One of the things I find the most relaxing these days is watching crime and mystery series. Not the ones released recently. Oh no! With some exceptions, my favorite TV series were all aired before the year 2000. That’s really being generous actually, because my very most favorites were filmed in the 60’s or 70’s. Since I’m in my (now later) 30’s, my friends tend to find it strange that I love to spend my time this way.

Immersing myself in old crime was not always such an obsession for me. It started sometime in 2012 after my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Around the same time, I also was given my first Apple TV as a gift opening my sees to the world of instant streaming on Netflix.

I don’t know what came first, the desire to watch old crime shows or the discovery that I could, but I know watching them made me feel comfort in a time of extreme sadness. My mom was sick for 19 months before she died. We spent that time together, my mom, my Aunt and me, taking trips and just hanging out, but I was mourning the whole time.

However, when I was in the middle of an episode of Columbo, I felt somewhat relaxed. Columbo first aired in 1968. The scenes are filled with bell bottoms, wide ties, and big hair. Phone calls have to be taken on a land line! Lt. Columbo sees a digital watch for the first time in “Playback.” Security cameras are a luxury. In fact, the ability to record anything seems to blow away the Lieutenant.

It may have been that watching shows like this triggered something in my primordial brain from when I was a child watching shows like this with my parents. Back when my mom was well enough to take care of me, and we were like a family. Life felt very hard back then when I was a child, but it wasn’t. Maybe I was longing for simpler times. Or, maybe I should say, I long for simpler times as getting lost into these crime shows is still something I do almost daily.

It didn’t end with Columbo either. I’ve now rewatched all Murder She Wrote and McMillan & Wife episodes. I remember one time when my Aunt and Mom came to see me at my apartment and we watched an episode of McMillan & Wife, which is the only time I remember my mom and my mystery obsession overlapping. I then took it into more modern times, but still kept the “old lady” style and watched Midsomer Murders, Father Brown, Doc Martin, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. The list doesn’t end here, but I’ll spare you all the details. However, I now day dream of being a wealthy woman who lives in a mansion in the English country side and solves the disproportionate number of murders that happen in her vicinity.

What I’m not sure of is why this happened in the first place and why it continues almost 5 years later. Maybe one day it will stop as suddenly as it started and maybe I’ll be healed from whatever pain it is helping me with. Until then, I guess it will remain a mystery.