Lady Bird (2017), Girlhood, and Leaving Home
Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love, and attention?
I turn 20 in less than two months, officially ending my time as a teenage girl: an experience only understood by those who have lived through it, and often ridiculed and mocked by those who did not. I had watched Lady Bird in the cinema with my mother not long after it was released in the UK. I fell in love with it instantly, Greta Gerwig’s writing, the acting abilities of the cast, namely Saorise Ronan, Tracey Letts, and Laurie Metcalf. It told a beautiful story of a teenage girl learning how to live, navigating relationships with friends, boys, mothers. I rewatch the film time-and-time again, saying the lines along with the characters.
I was 14 when the film came out and I remember it feeling refreshing to see an honest look at a teenage girl’s life that didn’t laugh at the girl or call her stupid, even if it can be argued that she made some stupid decisions. Lady Bird is presented to us as human, with her faults and qualities laid out upfront, to take her as she is.
I found parts of myself within Lady Bird, which came to me at a time that I felt very alone, not lonely, but alone. Lady Bird had falling outs with friends, which I had many of, and became friends with some who turned out to be not very good friends, something I had done also. She did and said silly things for boys, which I had done too, only it was for a girl’s attention instead. She longed to leave her hometown, a feeling that bubbled up within me by the time I had reached Sixth Form. An internal belief that I was somehow bigger than what was around me, and everyday spent in my school, and the place that I lived, was simply restricting me.
Lady Bird couldn’t wait to grow up and leave Sacramento behind, say goodbye to the confining nature of being young. The time where you think you know everything whilst your parents know nothing. When discussing what colleges she wants to go to with her guidance counsellor, Lady Bird is told that she writes about Sacramento with such affection and care, even though Lady Bird says she simply “pays attention,” insisting that she wants to leave Sacramento and go to the East Coast.
At 14 I never would have said that I loved where I lived, or my school, and now leaving both of those places behind, I still can’t say that I loved them necessarily. That’s not to disregard the experiences and relationships that came out of my hometown and school. But I feel as though it would be easy to allow the rose-tinted glasses of the past to warp my perception of it. Like everything, it is easier to see the good in something when you are no longer in it at all.
But I certainly paid attention, and I still talk about that time with friends. We have phone calls and catch-ups over drinks that somehow always end up with us returning back to the same five-year old stories as if they had just occurred, recalling every detail with immaculate accuracy. I could walk to school from my old house with my eyes closed, and tell you something that happened on each street as I stepped foot on them. As a teenager everything managed to feel so monumental at the time but we just laugh about it now.
Now my twenties will begin with the excitement that is infinite possibilities. There are new memories to make, new places to grow fond of and eventually sick of. Many of my friends have already turned twenty and the milestone was often approached with dread and almost a denial. Yet I can’t help but look to this next decade with excitement. I can’t wait to fuck it all up and make mistakes and be stupid, and at the same time make smart decisions and be filled with happiness. If my teenage years have taught me anything it is to be easier on myself, and to know that things don’t have to be all bad or all good. Sometimes it’s enough for things to be just okay. Lady Bird starts her college experience by finally going by her real name - Christine - and getting completely and utterly drunk in the same night. I can only hope to achieve a similar level of balance.
At the end of Lady Bird, Christine calls her mum after attending Church saying:
“Did you feel emotional the first time that you drove in Sacramento? I did and I wanted to tell you, but we weren’t really talking when it happened. All those bends I’ve known my whole life, and stores, and the whole thing. But I wanted to tell you. I love you. Thank you, I’m… thank you.”
Now whilst I myself don’t drive, my best friend does, and I’ll never forget getting in her car the day she had passed. Driving around and choosing random lefts and rights on roads we had known most of our lives. We could have gone anywhere and yet we stayed where we were. Revisiting the ordinary that had now earned our affection and appreciation after seventeen years.
During their meeting, Lady Bird’s guidance counsellor asks her: “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love, and attention?” And I’m still not sure if she’s right. But I do know that by paying attention I acknowledged a level of importance within the place where I grew up, and the experiences I formed there. That place that I was so desperate to get out of by the end of it. And I do carry many of those experiences - and people - with love.
Carved Words
Carved words is a section of this newsletter where I share words from books, records, and films that have stuck with me recently, have carved a way into my being.
“She was assuming that the glory she saw in the work reflected a glory in its maker, that the painting was the painter as the poem is the poet, that every chance one made alone - every word chosen or rejected, every brush stroke laid or not laid down - betrayed one’s character.” Georgia O’Keefe - Joan Didion (from her collection The White Album)
“I came prepared for absolution, if you'd only ask / So I take some offense when you say, ‘No regrets’” Cool About It - Boygenius
“When you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally (1989 dir. Rob Reiner)
Thank you so much for reading! This essay really is a labour of love and something I really enjoyed writing and developing as I explore this new writing style. If you enjoyed this please comment/subscribe/share - it means so much to me.
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All my love,
Catherine