For as long as I have been a fan of Gilmore Girls I have placed myself in the box that only allows me to share the same characteristics as one specific character. Maybe this is common for fans of shows, to choose one character and turn their traits into ones of their own. Or maybe this is just something I’ve done because these characters live lives that I so deeply would like to share. For years, I’ve placed myself in the Rory or Paris box. Most likely because they are teenage girls and before you are a teenage girl that’s all you want to be, and when you are a teenage girl that’s all you understand. In my past blogs I’ve mentioned these moments of feeling like Rory and Paris while battling with college life. Because now as I have lived through some of the same moments they did, I feel as if I have a deeper understanding not only of these characters but of myself as well. I yearned for the days of college where my roommate and I would go to the dining hall in the early weekend mornings and make Paris and Rory’s cereal concoctions. Now we never did that and truly cereal is one of the last things I’d like to eat in the morning, but it seemed like a fantasy when I was young.
It’s strange because now as I’ve outgrown my teenage years, I feel younger than I ever have. I have always enjoyed doing things on my own and I have since I was a child. When I was freshly 18 my parents let me take the train to Boston by myself for the first time, there I met two friends I hadn’t met in person before and we spent the weekend together roaming around the city and attending a concert. When I was 19 I flew for the first time by myself, all the way to Texas to visit one of those friends again. When I think about it, travelling by myself to these somewhat foreign places seems terrifying. I wonder now if I did it because I wanted to or if I did it because I was searching for that string of independence.
When I came to college, I was sure I was going to request a single room because given what I knew about myself that was the right choice for me. However, I ended up meeting my now best friend and we decided to live together. For my first three semesters of college we shared the same room that was always filled with laughter and love and our closest friends. To me this was a challenge to share my space with someone all the time. I grew up having my own space and being the only child in the house. I had my things and I had my way of doing them. I had to have enough trust in myself that I could adapt to this new way of living and I believe I did.
At the beginning of my fourth semester, I began to feel the toll that not having a space on campus completely to myself was taking on me. I felt that string of independence that I had been searching so long for to start to drift out of my reach. Sure doing things alone is scary and oftentimes now I would like to have someone along with me but I’ve come to realize that it is something that I need. Making the choice to leave the place I had been living in for my college entire experience was difficult. Because for as long as I’ve been here I’ve always had someone to turn to at all moments in my same living space. And even at 20 years old the thought of living alone for the first time felt scary. Leaving that dorm almost felt the same as leaving my hometown when I came to college initially.
I feel now as if I’ve stepped out of the box that kept me confined to my teenage mindset. Even if I’m approaching 21 this year and I’ve been doing things alone for so long. Moving to my own space, even if it’s still a dorm room has made me feel truly independent. I’m calling it my own Lorelai Gilmore moment. I believe that doing things in our teens is so scary and so overwhelming just as we expect it to be. But as we grow we tend to forget that things can be just as scary. I have to remind myself that despite my fear feeling so young and naive it is also showing growth. In some small silly way I feel like now I can place myself in the same boxes as these adult characters. And simultaneously I can be a former scared teenage girl and an adult woman stealing most of her personality traits from Lorelai Gilmore and being really brave about it all.
Thanks for reading, til next time!
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