This past Saturday, our old friends from Stars Hollow reconvened for the first time in the eight years since the show's end at the ATX TV festival in Texas. Cue the nostalgia.

If you’re wondering why fans are over the moon just because the cast is getting back together, allow me to shed some light on that.

Let's go back to Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. during the early 2000's, shall we? I would toss my remaining homework aside to huddle in front of the television, hanging on every last word that the Gilmores rattled off in record timing. Maybe you had a similar weeknight ritual. I was only six at the beginning of the show, so naturally a lot of the material went right over my head, but nonetheless the show acted as a traveling companion whose life lessons stuck with me as I began to navigate the teenage world.

My grandma loves to cite the entire summer I spent down the shore, racing home at the day’s end just to make sure I didn't miss the ABC Family syndicated showing at 5 p.m., and again at 11 a.m. the next morning. Did I mention both times showed the exact same episode? I was infatuated, reciting their lines right back at the screen. I remember being overjoyed upon catching a pop-culture reference and actually understanding it, and even now I revisit those same episodes, picking up on things I never could have before. It's safe to say that "Gilmore Girls" left its mark on me all throughout my formative years, and thanks to Netflix, it has been kept relevant for all those that missed out on the first-run. Now, yet another generation of viewers have been granted the privilege of being led into the world armed with the Gilmore brand of wisdom and wit. To those about to take the plummet and binge-watch the series, note that your transformation isn't complete until you find yourself talking at excessively fast speeds (you get extra points if it annoys everyone around you) and ingesting an inordinate amount of coffee.

The show went off screen in 2007, and yet it took some time for fans such as myself to come to terms with the anticlimactic and unsatisfying series finale, which I like to refer to in my young adult life as, “the Gilmore Girls grieving period.” Thus, any form of development following the series end, whether it be the mere get together of our favorite characters all in one place, like a good old fashioned Stars Hollow town meeting, is enough to send any seasoned fan into hysterics. Watching how fans took to the Twitterverse, erupting in fanatical pandemonium, was a nice reminder that the show hasn't faded from the minds of many others, just as it hasn't left my own.

So, in light of the "Gilmore Girls" reunion, I’ve put together the top three lessons the show taught me growing up, and have stuck with me after all these years.

1. The uniqueness of the mother-daughter bond.

Not all of us can be so lucky to have this type of mother-daughter best friend dynamic. Growing up, I often found myself envious of their close-knit relationship, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish from time to time that I had what Lorelai and Rory did. What can I say? The show's run took place during my prime mother-daughter fighting years, and to watch a mother and daughter make it look so easy, made my own experience seem that much harder. However, even the Gilmore girls had their fair share of arguments, which served as a reminder that even fictional families can't bypass the parent-child struggle, and that everyone has their own series of hiccups along the way. Remember the period when the two didn't talk, which came about after Rory decided to take some time off from Yale? Because I do. Although I must admit, those agonizing episodes that seemed to drag on forever were well worth watching this emotional reconciliation.

As I grew older, I was able to take away so much about valuing my own mother daughter relationship, rather than wishing for anyone else's. In ways, my Mom and I do mirror that of the Gilmores, in others, we don't. While I believe that Lorelai Gilmore justly straddled the line between friend and parent, I also admit to having absolutely no idea (yet) what it takes to be a parent or how difficult it is. My mom was always more of a parent than a friend growing up, but now that I'm older, our relationship has evolved more to the likes of a Gilmore friendship and I couldn't be more grateful for that.

That being said, sometimes it doesn't always work out the way you imagined. In Lorelai and Emily's dysfunction, there was another lesson to be learned. Their tumultuous relationship was frequently a source of immense stress for Lorelai, but it was also her cross to bear. In coming to terms with the reality of their relationship, she taught us how to value our relationships for what they are, rather than all that they aren't. I'm a firm believer that had she not been dealt this hand in life, she would not have been as conscious in her own undertaking of motherhood.

