Girls

I moved to NYC at 22 years old, single, by myself and didn’t know a soul.  The fairy tale “Sex and the City” was the huge current TV hit.  In my subconscious mind, I had images of women shopping daily and dressing like Sarah Jessica Parker in $2000 outfits to meet friends for coffee or to have a fabulous date with a really rich, handsome man.  The “Sex and the City” women all worked but it was an afterthought and only one episode I can recall talked about money troubles. 

My life looked absolutely nothing like “Sex and the City.”  Nothing.  I had the lovely ‘life’ experiences of living with a roommate who had a severe eating disorder, dealing with a psycho roommate who stiffed me out of 4 months rent by disappearing and eventually living alone in a 300 square foot studio apartment with no kitchen.  I waited tables until my feet hurt and never had the pleasure of shopping casually in Soho.  I was so mentally screwed because I was subconsciously looking for the “Sex and the City” NYC with Manolos and ‘meet cutes’ around every corner yet my reality was living in a shithole, trying to cook on a stove smaller than a hotplate and auditioning for all sorts of terrible theater shows (like the children’s show that spent 15 minutes trying to get me to quack like a duck in a more convincing way-whatever the hell that means).  And don’t get me started on the dates.  Being in your 20s and dating in NYC is not a fairy tale—it’s more like a horror film where you want to scream at the girl in the movie to “Run!!”  I had far too many horrible dates with guys that I would love to hang out with now…..now that they’re out of the closet.  There is nothing worse than getting excited and dressed up for a date….only to realize over the appetizer that you’ve got a wonderful gay man for a companion for the evening.  Kills all the romance.  (I could mention the more outrageous dates….but my dad reads my blog so I’ll just say that sometimes it was a relief to spend a night at home by myself eating pizza from Big Nick’s.)

Which all brings me to my point….”Girls”- the HBO TV show.  I just started watching it.  During the first three episodes, I don’t think I blinked, breathed or moved a muscle.  I didn’t even sip my glass of wine.  I just stared at the screen.  I felt like my early 20s just ran up and smacked me across the face.  Lena Dunham (the 26 year old writer, director and star of the show) is a genius.  She has managed to capture a period of life, a rite of passage, in the most honest way I have ever seen it portrayed.  I had no idea that all the bullshit I went through in my 20s could actually be that interesting or that real or that raw or that unselfconscious or that unapologetic or that worthy of examining.  I’m just floored.  I’m mostly floored by a show written, starred and directed by a 26 year old that hosts a cast of actresses that don’t all look like they were ordered out of a casting catalogue in Hollywood but have real hips and real stomachs that actually jiggle when having terrible 20s sex. 

It’s weird to watch the show as a 34 year-old married mother of two.  I am oddly attached to the story and have flashbacks to similar situations that happened to me and I’m also so far away from that world that it’s almost laughable.  Becoming a wife and a mother tends to wash away the ridiculousness of youth.  Being a wife has made me stand a little taller and laugh a little deeper and fight a little more passionately.  Being a mother has made me discover my true strength—a strength that you don’t get from lifting weights or navigating the streets of NYC alone but the strength you get from knowing that I would actually kill someone with my bare hands who came near my children to harm them.  The strength that says “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR” and “I’M A MOTHER, I WILL CUT YOU.”

I know I’ve rambled.  I went from Sarah Jessica Parker wearing Manolos to Lena Dunham dancing in her bedroom to being a mom.  It’s just so weird to remember what you thought your 20s would be like, to living the real version of your 20s, to then seeing your 20s reflected back at you through a 30 minute show and ultimately watching all of this through the lens of your current ‘adult’ life.  It’s a wonder any of us survived.  I could never muster the patience to sit through some of those terrible dates ever again or put up with some of the bullshit I put up with years ago.  But- it is really amazing and refreshing to be reminded of the freedom, honesty and rawness of a being a young woman in a big city who had absolutely no idea what she was doing….quacking like a duck and all.