Assignment 22 - Ella Franklin

Rory Gilmore. I don't even need to think about it.

I watched Gilmore Girls my freshman year. I wasn't lonely freshman year, but I was a loner. But I always have been, and after you are for a while it's something you get very comfortable with. But then the older you get as a loner the more issues you have, like intimacy and opening up to someone and all that. I haven't had to deal with that yet though. I don't think Rory Gilmore ever did.

Rory was everything I wanted to be as a young woman. Freshman year I felt very bad about myself, only because I felt like I wasn't doing enough in school. I felt like I wasn't doing enough clubs and my classes were stupid and the whole year there was just a strong sense of hopelessness. I've never had it so bad as I did my freshman year.

But Rory Gilmore had it good. The only way I survived my freshman year was by living vicariously through Rory. Rory was an achieving student: rising editor of the Chilton newspaper (basically my dream as a freshman), way overstressed due to class load (loved that), had some boy issues (not what I wanted for myself, but appreciated for plot purposes).

As a freshman, I felt like my life just hadn't quite started yet. I saw potential in myself, but I thought I needed time to achieve it. And Rory to me was like a window into what I would grow into. Really, Rory was how I envisioned myself at like, now. And has that proved to be true? I don't know. Do you ever really know? There's this speech Matthew McConaughey gave at the Oscars or something where he talked about how if there were anyone he could have dinner with, it would be himself in ten years. And it always is. Because you never really reach yourself in ten years. Your always chasing that. And I feel like I am always chasing my Rory Gilmore. And I hope I never get it.