That Time Lena Dunham Came To London

Excuse the blurry picture, but this was the only one I had a chance to take before the usher came over and told me to put my phone away. Apparently no one was allowed to take photos, although everyone did as soon as he turned his back to walk back to the door where he was positioned.

It's an understatement to say I'm a Lena Dunham fan. I feel like the biggest Lena Dunham fan, although that's probably a point that could be argued by everyone in the room. The event at the Southbank Centre in London, which is now one of my favourite places thanks to the bars and food market outside,  was filled with other famous people I'm a fan of. The cast of Call The Midwife including Miranda Hart had their own box a few rows in front of me. And Dawn O'Porter, Daisy Lowe, Gemma Cairney, Sarah Millican and Richard E Grant were also in the audience.

Caitlin Moran introduced Lena who came on and read a chapter from the book. I was hoping she would read 'A Guide To Running Away For Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Women' but instead she read 'Sex Scenes, Nude Scenes, and Publicly Sharing Your Body' which is still one of my favourite chapters in the book. Once the reading was done, she sat down to chat to Caitlin about the book, Girls, being a girl, and pretty much everything in between. She also answered some questions from the audience including a woman who told her that she'd inspired her to be brave enough to leave her marriage. 

I came away from it feeling pretty empowered by the whole thing. It was really amazing to be in a room filled with so many women who share similar views to you. Women who happy to celebrate another woman's success rather than being jealous and bitching about it. To see Lena, who is not much older than me, doing so much really gives me some ambition to chase other aspects of my professional life in the new year. My job is great and I don't want to change that at all, but I do want to write a lot more, and try and get back into broadcasting in some way too. 

Not That Kind of Girl!

I still remember the first time I watched Sex and the City. I was convinced I had found a show that spoke to me in ways other TV shows hadn't before. I had just got into university to study Journalism, so naturally I thought I was going to be the next Carrie Bradshaw. I imagined I would live in a studio apartment in a huge city funding my life by freelancing for some fashion or music publication. 

That was until Girls came along. The HBO show which launched in 2012, focuses on a group of twenty-sometimes living in New York. It not only stars Dunham, but she's also the writer and creator of the show too. It gives a much more realistic view of young women living in New York through unpaid internships, awkward sex and challenging friendships. 

Since then, Lena has been put onto a put on a pedestal with people really feeling like she's some kind of voice of their generation. She may have joked about it through her character Hannah during the pilot episode of Girls, but in real life she really is thought to be one. And I have to admit, I am definitely one of those people. So when I discovered she would be writing a book, I knew without even opening it that I would love every page. 

Lena writes with the open and raw honestly I could only dream of having the guts to do myself. Her book of personal essays and advice details her life through her childhood, long therapy sessions, OCD and string of dates and relationships. She talks so candidly about her sexual encounters in the way I don't think I ever could. It's the sort of information I shared with my best friend this morning, but wouldn't want the world to read. Not only because they don't really care about it, but also because I don't feel like I can talk about other people in that way, even if I only have the most complimentary of words to say.  

"The end never comes when you think it will. It's always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left."

"What a goon. He's lucky to know you, but too stupid to ever realize it."

The book is also full of advice and words that feel like she's climbed into the head of every confused twenty something women who is questioning their life at the moment. 

"Don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from."

The above advice that ends the chapter entitled, "A Guide To Running Away For Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Women". It's one of the best pieces of advice I took from the book, especially since I found myself in quite a few situations I wanted to run away from this year. I'd almost have an anxiety attack on the way to certain events, then spend a lot of time hiding in the toilet or outside the party because being inside gave me that sick to the stomach feeling that I shouldn't have to feel. Maybe next time, I'll think about how worth it is to spend hours feeling that rubbish about myself when I can spend time with people outside of those situations. 

She goes onto detail different versions of running away, a lot of which I've tried when needing to escape my own thoughts. Whether it's "listening to a Taylor Swift song about dancing in the rain" or "Going radio silent, then saying you lost your cell phone somewhere in your bed".  

Another great piece thing she said in the book was this - 

"I decided then that I will never be jealous. I will never be vengeful. I won't be threatened by the old, or by the new. "

I would love to think that I could take on board, but I realise it will take some work. Jealously and over thinking situations is probably one of worst qualities. It's embarrassing to admit that I constantly feel threatened by other women.  I have such low confidence that I generally feel 95% of the female population are funnier, smarter, prettier, fitter and more interesting than I am. Even when I'm with someone, I assume that there's someone they think is better than me. It's not a feeling that I enjoy and it's certainly not one I would entertain if I could help it. 

Overall, this is one of the best books I've read it years. With 20 odd pages bookmarked, I feel like it's the sort of book I'll go back to for advice and reassurance and I stumble through the rest of my twenties in a general state of confusion and self doubt.