"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." This quote, spoken by MacDonald Carey in the show's opening, is one I've known for as long as I can remember. As you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of NBC's long running soap opera "Days of Our Lives". I've been a Days fan since I was in the womb. My mother even happened to be watching it when she went into labor with me. It even tracks back farther than that. I'm a THIRD generation Days fan. My grandma (or Mamaw as we say in Kentucky), all my aunts, and my mom were/are Days fans (Mamaw was also a fan of "The Doctors" and "Another World"). So naturally, I grew up on it and have been hooked on the junk for as long as I can remember. I need it in my life as much as any junkie needs crack or any drunk needs booze. It's kind of my security blanket. It's always been in my life (even when it wasn't but we'll get to that later), and I've come to depend on it ALWAYS being in my life.
My obsession and addiction to soap operas isn't limited to Days of Our Lives. All My Children was my second favorite sudser until it was cruelly cancelled last year leaving me devastated and heartbroken. I was a HUGE fan of Jackson and Erica and was NOT happy with how the show ended them. I'm also fond of The Young and the Restless, particularly Victor and Nikki Newman. At one point in college, thanks to Soapnet weekend marathons and a good VCR, I watched SIX soap operas at least casually. Days and AMC were a must (I purposefully left one o'clock open on my college schedule if I could avoid it, and if I couldn't, I recorded the show every day), but I also tuned into The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Passions (but only because my roommate liked it).
Though I don't remember a lot of specifics of my early days as a DAYS fan, I remember watching with my mom every day at 1, then I'd watch Scooby Doo at 2. I remember her being excited when Bo Brady was returning to the show, and I even remember him pulling up on a motorcycle. I can also recall Jack stopping Jennifer from marrying SOMEBODY (need to check my facts.... maybe it was Emilio) by pulling up on a fire truck. I was quite young then, 3 or 4, so like I said, the details are sketchy at best.
By the time I was 8 or 9, I started becoming invested in the show. My earliest memory of being genuinely upset by something on television was when Roman (Wayne Northrop) was leaving the show and Marlena (Deidre Hall) came to the airport to try and stop him. I can remember thinking "Noooooooooooo don't leave her, Roman!". Nonetheless, he left her and I had my first taste of soap heartbreak. (She shouldn't have been such a tramp and slept with John, thus forming the grossest soap couple ever, but I digress.) Coincidentally, he came back to the show about 10 years later (as a new character of all people... only in soap land), and when he walked in the room and said "Hello, Marlena. It's been a long time." I SQUEALED and almost fell off my chair.... good thing I was the only one home. That would have been just a LITTLE too embarrassing to be witnessed by anybody in person.
It was also around this time that MacDonald Carey, or Dr. Tom Horton to Days fans, passed away in real life and on the show. I remember my mom being genuinely upset about it. "It was like losing a member of the family", she would later explain to me. It was then I understood what being a soap fan was all about. Soap characters come into your living room every day and you feel like you know these people. What other genre of entertainment can you spend years and years of your life with the same characters and stories? For somebody who tends to obsess easily, such as I, there's nothing better than soaps. I get a fix five days a week. I'd be happier with 7, but I can't complain too much.
Days of Our Lives and I have "broken up" a few times over the years for varying reasons, such as work conflicting, anger or disgust at story lines, loss of interest, and most recently, my devastation over the loss of All My Children looming over and destroying my ability to enjoy any soap. One of these break ups was for the better part of a year, but most have been fairly short lived. Days is the one constant in my life that I will always go back to. My family in Salem is as much a part of my life as my family here in Kentucky. I will always need to know what deliciously evil plot Stefano Dimera has cooked up for the lesser and weaker Salemites (Team DiMera ALL the way). I will always want to be Kate Roberts because home girl is FIERCE. And I'll always kind of wish that I, too, were a Horton, so I could eat Grandma Alice's donuts (if she were still living) and hang an ornament that says BRITTANY on it on the Christmas tree. Ya know, cause we're family and all.
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