I was awkwardly browsing the bookshelves while waiting for my pumpkin spice latte at the brand-new, three-story Central Library. When I feel uncomfortable, I naturally try to do things that make me look like I am the opposite. Unaffected. Natural. Dare I say, mysterious...LOL! When in fact I am very introverted and the second I get my coffee I run and hide in my favorite corner of the library.
Looking through the book titles… self-help… eh, I have read too many of those lately. Books about trees… tempting… and then, like a reflex, my arm darted frantically towards a copy of Famesick: A Memoir by Lena Dunham.
I held the book closely to my chest, a wide smile spreading across my face, and I dove straight in, not hearing the first time they called out my name to retrieve my coffee.
Lena Dunham, the brilliant creator, writer, executive producer, director, and star of the HBO series Girls. She created the entire show and wrote the pilot in her early twenties. This is a show that I found solace in during a transitional period of my life.
I absolutely adore her character Hannah Horvath in Girls. Hannah is sporadic, hilarious, and so relatable. Her life is messy, and so is she. I find the glory and beauty in that, and I resonate deeply with women who are like this.
Hannah can be childish, highly sexually active, and is surrounded by a group of friends with completely different personalities and their own disheveled lives. There is something so beautiful to me about how unapologetically human she is.
The fact that Lena created this character and chose herself to be cast as Hannah, I immediately fell in love with her. Not just Hannah, but with Lena.
This book dives deep into Lena’s experiences and early years before she really hit fame. I am currently sitting at the library, consuming all of the pages of Lena’s book. The way she writes is so witty and lighthearted about things most would label as traumatizing.
For example, the back of the book reads:
“I recently told my aunt how nervous I was for this book to come out. ‘I say some tough things,’ I told her. ‘Things my parents still don’t know.’ ‘What?’ she said. ‘What could be so surprising? What don’t they know? I mean, Grandma Dot saw you naked on TV when she was ninety-six.’”
Lena has a no-fucks dialogue with basically everyone she encounters. She is so open about her experiences, and seeing her in Girls made me fall in love with my own body.
Which on the contrary, of course, to how Lena was actually feeling and contrary to the health issues she was enduring.
As she stated, everyone sees being famous as a privilege. When in reality, there’s such a price to pay—dark encounters and so much self-sacrifice that goes into her profession.
I can’t really seem to encompass fully how deeply I feel and how I relate to Lena. It’s something I have struggled my whole life to put into words, but because of people like Lena, I feel a little less alone, more seen, and understood.
Have I finished this book? No. Frankly I was just too excited that I needed to write about this book immediately. That’s why this is labeled
First Impressions.
But I believe that sometimes we find what we need once we take a step outside of our inner world and take a look around. Like when you walk down the same sidewalk day after day, passing the same flowers, and never truly see them until you need a reminder of how beautiful the world truly is.
This was a flower in a garden of books that my heart deeply needed in this moment.
My whole life I have felt like I was someone who needed to be fixed. But I feel so inspired by women like Lena who is so openly saying,
“THIS IS ME, WORLD. This is my story. These are my words that speak true of who I am, and I refuse to be ashamed of it.”
It’s powerful women like Lena that make me feel at ease with my own insecurities.
In lesser words: Be weird. Be relentlessly yourself. And read Lena Dunham’s book Famesick if this resonates with you.