Published: November 8, 2007

I can’t sleep. I don’t have a book to read. There’s nothing on TV. This is when I realize that the greatest purchase ever was the complete second season (I own the first season and have already watched all the episodes) of “Fraggle Rock” on DVD.

Let me pause for a moment and say that if you are scratching your head, furrowing your brow and preparing to turn to your roommate and ask him or her what “Fraggle Rock” is, take a moment, call your parents and ask them why they deprived you of the experience of watching the single greatest show of our childhood.

Anyway, I decided to do something productive with my insomnia and relive my youth until Mr. Sandman decided to mosey on over to my neck of the woods with his magic sleepy dust. Watching the show, I became fixated on one detail that appeared in all of the episodes: no matter how big the problem, Fraggles just dance their cares away. No matter how cataclysmic of an event (and yes, the disappearance of the Trash Heap is a cataclysmic event in the world of “Fraggle Rock”) everything is resolved within the 25 minutes of the show. Not only that, but every Fraggle is singing and dancing when the credits roll.

The theme song says it all, “Dance your cares away. Worries for another day.” I started thinking about it, and I realized that there was a time when I could just dance my cares away. I was probably five, wearing my mother’s wedding dress and jumping up and down to my dad’s “Traveling Wilburys’” CD, but there did exist a time in my life when dancing would make cares go away.

I realize that, at five, my cares probably included nothing more serious than learning my lines for the kindergarten graduation ceremony and not falling out of the tree that my grandma told me not to climb in the first place.

But that’s my point. When did my cares and worries become so monumental that I couldn’t just dance them away? I don’t remember this happening. But as I sit here, I can’t think of one worry I’ve had in the last year that was able to be fixed by the “Fraggle” remedy. When did things get so complicated? I really don’t remember growing up and being saddled with “grown-up problems,” but “Fraggle Rock” has made it blindingly clear to me that I’m not a kid anymore. I can’t turn the stereo to full volume and jump around—I have too much to do.

And that is why I can’t dance my cares away anymore. My cares are concrete things that need to be done, not abstract worries. There are papers to write, GREs and LSATs to take, applications to fill out and decisions to be made. My life has become a series of steps, and, unfortunately, a dance step would only be a wasted movement, devoid of purpose in the progression toward the finish line. I can’t electric slide away the GRE and waltz into graduate school.

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way childhood became a thing of my past. The simple things in life fell by the wayside and “the real world” took a front seat. I have a list of things that need to be done, but right now I can’t bring myself to care. The stereo is on and the worries can wait until tomorrow.