There are few characters in television or movies to which I relate to as much as 32-year-old Rory Gilmore. It’s like we live the same life (except I wish I had dated Jess. Just sayin’).
Like Rory, my father has been absent for much of my life. I am a writer by trade, but am currently going through a bit of a transition in that area of my life. While I do know where all of my underwear is, most of my stuff is sitting in boxes in the storage closet at my mom’s house and I had to get rid of most of my furniture. I have lived in five different apartments or houses in three different cities and two different states since 2012. Although I have not been there in a while, there are quite a few stamps from the UK in my passport. And I’m back home but not “back.” And I’m still coming to terms with the loss of my grandfather.
Oh, and I am also bilingual in English and sarcasm.
It’s a hard thing when you see your life going in a certain direction and you suddenly get jerked in a completely different one. I think as humans, we too often let superficial things define us. Jobs, boyfriends, cars. And when one of those things is gone, it takes a minute to steady yourself and realize who you are without it.
Rory and I have our own struggles, but I feel like I’m in that moment sitting at a desk across from Jess (again, I wish) and spewing how lost and adrift I feel at this time in my life. How, at 32, I really saw things going differently for me. The moment *right before* Jess says “you should write a book” and suddenly Rory’s wheels start turning and she finally feels like she has some kind of purpose again. Something to work toward. I don’t know what that thing will be for me. Maybe it will be a book. Maybe it’ll be something I have not yet considered. But I’m excited to find it.
I think for much of our lives, other people have looked at Rory (yes, I realize she’s fictional) and I as the people who will succeed. We both did well in school. We both made all the “right” choices. But that does not mean we are automatically on our right paths.
Rory and I have to be kind enough to ourselves to realize that we have not failed everyone just because we are not yet at a current stage in our lives. Or that things aren’t going to turn out okay just because we aren’t there yet.
There’s still time.
