standing

by rantywoman

I saw a show this weekend that was filled with twentysomethings singing their hearts out about love and passion and sexual attraction. I can of course recall having had those feelings myself, but it’s been a while, and I’ve learned so many hard lessons in that realm that my happiness now derives from delicious moments of solitude.

I also saw the movie Frances Ha. I didn’t love it, but I liked the ideas it conveyed. A twenty-seven-year-old woman begins the film with an intensely close female friendship, a boyfriend, several peripheral friends, and the pursuit of a dream career. Over the course of the film, the friend abandons her, the dream career is lost, and the peripheral friends and lovers fade away. All that is left is Frances, alone and lost. And yet, she recovers.

As much as we tout the importance of love and friendship and family, isn’t that the ultimate lesson of maturity, the one we finally learn after a multitude of break-ups? That one has to be able to stand on one’s own two feet and that we must first be our own best friend.