Hannah: Please don't tell anyone this, but I wanna be happy.
Hannah: I realize I'm not different. I want what everyone wants. I want what they all want. I want all the things. I just want to be happy.
Strange how things just hit you at the right time. I've been watching the HBO show Girls--which I LOVE, btw. But what I was so fascinated with was how lives change--I remember watching this episode rather transfixed & rather uncomfortable because here was Hannah, all of 24 years old hanging out (OK, fucking) with Joshua, a middle-aged (albeit very hot) guy of 42. It was like holding up a mirror to my former self & my current self. So un-grown-up back then. How did I ever get from where Hannah is to where I am now? Because really Hannah's character doesn't like to admit that she "wants what everyone wants." She prides herself on being outside the norm--and when I was that age, well, so did I. I was a real "hippie chick" & I very much flaunted that. Yeah, there's still a lot of crunchy left in me now, but here I am--kinda like Joshua, with a nice house, nice art, stuff, etc., comfortable. Not on the edge like Hannah--not the way I used to be--very unsettled--not a grown-up. I look back I try to figure out where becoming comfortable happened along the way. Because, honestly, that coulda' been me back in the day--having the fantasy of a settled life, of domesticity, but trying hard not to admit that I really wanted it. And now, after watching that episode, I'm really happy to be where I am now. Perhaps the point at which one becomes a "grown-up" is when the kids arrive--I do remember having to give up my old habits & suck it up for my kid--and I did grieve the freedom at one point. But, I had to change. And rolling forward almost 20 years--here I am now.
The other part of this particular episode reminds me of an old blog post--
http://boyfriendplease-sailorgrl.blogspot.com/2009/12/emotionally-unavailable.html where I describe my various "men" and specifically talk about my "Music Buddy" aka, Xing Fu. What did Hannah represent to Joshua? His marriage had just broken up, & perhaps what had been missing is just what I wrote in the blog post back then, "I think he's attracted to me because I may represent some piece of his life that he wishes he had--a certain exoticism perhaps...I don't know." I think for Joshua, Hannah was just that--his break from reality into what used to be--the complete opposite of domestic bliss. Which reminds me--I do not want to fall into the old trap of "been there, done that." I hope that we maintain our "exoticism" along with our domestic bliss. But that's for another blog post....
I also really love the last shot of the that show--Hannah waking up, making the bed, & making breakfast, & then taking out the trash (the episode starts with trash & ends with trash--lots of cool imagery/ideas/themes)--still in the future--still domestic & then watching Hannah walk down the street--back to her real life--back to the years before she can claim that she's ready for "all the things." Cool episode.
