Throughout the "Days of Our Lives"...

Like many Americans, I did not grow up watching telenovelas. Unlike many Americans, I did grow up watching soap operas. Or, I should say, one soap opera.

As a child, I would often go to my grandmother’s house after school during the week. For some kids, going to their grandmother’s house meant watching Blue’s Clues or Arthur. For me, it meant watching Days of Our Lives. From as early as I can remember, I knew what the hourglass on the screen meant at 1 p.m. I can vividly picture the small 18”x18” television box resting on the China cabinet playing the soap opera’s theme as I sat with my grandmother and shared a meal.

The hourglass displaying the title of the soap opera is a core memory for me. 

When I think of Days of Our Lives, this image is what comes to mind. (Image from Soap Dirt)

The women in my family have watched Days of Our Lives for four generations. To this day, my mother still watches this show, however begrudgingly, perhaps out of an obligation to those who watched before her. Her mother, my grandmother, watched the show, as did her mother, my great-grandmother. I am including myself as the fourth generation since I have also indulged in a few episodes, but nowhere near as many as my soap opera predecessors.

I have sat with my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother for hours listening to them talk about the relationships within the show, as well as their own predictions about what they think will happen next. My mom and my aunt are the most dedicated to these discussions and make sure they don’t accidentally share spoilers if one of them is a few episodes behind in watching.

So, why, have we all kept going back to this show, with its recurring plots of amnesia and car crashes and weddings that never were? As opposed to telenovelas, soap operas seem to be the boring cousin who’s always bringing up the family drama and creating problems from what we all thought had been solved several years ago. In class, we have mentioned a few times how often, people will watch telenovelas together. If they are not together, whatever drama happens on the screen is often the sole topic of discussion the following day. It’s something to bond over where everyone can have similar feelings and experiences to the people around them. For my family, even though telenovelas aren’t our choice of entertainment, we have and continue to experience these same occurrences with our soap opera.

“Like sand through the hourglass…”, time is always moving. This show connects us, my family, to the time we can’t get back – to the memories shared with the ones we love. To the times when my great-grandmother would drop whatever she was doing to go upstairs in my grandmother’s house to watch. To the times I spent sitting in the kitchen, sharing food with my grandmother, just being happy I got to be with her even though I didn’t understand why the people on the screen were arguing, crying, etc. And now, to the times spent coming home from college and sitting with my mom on the couch, rolling our eyes and laughing at how ridiculous the plot lines have gotten.

In conclusion, yes - soap operas may be the more longwinded of the two genres of television shows, but the life happening in front of the screen and the memories we have created won’t be forgotten, even if our beloved characters suffer with some sort of amnesia.