Last week, we learned of the tragic death of Luke Perry. For me, he was a huge part of my tween/teenage years. Every week I had to beg my mom to let me stay up to watch 90210 and see what shenanigans Brenda, Dylan and the rest of the crew would get into. It was when I started reading "teeny bopper" magazines, as my mother called them. It was a time of giggling with my girlfriends as we carefully paged through these magazines as if it was the Holy Grail. And in some ways it was. Before the wonders of the internet, we had at our fluorescent manicured fingertips pictures of the latest heartthrobs and the juicy gossip to match (yes, at the tender age of 12 there was plenty of celebrity gossip to be had). Plus, I needed to know what Luke Perry's favorite color was (what if we met? Sporting a shirt in his fave color would be a start idea). I didn't need to hunt down a printer to have a picture of my latest celebrity bae. There in front of me was a plethora of pictures to remove from my magazine and tape to my wall. And if it were a special issue, there would be the added bonus of finding a poster in it! Perfect to plaster to my ceiling so I could gaze at it when lying down. Good times, good times.

The news of Perry's passing affected me more than I thought it would. It brought me back to a time that was notorious for hormonal upheaval and self-discovery of awkward moments and growing pains. My 13-year-old self never thought she would make it out to the other side. But I'm here at the ripe old age of…well, that's neither here nor there, to tell her that she did. Although I outgrew the likes of Luke Perry and others, they had a lasting impression. Without their knowing it, each character I encountered taught me something different. So when one of them passes, in this case, Luke Perry, I feel the loss. I am grateful for the imprint that was left on my adolescence…and those James Dean looks.