What I’ve Learned From Binging On Gilmore Girls

Yes, I will admit it to you right here right now……  I am addicted to Gilmore Girls. 

I was looking for a new show since all my usual favs are on hiatus over the summer.  I had heard some hype about a show coming back for reunion episodes – after fans waited breathlessly for 10 years for it to happen.  It was called Gilmore Girls and about the relationship between a mother and daughter.  Why I never tried it during it’s real-time run I don’t know. It must have been on during one of my couldn’t miss shows back then like American Idol.  Maybe I would consider giving it a one episode watch try.

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For some reason,  I’m usually the late to try most popular things.  I seem to come in to everything once it is just about done and ready to go out of style.  Except Bon Jovi…..  I knew that was love the first time I saw “Runaway” on MTV in the early 80s and have held on tight ever since.  But for everything else,  I’m usually the last on board.

Why you ask?  Good question.  Maybe there’s so many good things out there, one person can realistically only try so many at a time?  Maybe I’m waiting to make sure things catch on for real before I have to learn how to use a new gadget?   Or come up with the money to buy it when it’s still in it’s expensive phase?  Computers, cell phones, microwaves, cable television, dvd players…. I really could go on an on.

I remember saving up my allowance (starting out at 50 cents per week until my brother and I strategically negotiated our way up to 1 dollar) and birthday money to buy a stereo for my bedroom when I was a pre-teen.  Periodically going to the store to decide which one I wanted for motivation, only to have the models keep changing by the time I actually had enough to purchase it. 

The one I wanted had a 8-Track player in addition to a turn-table.  It was great – you didn’t have to rewind or fast forward indefinitely, with the press of a button it would take you to one of four spots on the tape to help you fine tune your song search.  I loved it.  But soon after everything changed to cassettes tapes and it was hard to find the music you wanted at Strawberries Music Store still on 8 track.

Later I had build up quite the impressive cassette tape library.  I dug my heels in as everyone began then transitioning to CDs.  “Are you kidding me?”, I thought to myself.  I even chose a car based on which one still had a cassette player so I could continue listening to all my tunes without having to duplicate the whole library on my fast-food part-time job paycheck.  Eventually I couldn’t find a next car that existed without a CD player, and was forced to comply with this new fangled trend.

Don’t even get me started on my VHS tape favorite movie collection.

I still have a flip phone.  I like having actual letter buttons to push when I text.  I like that it curves around my face so I can hear better on it.   And it’s much more affordable every month than a smartphone.  Why pay for all that extra data to surf the web when I have a perfectly good desk top computer in my house?  Sure I can’t look anything up until I get home,  but there’s a peacefulness in being off the grid sometimes. 

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But I digress…..  Gilmore Girls. 

Never one for starting a new show based on happenstance random episodes in syndication,  I always just scrolled by it on my TiVo guide. 

Until one day something magical happened.  Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling,  “Hey wait!”….  back up, back up,  and there it was –  “Gilmore Girls: “Pilot”, season 1, episode 1″.   I had come upon the holy grail of TiVo surfing and  could try  outthis show from the very beginning.  “Ok”, I thought to myself,  “Let’s see what all the hype was about”.

Now I’m usually a person of moderation and self-control.  Television is meant to be enjoyed 1 episode per week so the story has time to be processed, thought about, talked about, and anticipated.  But I soon learned this concept just couldn’t be applied to Gilmore Girls. 

Before I knew it I was hooked.  It became my escape…. my inner world.  I wanted to live in Stars Hollow.  I wanted to be friends with Lorelai and Rory.  I wanted to hang out with Lane.  I wanted to sit on the couch snuggling their dog Paul Anka watching old movies and eating pop tarts. 

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Lorelai made me feel better about all my eccentricities.  She still watched an old school tv.  She still went to the video store to rent movies.  She took pictures with little point and shoot camera.  And she certainly didn’t miss out on the real world around her with her head down swiping through a digital device.  In fact, she still used a flip phone just like me.  One could say that back in the year 2000 those things were still ok but, because I’m only seeing it years later, now it’s a bit odd.  All I know is I could identify with her. She related everything around her to memorable music, tv shows, and movies.  She never cooked but always had yummy things to eat.  She didn’t always present as confident or polished and sometimes said things to lighten the mood that went terribly awry.   She was a little quirky just like me.  Watching her felt like slipping into a pair of well-worn jeans that just made me feel comfortable.  

The only emotional cushion as I pressed “play” on season 7’s final episode was knowing that, unlike everyone else who had been privy to this addictive television nirvana when it was on for real,  I still had more!  In respect for all who came before me,  I ceremoniously waited until the next day before delving in the their 10 years-in-the-making  4-part encore.

But then the mind games began.  As long as I didn’t actually press “start”,  I still had them to look forward to.  And in that time of not knowing,  it was like Schrödinger’s Hollow.  I lived in a beautiful space in the in-between where any conclusion still held the possibility of being true.  As long as I didn’t know for sure,  I could believe any ending I wanted without any evidence to prove me wrong. 

