Like most other people, I am obsessed with Netflix—TV shows, movies, and fandoms in general. Many of my favorite shows, such as Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Parks and Rec, etc., I would use as an escape; a way to get away from my life and become fully immersed in someone else's for a little while. However, the exception to this is "Gilmore Girls," which is quite possibly my favorite show of all time.
For those of you who don't know, "Gilmore Girls" is centered around a woman named Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory. Lorelai had Rory when she was 16, so they are more friends than mother and daughter. They live in a fictional town called Stars Hollow in Connecticut, where Lorelai is the manager of the Independence Inn (until she and her friend Sookie decide to buy their own inn and name it the Dragonfly Inn) and Rory goes to a private school named Chilton.
As someone who has lived in a small town in Connecticut for her entire life, watching the show did not feel like I was entering someone else's life, but rather, that its characters were entering mine. My town, Branford, has been compared to Stars Hollow on various websites before, mainly because we have a town center that is very similar to the one on the show (though, sadly, we don't have a gazebo). There is a diner in the center of town much like Luke's, where my family has become friends with the owner because we used to be regulars when I was younger. Lorelai and Rory usually walk everywhere, which I can relate to because my high school was down the road from the town center, so before I had a car, many times my friends and I would walk down to the center to hangout and get ice cream at an infamous place called Ashley's (much like Taylor's Olde Fashioned Soda Shoppe).
But more than just the backdrop, I saw myself in the character of Lorelai Gilmore, more than I've ever related to a character before. It sounds like a conceited thing to say, because everyone wants to be like Lor, but it's true. I've always wanted to be more similar to Phoebe Buffay, or Leslie Knope, or Robin Scherbatsky, but I just never was. But in quirky, fast-talking, junk-food-eating, occasionally narcissistic but extremely caring Lorelai, I began to see the person who I am—or, at least, the person who it seems as though I'm shaping into. I definitely do not have her incredible wit or her ability to make jokes and cultural references at the drop of a hat, but I can definitely relate to all other aspects of her personality.
I can also relate to Rory: I've never stolen a yacht or had two guys after me at the same time (I've never even had one). But her love of books, her shyness, her college decision-making process, and her transition from high school to college, were all things that I've experienced. So it's almost as if I was living them alongside Rory.
For these reasons, watching Gilmore Girls always felt like I was going home. Especially now that I'm in college and can't easily go back to Branford, Stars Hollow has become my second home and a place for me to escape. So thank you, "Gilmore Girls", for giving me a second home and a place I know I can always go.
