I think my love of the show Gilmore Girls is getting a little out of hand. I watched the show when it was on the air, and when it was on the air I was about 5 years younger than Rory so I looked up to her. I have been watching the show on a loop since it stopped airing. I have lost count of how many times I have watched the entire series, but on a loop for the last 14 years is a lot of loops. I never get tired of it. I know exactly whats going to happen, who Lorelai or Rory is with based on which season, which heart attack Richard is on, what color hat Luke is wearing, which school set they’re using. I bet I could map the town of Stars Hollow. Never once have I looked around and said, ‘hey maybe this is too much love for a TV show,’ but I’m here to say it now. It’s too much, and I don’t care.
I don’t care because I feel that I’ve passed the point of a love of a TV show. It’s a lifestyle that I love, a fictional place that I want to live in and be a part of which is the mark of a great show. They are characters I want to know, and I think they would like me too. I think I would fit in, and I would get a good welcome wagon from Miss Patty when I got married and moved there. I think I know what I would order from the diner, and I know I would probably be going to Dean’s state school and not Yale, but I could still crash in Rory’s dorm for a few nights before Paris kicked me out. And I still don’t care that this all sounds crazy.
Gilmore Girls helped me out of a very dark period in my life. Some 10 years back, I was so sad and lonely after making a very controversial feminine decision that many women have had to make before me. A surgical procedure which we shall not name but know it must not be done after the first trimester. That’s right I went to an abortion clinic, to play a rousing game of penuckle of course. And afterwards, there is nothing that would console me except eating a whole cheesecake on the tray it was sold to me in and season after season of Gilmore Girls. Take me away from my life, I said, and they heard me. No judgments, no arguments except the formidable arc where Rory and Lorelai weren’t speaking because Rory had gotten off track (tough love baby). I don’t know what I would have done without them in that time.
Now, I know better than to watch this show around men. It’s been a house rule of mine for as long as I can remember. When there’s a guy in the room, we watch something else. Any man that follows up this rule with “well I actually like watching Gilmore Girls” has something else going on. They are gay, or they have already been subjected to too much of the show to turn back because some poor schmo woman before me has broken the cardinal rule. I don’t try and talk men into watching this show, or as my current boyfriend says, “these pigeons squawking in Stars Hollow.” I get it. its two smart, very quirky women talking very fast and you already have enough of that in your life living in my world and I’m so OK with that. It’s not for you to disparage anyway. It’s for me in my time when I want to forget about him and the outside world anyway.
I’m watching it right now, as I write this. I’m watching it because my boyfriend is out of town. He didn’t know that by leaving for a little over a week that he challenged me to watch the entire series over again before his return, but that’s what it is. I’m watching it right now because I had picked up somewhere around the 6th season to watch a specific episode (the ousting of a tyrannic Yale Daily News Editor), and suddenly found myself at the series finale, for the best “interesting tribute” speech from Taylor the series has to offer. My two favorite episodes to watch back to back are the series finale and the pilot. Watch the girls jump from fully formed and saying goodbye to young and cheery eyed and saying hello for the first time. The sets are weird, Luke is still into health food, and Rory is still kind of mild mannered. Lane still has a dad and the theme song hasn’t been introduced yet.
I’m watching it right now because someone at Netflix heard my prayers and made more episodes. I don’t think the creative directors of that company realize the good deed they are doing for me and thousands more women like me. They are giving me something truly special to look forward to. Sure they are giving me more of the characters I love to love so much but it’s more than that. They are giving me another season of fantasy to escape to over and over again for the rest of my life. They are giving me the closure of wondering who these women ended up with; how their life turned out, so I can know it’s OK whatever happens in my life. They are giving me more to discuss with the women in my actual life I love discussing this show with. They are giving me a warmth in my heart I am only a little ashamed to say comes from a TV show. They are giving me something that I don’t mind saying was made only for me when I know it was made for every woman that feels exactly like I do.
I don’t know how they expect me to wait until November 25th to watch the new season, but I already know what I’m grateful for this year.
Becca Steinhoff 