Sis-in-law E and I have been watching “Gilmore Girls” when we get the chance lately – which is not often, but we’re trying.  E has never seen the show, which I find all kinds of shocking.  I knew she’d love it, and she does.  (We’ve gotten as far as “Rory’s Birthday Parties” in season 1, so we’re going slowly.  She also has to catch up on “Downton Abbey” so we can all watch season 3 together as a family.)  And while we were watching recently, I had an unsettling revelation.  Here it is:

Right now, I am only one year younger than season 1 Lorelai.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I started watching “Gilmore” when the third season was airing.  I was nineteen, a junior in college, and not that different from Rory – and Paris, bless her heart.  I could remember being a slightly awkward, bookish teenager with Ivy League dreams (although mine focused with laser-like intensity on Cornell, not Harvard).  In fact, I still was a bookish teenager, just a few years further into my own college journey than Rory was at the time, since season 3 is her senior year of high school.  I liked Lorelai, Sookie, Michel, Luke, Miss Patty and the rest of the townsfolk (except Taylor, of course), and Richard and Emily too (especially Richard), but I watched the show for Rory and Paris, and to a lesser extent, for Lane.  They were my contemporaries.  Rory and I read the same books.  Lane and I both liked Rilo Kiley.  Paris and I had the same neuroses.

Lorelai, meanwhile, was out of my immediate sphere.  I loved the character, of course – her determination to give her daughter the best education even though they didn’t have much money, her passionate follow-through on her dreams of starting her own business with Sookie and Michel, her cool outfits and flirty banter with Luke, her string of boyfriends (remember Jason and his crazy dog?)… but I didn’t really relate to her.

Now, watching the show all over again from the beginning, it blows my mind that Lorelai is only 32.  Dudes.  I’m 31.  I still feel younger than Lorelai – much younger.  I suppose that’s because I have taken a very different life path than the character did.  But my head just about exploded when I realized that, at this point, I have more in common with Lorelai than with Rory.

We’re both moms (but thankfully, I’m not a single mom to a teenager).  We both pay a mortgage and hold down steady jobs.  I’m not the boss, by any stretch of the imagination, the way Lorelai is.  But as the senior associate in the office, I have people coming to me to get feedback on their work, or for mentoring, which strikes me as pretty weird (until I remember that I’m 31 and I’ve been out of law school for almost seven years).  I have dreams of starting my own (non-law-related) business someday, as most lawyers do.  I don’t have to worry about Peanut driving a car or applying to colleges for awhile (although E thinks she might be starting to contemplate crawling… hoo, boy) but I have a little person depending on me to make good decisions for her and to give her a good start, much like Rory depends on Lorelai.  (Although Rory can feed herself and doesn’t need to be rocked to sleep every night; I didn’t say it was exactly the same.)

There’s no specific thesis to this post… except to say that I am totally wigged out now that I’ve realized I have more in common with Lorelai than Rory.  (This I can handle.  But if one day I discover that I have more in common with Emily than with Lorelai… well, I think my head might explode.)  But it’s also telling that this show has so much staying power with me, that I can enjoy it just as much now, as a mom in my thirties, as I did when I was a book-devouring teenager like Rory.  That’s a sign of a darn good show.

And now, because of reasons, I will conclude with my favorite quote from an immensely quotable series:

Rory: “No one reads The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire unless it’s for a class assignment.  It’s a honkin’ long book.  This is clearly a cry for help.”

Lorelai: “You’re very anti-intellectual.”