I’ve been binge-watching a lot of Netflix shows lately, and I’m currently watching Gilmore Girls. Last week, I was watching the episode where the character Rory experiences her first breakup. Rory asks her mom, Lorelai, to throw out everything related to her ex, avoid him, and disregard all her feelings about the breakup.
Lorelai is concerned and sits down to talk to her. Her piece of advice is to wallow.
“Get back in your pajamas, go to bed, eat nothing but gallons of ice cream and tons of pizza, don’t take a shower or shave your legs or put on any kind of makeup at all and just sit in the dark and watch a really sad movie and have a good long cry and just wallow. You need to wallow.”
Rory is firmly against the idea of wallowing and says she doesn’t want to be “the kind of girl who just falls apart because she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” Lorelai says that description hardly applies to her, and Rory says, “It will if I wallow.”
I had a moment when I saw that scene. Like Rory, I choose to bottle up my feelings because it’s just easier that way. She decides to focus on school, her future, and anything else that doesn’t involve her emotions. She doesn’t have time to wallow.
Even when I have a situation going on in my life, I choose to ignore it because my focus should be on my assignments, deadlines, future, and everything else. I don’t have time to stop and cry one out.
Hearing Lorelai’s advice was my reminder that ignoring things won’t make them go away. It won’t erase any feelings of negativity that you have from your situation. It’s important to face it and acknowledge why you feel the way you do and allow yourself to grieve, be sad, be upset, and just wallow.
Rory realizes this at the end of the episode, and Lorelai comes back home to find her sitting on the couch, crying and holding a spoon and a large tub of ice cream in her lap.
“I’m ready to wallow now,” says Rory.
Her mom doesn’t say anything and goes to comfort her. Rory continues to cry and rests her head on her mom’s lap while Lorelai calls and orders a pizza with everything on it.
So next time I catch myself pulling a Rory, I’m going to remember it’s okay to stay in my pajamas, stay in bed, eat junk food, and do whatever I want because I need time to wallow too.