Not a Gilmore Girl

Sitting in my one bedroom apartment using my bed as both a desk and kitchen table, I have XTC's I'm the Man Who Murdered Love cranked to a barely acceptable volume and am eating pizza I really couldn't afford from the box while my cats judge me from a distance. Probably should have thought twice about the pizza considering I'm just getting over the stomach flu but good decision making skills can kiss my ass. Lorelai Gilmore I am not but that doesn't stop some similarities between my current situation and one in which the fictional character found herself.

We're not alike in very certain ways. She's maybe a size six on a bloated day and brunette and leggy. I have a twenty in front of that six on my best days and am blond and, well, I'm probably leggy seeing as I come in just under six foot but I digress. Lorelai hailed from Connecticut and I am from the corn capital of the USA, Indiana. Lorelai had her daughter, Rory, at sixteen and I'm twenty-three and have yet to even been kissed. Lorelai had a dog named Paul Anka, I have two cats named Bodhi and Kansas.

I suppose my town and Stars Hollow aren't entirely dissimilar. Both are relatively small - both with populations under 10k and full of the neurotic and nosy types though I'm fairly certain that my town has 100% more rednecks than the Hollow ever did and also 100% less Town Troubadors which is just depressing. We could use some more Kirk Gleasons and a few less Taylor Dooses.

Lorelai and I share a profound love for coffee, bad movies, and using condiments on food items for which they were not intended. We're also really good at doing the things we have to do. There's a scene from an episode I can't recall at the moment when Lorelai is going on one of her fabulous rants about doing what she had to do - when she had to find a job to support her and Rory, she did it, and when she had to find a place for them to live, she did it. I, too, am good at doing what I have to. Survival mode is my default position, I think.

My mom died almost two weeks ago. For thirteen months I watched her battle cancer - a rare and nasty cancer that started on her bile duct and ended with a large mass on her liver and more than a dozen tumors on her lungs. I watched her outlive doctor's expectations for months. Even when she entered the hospital for the last time, we still expected her to come home. She was intubated for less than twenty-four hours and the doctors, at the time they put her on the vent, were unsure if she would ever come off it but she practically pulled it out herself the next day when she declared she was done with the stupid thing. My mom kicked cancer's ass for as long and as hard as she could. She was a powerful woman.

(Honestly, the night we took mom to the hospital for the last time... I fought it hard. I didn't want her to go. I was scared. I broke down crying and was mad and didn't want to take her. I was so afraid of what was going to happen and I wasn't ready to accept it.)

They gave her "less than two weeks" on February 6th and on February 16th at 12:35 pm she slipped away from us.

My whole world took a complete 180.

You see, my mom was my "Lorelai Gilmore". She was my best friend on the planet. She was the one who I laughed with and had inside jokes and took 5 am trips to Walmart with for no other reason than because we were bored. And now she's gone.

I'm not alone. Just like Rory wouldn't be alone if Lorelai died. I've still got my Tyler, my Lane Kim, my best friend since I was six. And I've got my Rachel, my Paris Gellar (and I mean that in the best way possible - she challenges me and makes me a better person daily), who may not have been there for every significant moment but she's been there for a lot and she'll be there for all the rest. And I've got my Rachael, who may just be my Jess Mariano. So I've got people. I'm not alone. I've got my Stars Hollow. I have my people. But that doesn't make me any less sad.

I'm good at doing what I have to do. I had to find a place to live so I found one. I had to find a way to make money so I found one (thank god I'm good with kids - it's like my one redeemable skill). But when do I get to start living? I'm twenty-three and I feel like maybe this could be a brand new start. A chance to do things. I've been playing the caretaker for years now and maybe now is the time for taking chances and doing things. So what are the things I'm supposed to be doing? How do I disengage survival mode and start living? Why did Amy Sherman-Palladino not write more on this section of Lorelai's life? And why is life such a damn reality and so unlike fiction where everyone gets a satisfactory ending?

My mom was a badass. My mom was a fighter. I am proud to be her daughter.

I am not a Gilmore Girl. I am a Carter woman. Maybe that's better?

I don't know. The thoughts one is plagued with at 7:44 pm on a Sunday evening when one has nothing better to do than ruminate on one's own life.

