Faith

Binge the Cringe

On August 29, 2025 by Elle R.

My daughter Jordan introduced me to a “cringy” t.v. series on a streaming network. It’s an angsty coming of age drama, where a teen girl is torn between two handsome brothers. The genetically blessed brothers have muscles, magnetism and trust funds. It’s endless summer at their tony Massachusetts set beach house. The backyard swimming pool is perpetually pristine, which anyone who lives in New England knows is ludicrous as there’s always, and I mean always, fallen leaves in the pool.

Having driven up and down the eastern seaboard, I was shouting to Jordan within seconds, “There’s no way that’s Massachusetts! Bet me they filmed the show in Wilmington, North Carolina!” For the record, I was right. Beaches in the south are sandy and have sea oats everywhere. Northern beaches are rocky and seem to grow nothing but the seaweed you find in your bathing suit at the end of the day.

Aside from playing the geography guessing game of filming locations, I was enjoying the ‘binge the cringe’ because I have been cycling through the anger stage of grief and this show has helped me to process it. And yes, I’m going to trademark the phrase Binge the Cringe.

In the show, our heroine has to choose between two brothers. Two paths. Her choices dictate who she will become as a person. I have been feeling that internal struggle.

Path one – I am furiously angry with most people disappearing from my life the moment Barry’s celebration of life service was over. In today’s day and age of ubiquitous cellphones, what excuse can they possibly make for not texting to ask about my welfare, my kids? Caring for the widows and orphans is a biblical mandate – easily found in six different scriptures.

Path two – I am embracing that it could be my own perspective, and requires more acceptance and compassion for others. Barry had a habit of saying, “Perception becomes reality.” In other words, if I tell myself people don’t care /moved on/ are ‘too busy’ enough times, it becomes my reality.

In the binge the cringe show, there are few adults with true wisdom for the heroine to seek out. In my real life, I am blessed to have a friend who is a wise widow, willing to share what she has learned. I visited her recently at the summer camp she and her husband founded when I was just a little girl. She cleverly pointed out a third path.

She said my perception was true. I needed to hear that, because that allowed me the freedom to be angry. Then she added a caveat which would keep me from focusing on the wrong path.

“But is it ‘the end of the world’ true?”

Which, upon further reflection, I had to answer…”No.”

Path one was anger, plain and simple. Rage even.

Path two was trying to stuff the anger down. Deny it. Pretend my angry beach was really a peaceful beach, all the while knowing these places are as far apart as Massachusetts and North Carolina.

Path three – Acknowledge the truth, but keep it in scale. I was getting so angry, disillusioned and disappointed with people that I had lost focus on the God who never fails.

My friend and I read aloud from a hymnal, taking turns reading the verses from ‘O Worship the King, All Glorious Above.’

 “Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!”

Driving away from my friend’s beautiful camp – where it is not endless summer, but would still make a great setting for a binge the cringe show – I was better equipped to accept the path in front of me, where I know that God is my choice.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Psalm 68:5

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