had asked her to record for me.

After my step-father, mom, and I moved to Texas from California, money became extremely tight as my mom had to take on multiple job to make due while my step-dad seemed to had begun spiraling. They couldn’t go through a day without arguing. With the budget so tight, there was no room for things like cable TV and I knew it would be wrong to ask for such a thing. Thankfully, we weren’t alone. My step-dad’s family were nearby and they helped out quite a bit.

I was very lucky to had been gifted a TV with a VCR by my aunt and it was placed in my room. The only thing I could watch with this TV was VHS tapes. Back then, the TV guide and the VCR were my friends because otherwise, I would’ve had to face the sad reality of having to listen to my parents fight almost every minute of every day.

Each week, I would hop online to see the week’s TV listing and then email my step-grandmother the list of times and channels to set the VCR. Then, there would be 2 batches of VHS tapes and it would rotate every other week.

This went on for 2 years, until my mom and I moved to Salt Lake City, and then I had to find other means to watch the show. I believe I did but I don’t remember as the uneventful years seemed to always want to meld together. But yeah, 20 years, next year will be my 20th anniversary since I moved to Utah, imagine that. It really makes me think now whenever I watch a show whether it’s on Netflix or Hulu or whatever streaming platform that if it will be commemorated in the same way as the shows in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.