-J

50 Things About Me

1. I'm a libra who was born on a Friday in the late morning and my mama thinks this says a lot about my personality. 
2. My favorite scents of all time are vanilla, peppermint, and pumpkin. 
3. Northern Oregon is my favorite place on the planet (Portland, Multnomah, and Seaside). 
4. Autumn is my favorite season (if I could live somewhere where it was autumn year round I would be the happiest person alive). 
5. Pretty sure that I came out of the womb addicted to tea. 
6. Currently my favorite shows are: Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Castle, The 100, and Once Upon a Time.
7. Yes, I believe in aliens. We cannot live in a universe so vast and be the only life forms. 
8. Not actually a huge fan of whiskey - I just like the word. 
9. If I went on a cross country road trip the soundtrack would be composed of The Decemberists, Mogwai, Arcade Fire, The Whiskey Switch, and The Shins. 
10. Allen Ginsberg changed the way I viewed poetry and how I perceived the world. 
11. The above is why I have a cat named Howl. 
12. Book polygamist. I'm currently in the middle of reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Wildwood by Colin Meloy, and The Walking Dead comics by Robert Kirkman. 
13. Decidedly specific about my writing utensils. 
14. I've had the same best friend since first grade and if I'm certain about one thing it is that our paths were fated to cross. 
15. Holding a grudge against the science education that I received at a private christian school in 7th and 8th grade - going back to public school was like having to relearn everything. 
16. Agnostic. To me, God is very real and I believe in heaven and hell but I can't fathom the idea that we can have hundreds of different languages, different cultures, and there be only one path, one right way. 
17. My girlfriend was a good friend for nearly five years before we made that transition from friends to something more and it wasn't something that either of us ever banked on. It happened in a blink of an eye and without either of our consent. 
18. She is the one thing that has kept me sane since my mom got diagnosed with cancer, she has made me smile on days where I didn't want to live. 
19. Our relationship is the longest lasting one that I have ever been in and even though we've had our share of struggles... Loving her is never something that has wavered. 
20. Nearly died the summer before I turned eighteen thanks to a hospital borne case of MRSA that I contracted during surgery on my arm. 
21. Country down to my bones. 
22. Proud owner of a vagabond soul. I hope to someday be an owner of one of those tiny houses and never put down permanent roots anywhere. 
23. At twenty-three I have been to Indiana (born and raised), Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, Washington, and Oregon. My feet have been on the ground in Tennessee, Alabama, Colorado, and Nevada. 
24. Writing is something that I am always going to do - maybe someday I will get paid for it but for now it's enough just to write for the sake of writing. 
25. Finally finishing high school after dropping out five years ago for the sake of my own sanity. 
26. Camping is one of my absolute favorite things to do and I don't go nearly enough. 
27. I attach to fictional characters the way some people attach to, ya know, other humans. 
28. Honestly much happier when it's raining than I am when it's sunny. 
29. Peter Pan, the Mad Hatter, and Scout Finch are three of my favorite fictional characters from books. 
30. Kind of a cross between Rory Gilmore and Emma Swan. 
31. Obviously I've been a fangirl all my life - haters gonna hate. 
32. My IQ is just high enough to make me a pompous ass sometimes. 
33. Fascinated by Wicca and witchcraft and all things creepy. 
34. Look, I'm an October baby born not far from Halloween - if you were expecting me to be normal you came to the wrong blog. 
35. Whenever one of my parents is hospitalized, I have this habit of just wandering the halls while they sleep. I can never settle down so I find little nooks and crannies, places I can hide away from the world and get some privacy. 
36. NaNoWriMo winner for 2013 and 2014. 
37. My third grade teacher put the pen in my hand and got me writing, my sixth grade language arts teacher kept me writing, my ninth grade honors english teacher honed my writing, and my tenth grade honors english teacher pushed my limits as a writer; I am forever indebted to all of them. 
38. Still crying over Robin Williams (rest in peace, the man who taught me to believe in fairies). 
39. Hate starting two sentences in a row with the same letter. 
40. Unless it's the middle of a nasty winter, I'm almost always barefoot or in flip-flops. 
41. The actual biggest klutz that you will ever meet (have you ever accidentally caught yourself on fire more than once in a single year?)
42. I'm known as the mom in my group of friends. 
43. Hopefully I'll be a behavioral aide or special education teacher in the not so distant future - I want to change the way kids with behavioral disorders are treated. 
44. German, Irish, and French are my ethnic makeup but I look more Irish than anything else. 
45. Obsessed with space sciences a the moment - cosmology and astrophysics fascinate the ever loving crap out of me. 
46. Been trying to teach myself French since I was twelve - it's a work in progress. 
47. When I was born I had dark red hair and it faded to blond by the time I was three-ish but I'm always dying it dark red because I feel it suits my personality the best. 
48. Currently only have one tattoo but I hope to have many more added to my person over the next few years. 
49. Purple is my favorite color of all time and has been since I was thirteen. 
50. This is it, this is my life, and I'm just trying to survive this beautiful chaos.