Like most books
that I read or films I had seen, I stumbled upon the film ‘Tiny Furniture’
written and directed by Lena Dunham as I surfed the Astro channels one Sunday.
It was a story about coming of age for a young female college graduate.
Although our environments are not similar, I believe that some of us might have
gone through similar experiences in search of their identities in their
twenties just like Aura in ‘Tiny Furniture’. After finishing college with a
film theory degree, twenty-two year old Aura returns home to her artist mother
and has to adjust living at home
with her mother and sister. While trying to get over the breakup with her
college boyfriend, she catches up with her childhood best friend who has never
left home and has a quirky personality. She gets herself a job at the
restaurant and quit when she finds it boring. She toys with a couple of
romantic possibilities which the viewers can see that they are bad choices and
are doomed to start with. As the film develops, the character can be
endearingly homey although at times her naivety and passive aggression can be
irritating. The character and her
restlessness between post college and adult life are well portrayed.
In ‘Tiny
Furniture’, Aura found her mother’s old diary and read some of it. I kept a diary when I was in secondary
school and those years were probably the most awkward era of my life. I would
not let it lie around for anyone to read. I feel abashed just thinking about
the kind of thoughts that had gone through my mind. Through my jottings, I
realized that I had enough
self-possession in some areas but not in others. The self-possession that I had
was probably misguided since I lacked cynicism and was hopeful, idealistic and
rather naive. I believe that one’s character is what one is born with but with nurture, we can
become either better or worse person than what we have started with.
Environment can make or break a person ; the earlier we can recognize our
strengths and weaknesses, the sooner we can gain a perspective about the kind
of person we want to become. We all get what we deserve by reason of our
personality traits hence the choices we have made.
When I was
studying abroad, I did some growing but after I graduated, there was still
plenty of growing to do. I feel that twenties were my formative years. How I
miss those years when life was just about self-indulgence and a zest for new adventures. I wish that I had spent less time idling and were more motivated to make the best of
those years. Marriage and motherhood must have made me grow up and give me the
kind of grounding I lacked.
A close friend
who is the envy amongst us as she has been able to take time off to travel and
dabble in hobbies which she now has time to indulge in since her son is grown
up. She has an understanding spouse who seems to allow her the space she needs
. When she talks about her wish to take a year off travelling, we are appalled as she seems to be away all the
time. Despite all the trips she
had been able to make the past two years, she dreams of taking a holiday for a
year. I perfectly understand where she is coming from. Some of us long to take
a year off from our present life as we crave for the return of those carefree
days where we need not bother about our daily grinds, commitments and family
obligations. While it is wonderful to have a structured and orderly life and
the comfort of a life we have grown too familiar with, we might want to get outside our
comfort zone and venture into new territories. We sometimes yearn to break away
from the routine and wish that we only have our very own needs to think of and
not worry about anyone else at all. If it were just a notion, we will find out
when we are so homesick that we just want to come home sooner than we think as there is no place like home.
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