Maybe I should never actually finish watching it, I thought,  so I always have this blissful eventual viewing opportunity in front of me.  All while believing that in my secret box was a world where Rory and Dean get back together and live happily ever after.  And have beautiful babies so that Gramma Lorelai and Grampa Luke can babysit during comical yet heartwarming sleepovers.  And even have their own dog, a Cocker Spaniel named Jon Bon Jovi who,  like his uncle Paul Anka,  will always sweetly be called by his entire full name. 

Back to reality, as I shook my head and cleared the Stars Hollow from my eyes.  Who was I kidding?  I couldn’t make it past 24 hours with this treasure trove of television beckoning me.  And so I gave in.

I wasn’t disappointed.  It was amazing.  Well, except that I am still team Dean and hold out hope for a rekindling of that romance – even if the road to get there will now have to be filled with even more twists and turns.  That’s ok, I can be patient and wait.  But until then,  I will focus on the 5 things I learned about life from binging on Gilmore Girls…..

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The 5 Things I Learned About Life From Binging On the Gilmore Girls:

1) Adults can totally pull off pigtails.

I have almost always had longish hair but can’t stand the feel of it in my face.  Especially if its windy, or hot, or smells like hair product.  So I usually pull it back.  But sometimes a ponytail gives me that hair-pulling headache.  And some days you just don’t feel like being all face.  Pigtails then becomes my “do” of choice.  The only trouble is that after I hit junior high,  not a lot of people accepted the look as trendy enough, cool enough, or age appropriate enough.  I stuck with it because it was easy and comfy,  but it didn’t help my already quite practiced insecurity. 

But then came Sookie.  Sookie was the sweet eccentric friend of the already eccentric Lorelai…  and she usually wore her hair in pigtails.  She was an adult,  held a respectable job,  knew her stuff when it came to all that is cooking,  and was respected by all the folks in the town.  She also showed us some really cute ways to wear a bandana.  So thank you Sookie….. I may be 47 but I’m going to hold my head high and keep rocking the pigtails!

2) It’s ok to eat what you want and not deprive yourself.

What female (and some male even) hasn’t wasted too much precious time worrying about what they look like compared to others that they see as “ideal”?  Not to mention that most of those times, we’re comparing our real selves to airbrushing, photo-shopping, professional lighting and artfully sculpted makeup,  not to mention having cameras held at just the right angle to catch a split second in time where that person looked “just faaabulous”.  We beat ourselves up for not measuring up and then put ourselves through deprivation diets and olympic exercise routines to capture that slight difference that we think will make all of the difference.

But then came Lorelai.  Sure, Rory ate whatever she wanted and still had a petite little figure, but she was also a teenager with adolescent metabolism.  But Lorelai was a woman over 30 when we first met her.  She was breathtakingly beautiful and could pull of any outfit, resulting in  us wanting to find something like it so we could look like her.  And she ate!  She didn’t just not diet…..  she actually ate whatever she wanted.  Pizza?  Cheeseburgers?  Tacos?  Pancakes with eggs and sausage?  Donuts?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.  Now granted, She usually ate a bite or two and then had to leave Luke’s diner, or someone came to the door and interrupted movie night at home.  But the point is she didn’t ignore her cravings and she didn’t deprive herself.  Even 17 years later,  she was still marching to her own food drummer and still looked healthy and absolutely stunning.  So thank you Lorelai…..  thanks to you I don’t feel bad about eating chocolate chip cookie dough for breakfast every weekend or existing on cereal and take-out food the rest of the week.

3) It’s ok to take risks with what you want to be when you grow up.

When we’re kids we all want to be something very easy to explain.  We wanted to be a baseball player, a rock star, a veterinarian, a scientist, an ice cream truck driver.  Then we go to college and major in a concrete titled subject that seems neatly related to what we want to be.   We majored in psychology, marketing, business, biology, or computers.   But as we got older we started to see that most jobs available are ones we had never even heard of as kids, let alone fully understand what their ambiguous titles mean as adults.  Not to mention that when we pick those majors,  we’re  young and still just trying to figure out who we are, and what we like,  and what kind of job might feel fulfilling for the long run.  So we either remain in a job we no longer like because it’s easier to stay put then to change, or we feel bad about what we are doing because it doesn’t have an easy to describe title for someone who asks the dreaded,  but all too common,  question – “so what do you do?”.

But then came the townsfolk of Stars Hollow.  Sure Rory knew she wanted to be a journalist.  But Lorelai started off as a maid, worked her way up to manager, and then started her own inn.  Luke ran the most successful restaurant housed inside a hardware store.  Taylor owned a little grocery store and was also town selectman making all the (wacky) laws.  Sookie’s husband Jackson was a vegetable farmer who then ran for town office – and won.  Lane came from an over-protected religious family and became the drummer in a rock band with Sebastian Bach (cross my heart).  And then there was Kirk…..   Kirk popped up in just about every work-related capacity one could imagine.  He was always searching for what fit – and no one thought lesser of him for it.  So thanks Kirk – you make it feel ok that some of us are adults and still trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up.

