We love this show, we do. We all know that life is television, but let’s flip it. Life may be like a TV show, like our frequently-used tag likes to say, but sometimes tv is like a life. MY life. Welcome to my predictably TV-related series, readers.

Facebook feed says that Sailor Moon aired 26 years ago, so just in time. There’s a lot to make fun of about Sailor Moon. First of all, it’s anime. Ha ha. No but really, it’s a show where a teenage girl ditzes around and occasionally fights evil. It’s silly, repetitive, and when you take out the transformation sequences and credits it’s about 4 seconds long per episode.

Sailor Moon’s personality is this: she eats a lot, is a ditz, and loves boys. All she does is flash her giant eyeballs as cute classmates walk by, moments after stuffing her stupid face with a full lunch, because she has two lunches of course.

As a younger gal, I would make fun of Serena all the time. When she’d arrive at a fight, completely ready to get rid of the newest bad guy in town, she’d end up cowering. She’d stop, hide behind something. She’d say, “I can’t do this!” You see, she was dropped into the role, the way that many of us may feel occasionally that we don’t belong in a certain place or believe we have all the necessary skills. As a younger gal, I would make fun of this part: while she was afraid, Tuxedo Mask would swoop in and say, “You can do this.” And she would. Because a man told her to?

Here’s what I think now: Friends are great. Sometimes you need a little nudge. Sometimes the people who love you can see that you have the necessary skills, and all of the heart.

When I was in middle school, I wrote in a diary one single time. Predictably, knowing what I’m like now, my lonely scribbled entry was about how Sailor Moon is a good show because it efficiently builds tension before explaining whatever nonsense about where Sailor Moon and friends are really from. But that wasn’t the part that the girl at my slumber party read aloud to unforgettable giggling. No, that part was, “and Tuxedo Mask is cute.”

So yeah, Sailor Moon is me, an embarrassed and embarrassing kid just trying to get through life, feeling like everyone is staring at her, but eating 4 cheeseburgers anyway. And what have I learned from Serena? Not to worry too much about where I belong, and to make myself belong.