i'm in my lorelai gilmore era

finding happiness in the humdrum

before i begin: yes, i “rebranded” my substack, aka finally gave it a name that’s more creative than “kim’s newsletter.” it has a nice ring to it, yeah?

the start of fall means a few things for me: cider donuts all day, e’rry day, bringing my boots, scarves, and bomber jackets out of the storage bins under my bed, and rewatching gilmore girls for the millionth time.

and not only do i watch gilmore girls every single autumn, but i actively aspire to live as much of a gilmore-like existence as possible year round. after all, i grew up in my very own stars hollow in new hampshire. and i’ve now lived in a medium-sized town in massachusetts (population ~46,0000) that feels a whole lot like a small town — complete with coffee shops and bakeries and little free libraries and an annual “town day” and jug band jams — for just about 10 years. but it wasn’t long ago that i entered into what i’ve come to refer to as my “lorelai gilmore era.” let me elaborate.

in this season of my life, there’s quite a bit of what i’d describe as hijinks. you know — mundane, inconsequential, seinfeldian day-to-day happenings that are marginally amusing and make for a funny story at brunch or while texting friends, but don’t really move the plot along, per se. some examples:

• for a long time now, i’ve placed an online order at my forever favorite coffee shop so i don’t need to wait in line, but the staff recently began waiting until i arrive to make my coffee and/or food. like, why? it feels odd to ask about the sudden change (perhaps because i’m a loyal customer and they want my coffee to be scalding hot?), and adding an extra layer of awkwardness to the situation is the fact that i went on a date with the manager a couple years ago.

• i have my neighborhood “dudes” with whom i exchange friendly greetings on a daily or weekly basis; these include my neighbor (who, to my delight, has seth rogen’s laugh), an older gentlemen who faithfully gets his steps in on my street every afternoon, the manager at the dunkin’ donuts down the road, and a crew of homeless buddies who hang outside of the local convenience store and wave at me.

• a large, orange cat named honey who lives across the street — the doppelgänger of my large, orange cat, marv — frequently breaches the premises and wanders onto our lawn, provoking the ire of marv from the dining room window (he howls, runs away and back to the window again to keep tabs on his nemesis, and howls some more).

• i met a woman around my age because we were both steps away from each other on the sidewalk on a weekday afternoon — she was walking her dog, i was getting an iced coffee, natch — and were the sole bystanders who witnessed a man being swarmed by cop cars and arrested in front of a bank. she invited me to her summer potluck a couple weeks later.

like i said, seinfeldian. not super exciting. kind of boring, actually, minus the police activity. but this is mostly a good thing, i think. after all, ho-hum days and blah weeks are far better than a crisis or an emotionally low period brought on by some cataclysmic career or romantic event. i’m so lucky to be in a lull, i often remind myself.

and while i know that things won’t remain static forever, i’m constantly fighting my innate restlessness (and enneagram 7-ness) to do something wacky and/or impulsive for the story. i’m also constantly thinking about how, at 38, i have not found the “best years of your life” adage that so many people spout about your 30s to be remotely true for me. my 30s have been…good. solid. important in many ways, with many great moments, but i would never deign to describe them as the best years of my life. that title is still held by my 20s, when new and fun people seemed to drop into my life every other week without effort, magical, serendipitous experiences seemed drawn to me as if i had my own personal tinkerbell summoning them with her magic wand and fairy dust, and there was a pervasive, almost romantic feeling — akin to the one you get after watching a cheesy, charming rom-com — that the most exciting experiences were still ahead.

i’m reminded of a quote i highlighted last year while reading the book easy beauty by chloe cooper jones — one of the best i’ve read in a while — because it captures this sentiment perfectly for me (barring the fact that i did go to a bar behind a phone booth a few years ago).

“i’d not thought about practicality because i don’t want practical things to happen. i want an event, something like a bar behind a phone booth, a séance at a village festival, a lever to pull, a secret revealed, a mountain guide to guide me, a mystic in the alley, a mystery to solve, a man on the run, anything, anything at all…”

events used to fall into my lap. now, they take effort. planning. research. calendar syncing. there’s an undesirable sense of difficulty associated with obtaining these life-affirming, game-changing experiences that i used to just stumble into on a tuesday afternoon. and while i’m willing to make that effort, and i still take trips and attend festivals and dine out and go to more concerts than i can keep track of, i long for the ease and flow of a time when life just found me, instead of the other way around.

i also long for a time when i knew a little less about everyone and everything, and everyone knew a little less about me. when an awful meal became a hilarious memory because i couldn’t look up a yelp review to warn me about the restaurant beforehand. when i had absolutely no idea what a friend thought about a movie until it naturally came up in conversation over mugs of beer and a platter of mozzarella sticks in a dive bar a year after it came out, because social media and letterboxd didn’t exist.

but for now, i’m attempting to embrace the best parts of the lorelai lifestyle: tuning out the expectations, opinions, and noise of the wider world (and myself) and appreciating the small but special stars hollow happenings that are right in front of me each day, without wondering or worrying too much about what’s ahead. because i still never know when a smile from a stranger, a visit to the local pizza shop, or a picnic at the pond can open up a door i didn’t even notice before.