In all honesty I cannot tell you if I have not been myself this year or if I just haven’t hidden it as well. What I can tell you is that within the pages of this book I felt what I think and feel was put into ink. I found typed in the fresh realization that ‘the end never comes when you think it will. Its always ten steps past the worst moments, then a weird turn to the left.’
When reading about Lena Dunham I always
feel that there is an obsessive demand to protect or a removal of context, and
pull of quotes in order to make Lena’s words fit another point, rather than the
statement made within the essay. I hope
that I am doing neither with my own words because the pages of ‘Not That Kind
Of Girl’ have made me feel that being myself is not a bad thing.
I am only an anxious mess of my own
tendencies and although nice is probably not the correct word it is in fact
nice to know you are not the only one intertwined in anxious moments and
paralyzed by bizarre thoughts, thoughts that may not blink anothers eye but
confine me to duvets and blank faces. I found
this sense of connection in this ‘nice’ feeling. This feeling that I wasn’t selfish in the
thoughts that I do not quite belong. In the on looking jealousy in what Lena
beautifully coins as ‘other women’s style of being.’ rather than their looks or
belongings. I feel that I constantly look
in, often a caricature of myself whilst I am confined to watch on, a trait that
I have certainly challenged recently. In
doing this I have felt better in myself despite coming under more criticism. As it stands I am happier being criticized as
myself rather than impartial and discreet mimic I once was.
I picked up ‘Not That Kind Of Girl’ not
because I wanted a representation of an entire person, gender or period, but because
‘Girls’ affected me so much that I couldn’t help but crave more resolve, more
connection and in simple print I got so much more than that. It gave way to this complex idea I weighed
with that to feel awful something horrific had to happen. This fresh breath
that people do fall to thoughts that may seem trivial to others is a notion
that I have never consented myself before.
A permission that I would not and could not accept as normal before,
regardless of how many times I heard it said.
So after something I can attach no time
scale to I would say I finished ‘Not That Kind Of Girl’ with a new grasp of my
life. I titled this post ‘What ‘Not That Kind Of Girl’ Means To Me’ but I have
barely spoken about the book itself, something I feel you should take into
account. This book has made me feel human and not flawed, an awareness that we
should all consume. Lena’s self exposure has brought real thoughts, behaviors,
interactions and experiences to the common ground, accepted and accessible.
A friend recently told me that he thinks
that I prefer to talk to strangers and I still cannot figure out if he is right
or if I just want to put it out there, this exposure is my own kind of self
therapy as if the best way to understand something is to write it down and to
make it tangible. So I may not have
mentioned ‘Not That Kind Of Girl’ very often but I hope I have reiterated just
how raw, refreshing and brilliant it is to read something so accessible. I have been stuck in a peculiar place for a
long time and this is the first time I have felt lifted from it. Where the media has lost its focus on the
face of sex there is so much more intertwined beneath it and in Lena’s
exposure I have found relief, and I do not think it is possible to thank
someone enough for that.