2. Follow your dreams, no matter what they may be.

In Rory’s famous tear-jerking Chilton commencement speech, she explains how her mother “never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whomever I wanted to be." She goes on to say that in being given the freedom to choose, all she ever truly wanted to be was her mother. Lorelai gave her daughter these positive values, but in doing so, "Gilmore Girls" also passed them along to the young and impressionable viewers like me.

Growing up, I definitely identified more with Rory because she dared to dream big. She envisioned herself at an Ivy-league school and made it her reality, picked a career out of passion rather than obligation, and taught me that if you want something bad enough, you can achieve it. At the time, her pursuits modeled for me what I thought I should want out of life. I held these beliefs in high regard, and in a way, based my own journey on them. Mostly because, when you’re a kid, these kinds of dreams seem like the only ones worth chasing, especially when juxtaposed with Lorelai’s.

I remember feeling bad for Lorelai, thinking that she settled and would never be given the opportunity to attain what Rory had and wondering how in spite of this, she could seem so content. Could that scream “ignorant 13-year-old” more?

As I’ve grown, I’ve also grown to understand and connect more with Lorelai and her dreams. What I couldn’t possibly understand then was that what may seem like everyday small victories, are actually the ones that matter most in the big picture. Lorelai made due with what she had rather than what she gave up. She fully embraced all the highs and lows that came with independence, made something of herself in the process, and raised a child completely alone as a young person, and was a terrific mother.

While the Gilmores chased their own respective dreams, both were equally as admirable and valid as the other. I used to think that if it one day came down to giving up my childhood dreams, it meant I had failed. But growing has shown me that sometimes your dreams adjust to your reality, and there’s nothing wrong with that, because you find out you had dreams you never knew about. It took me going away and coming home again to realize what "Gilmore Girls" was really saying: living a gratifying life isn’t about having all your childhood dreams come to fruition, but rather, realizing that gratification comes in living life on your terms.

3. Lots about love and romance.

There was never a shortage of lessons on love and romance in this show, so I’ve broken it down into the different lessons.

There was hardly anything as reassuring as watching Rory enter the romantic realm as awkward and confused, and emerging as someone who had truly come into her own. For those of us who were in the midst of adolescence, her transformation gave us hope. Hope that we too could make it through these messy and complicated years. While it didn’t promise that we would do so unscathed, at least it ensured we would come out on the other side. Through her many trials and tribulations with love and romance amongst several suitors (I was always Team Jess – albeit wishing they gave her more options), it felt as though we were braving these exact situations alongside Rory; ultimately realizing that love and romance is an ever-changing learning process.

Love yourself first, unconditionally, and enough to know that you deserve the very best. While it’s always easier said than done, Lorelai was unflagging in her efforts to live her truth and be unapologetically herself, and taught her daughter to do the same.

Even though that sometimes means putting yourself before the one you love, for your own best interest. AKA when Rory turned down Logan's proposal. Is it wrong that I was overjoyed? He was a little too smug for my taste and his all-or-nothing antics just spoke to his overall immaturity.

Love leads with the heart, not the head; even for the over-analytical, logically bound Gilmore girls. You love who you love, and you don't who you don't, even if it's not who you expected it would be. The greatest example of this was when Lorelai broke it off with Christopher in her famous "you are the man I want to want" line.

I don’t just mean romantic love, either. There was always a big emphasis on loving the shit out of the things you love. They loved the shit out of pizza, coffee and pop culture references. Was their diet with respect to their figures completely absurd? Yes. Were the obscure references Rory alluded to completely unrealistic for her to know at that age, in spite of her intellect? Absolutely. But it didn't matter to me. All that mattered was that they remained loyal to the things they enjoyed, in spite of everyone else's judgments.

While the reunion is all that I’ve ever hoped for, reflecting on these lessons has me begging the question, will there be some sort of revival? Although Amy Sherman-Palladino shot down rumors of a movie in the works, one can hope.