4) Its ok to not always make sense.

As a shy,  introverted, and anxious  person,  the sound of my voice coming out of my mouth rarely sounds as eloquent as it did when the thoughts initially formed inside my head.  Sometimes it’s because I’m nervous of what the person I’m speaking to is thinking about me and what I have to say,  and it’s hard to mentally keep track of that AND physically form all the required words at the same time.  Sometimes it’s because my thoughts are webbing out in tangential “what if’s” and  “to-do” lists and anyone not inside there with me probably doesn’t quite see how it all really does tie in together.  Sometimes it’s me internally cracking myself up with a line from a Seinfeld episode that would have fit great in the moment, or how the moment I’m in could have made a great Seinfeld episode.  Regardless of the “why”,  more often than not, I’m left in post-speech analyzation review of what actually exited my mouth and if I should worry, go back and try to fix it, or take a breath and just try harder next time.

But then came Lorelai.  She had complexly awkward relationships with people that sometimes made her uneasy,  was a little manic,  related everything to some pop-culture reference, and didn’t have much of a delay or filter between her thoughts and her mouth.  Sometimes the people listening just stared blankly with mouths slightly open, not sure of what to make of her.  Sometimes the people who knew her best (Rory!) could jump right in without missing a beat, and escalate the verbal lunacy to an even wackier level.  Sometimes people oscillated between trying to verbally spar with her until they came to a mutual understanding (“A” for effort Luke!) or just ignored her as if she had never said anything in hopes they would shape her behavior by not reinforcing it with a response (good try but no luck Emily and Richard).  So thank you Lorelai for helping us (me) see that not always being succinct or vocally confident can be viewed as an endearing quirk to those who love you.

5) Although being in a relationship is great, you don’t need one to live a kick-a** life.

Who doesn’t spend their teenage years (and let’s be honest those of us who didn’t marry our high school sweetheart, even their twenties and sometimes thirties) trying to find “the one”.  Girls looking for boys.  Boys looking for girls.  To paraphrase the words of J.Geils – “He loves her , but she loves him, and he loves somebody else, you just can’t win”.  Finding romantic love seems to be the primary focus of most young (and older) lives.  All the time thinking,  if I can only find “the one”,  THEN life will be good an I can start focusing on everything else.  It’s a lot of work.  And a lot of stress.  And a lot of time feeling your life isn’t important yet or doesn’t count yet until…..  Which sets us up for disappointment, and the feeling of failure.  And by the way,  puts too much pressure on the person you ultimately find that they better make all of this time looking for them worth it.

But then, again like a breath of fresh air, come Lorelai and Rory.  Lorelai didn’t sulk at home wondering why no one was asking her out.  She filled her life advancing her career, joking around with interesting friends, and making special memories with her daughter.  And sure, along the way she added some extra fun going to school functions by dating Max, and going to her parents house by dating Christopher, and drinking  too much coffee by dating Luke.  But she always felt like she had a complete life just the way it was – a mom and her daughter.  Any cute guy to kiss was then icing on the cake.  And Rory didn’t get (too) waylayed in her schooling waiting for her love life to work itself out.  I, myself, may have spent too much time pining over what could have been with her and Dean when she had to follow her heart with Jess, or when she experimented drinking with Logan just when she and Dean were starting to get back together, or when Jess showed up in her dorm room just as she and Dean were again trying to get back together,  only to have it keep falling apart again….   but she kept persevering in her studies and having fun with her buddy Lane (and sometimes even Paris).  And me, well, it did my heart good to see her and Dean reunite back at Dosey’s Market in the finale and watch her share her fond memories of him as the best first love a girl could have.  So thank you Lorelai and Rory for reminding us that life can still be pretty epic even if you haven’t quite smoothed out the love story aspect just yet.

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So now I sit.  The same way so many must have sat 10 years ago when Gilmore Girls ended the first time.  Not quite knowing where to go from here.  And not quite knowing what could possibly fill the void where my life in Stars Hollow once dwelled.  I will be grateful for the lessons learned.  Grateful for the memories of my time there with them.  And I will hold strong to the hope that one day,  I will hear Carole King’s voice singing that soothing theme song again.  From a mother to her daughter,  and a daughter to her mother.  Those calming musical notes that feel like they are wrapping you up in the safe blanket of your family…… your home.

“And where you lead, I will follow

Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow,  where you lead.

You never know

How it’s all gonna turn out

But that’s okay

Just as long as we’re together ………

We can find a way”.

What’s this girl to do now?  

Start right back up on season 1 again,  of course!   Because there’s no place like home…….

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Photo credit:  http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/09/10-episodes-gilmore-girls-hooked