Saturday photo

Lorelai and Rory:
The calm before the storm... as history takes aim at repeating itself.

It's amazing how life sometimes takes a 'sharp turn', takes you by surprise as it does... and then stuns you with a gentle force that wakes you up from your deep slumber in blind acceptance of what you believe is your fate in the confines of your dwindling self-worth. And life does shake you up with what it has in store for you... just waiting at the corner.  And then you feel the caking blanket of acceptance that's enveloping you like a cemented cocoon cracks, and gently falls off, one little dried chip of cemented complacency at a time.  Slowly, you feel that you are able to breathe comfortably again, and the relief is astonishing! And you can't believe how long you have been holding your breath, waiting to exhale.  As the dried cake continues to fall off, you slowly hear, and feel, your heart beat again.  And you feel suddenly alive - again!

***
That familiar sound of witty banter

I had this wonderful chance of re-living the early 2000s - thanks to Netflix, where my pop culture memory is dominated by that epic of a TV series, Gilmore Girls.  It's the only thing that can eclipse the memory of the 'changing of guards' in the tennis world, also in the early 2000s, as Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were being edged off by that genius Swiss Maestro, Roger Federer, whose brilliance is only challenged by that 17-year-old force of nature from Spain, Rafael Nadal.  Gilmore Girls was one heck of a TV series!  The witty banters - episode after episode, were unparalleled; and the mix of drama and humor is nothing else but a stroke of rare perfection that one would think it was penned from heaven itself!  

In a way, watching the mother-daughter tandem of the single mother, Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), and her only daughter, Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), whom she had at the age of seventeen years, unleash their unparalleled wit in brilliant banters was very much like watching tennis.  It was always as if the players were engaged in an exciting rally that, in the end, it didn't really matter who won the point because you were entertained tremendously anyway!  You just felt lucky to see the ball being 'battered' in relentless effort from the players to never allow it to bounce out of the court.  Add to the two young Gilmore girls Lorelai's mother, Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), whose ability to win an argument, even when she was always fighting a lost cause, was outstanding... and, yes, bewildering at the same time, and you got yourself a real treat!  Add to the mix, the snotty concierge at Lorelai's Independence Inn, and later, Dragonfly Inn, Michel Gerard (Yanic Truesdale), and you've got yourself a popcorn-worthy, slumber party TV marathon material -  complete with Mickey Mouse socks!  The banter-filled script was superb - in every single episode!  And yet, what good is a great script if the actors cannot keep the ball flying, and leave the audience either open-mouthed in awe... or bursting at the seams in convulsed laughter?  I say, the casting was a work of a genius, too.

Anyway, after a "hell" of a week, and the week before, too... with only a couple of hours of sleep each night - maximum - it is, indeed, an incredible gift to re-discover an old fave!  I'm in love again! 

***
Wake up call... from the girls

But what made the time with my fave TV girls fantastic was the fact that they led me to a glorious epiphany!

I've been dragging myself from one week to the next, struggling to fuel myself with enough inspiration to keep going... trying to convince myself every single morning, when I wake up, that the struggle, while painful, is worth it!  It is a good thing that I have these beautiful kids that I love to bits who give me enough reason to keep smarting off from the painful struggle, giving meaning to what I do in my workplace - every single day.  Whenever I begin wishing to be anywhere else but in my workplace, I think of them... and the thought that they might just be outside my Office, and seeing me not giving my 100% scares me because I never ever want to be a bad example to them.  And, so I gather whatever little scraps of inspiration I can find, and move the day to productivity.  With prayers - lots of it, and the good people around me, I always manage to have a satisfying day... never mind that, some people see us in my Office as their workhorses that they can kick around to perform stuff for them.  Indeed, people can be very demanding and incredibly arrogant like that sometimes!

And yet, it makes me think... why do I feel that what I do, while important and meaningful, and my Team and I were able to accomplish unprecedented things in the history of our Institution, is becoming more and more of a burden rather than a joy?  Perhaps, with all the varied challenges we face, the bulk of work has become physically impossible to perform without enough assistance.  So, the joy that I used to get from reflecting over our work vanished because there hardly is time to pause and rest these days, leaving a time for reflection to be next to absolute impossibility! 

Speaking of reflection, almost a decade after the end of the original series, a sequel to the original Gilmore Girls was distributed by Netflix, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life".  It was a four-part mini series that updated fans with the whereabouts and goings-on in the lives of our fave girls.  It was surprising to find out that the now 35-year-old Rory, while a success in Yale, was hopping from one 'gig' of a job to another.  And she was without her own place.  Her love relationships were messy, too!  And, while she struggled to put her life together, with the transitions in the lives of Lorelai and Emily in the background, it led me to my own reflection, too. 

I was going to do great things after Cornell!  I believe... I did, too.  At least, that's what the facts and numbers in my workplace say.  And, yet, I do not feel like I have fully utilized the 'tanks and tanks' of knowledge and experience that Cornell loaded me with while I was with them... just like Rory was nurtured to do great things by Yale during her time there.

And now, I am 'restless'... the 'tanks' are about to 'explode' on their own, they want to be 'opened and emptied'... because they want a 're-fill'... perhaps, in another Ivy League Institution, or its equivalent somewhere else.  In the last installment of the four-part sequel of Gilmore Girls, Rory decided to work on her own 'tanks'... had an epiphany on the 'best place' to do so, and she dropped everything to get there!  Once there, 'greatness' just poured out in beautiful waves of delectable brilliance... and the result is bound to become a masterpiece.  So, all was well again for Rory!

I desperately need to be in my own 'best place' to open my 'tanks', 'empty' them... and 're-fill', too.  And that is the reason why what I do has become a burden, it is preventing me from getting to where I should go.  And yet, I understand that my realities are not as simple as Rory's scripted life.  Therefore, I continue to pray.

At the very end of the Gilmore Girl's sequel, just when you think that all is well, Rory revealed a secret to Lorelai that was bound to make history repeat itself. I do not have such kind of secret. Uh, wait... maybe I do have, too?! ;)

***
Image credit:  The photo was a mobile phone shot from the 4th episode of the Gilmore Girls sequel - thanks, Netflix.

***