how to survive being a hannah

I’m usually told what a Hannah I am right when I’m really striving to be a Marnie, or a Jessa or even a Shosh. Hannah is childish and immature and creative, three qualities that make for a good writer but usually terrible friend. 

Though her remarks are often outlandish and generally slightly nonsensical, she might be the most real part of a show that my older brother called the most accurate representation of life for a 20-something in New York. I mean, he did say that back in Season 1, before Hannah chopped all her hair off and admitted to jerking a kidney stone out of a Puerto-Rican Jew’s dick. But still.

Maybe I’m more like Hannah than I thought – we do have certain experiences in common. I’ve never forcibly removed a kidney stone from someone, but I have experienced the kind of breakdowns where everything just seems so wrong and a change seems so badly needed that chopping off your hair in front of your bureau is the only logical choice.

On the plus side, I’ve also never stuck a Q-tip in my ear in an OCD-induced mania – at least not yet. So, I have that going for me. But a lot of other aspects of her breakdowns are similar to mine. I spent basically the whole first week of this semester alternately crying in bed on the phone with my mother and dramatically staring at myself in the mirror wondering what had changed between last semester and this one to make me so incredibly unhappy.

I spent last semester in the School of Nursing, trying to convince myself that journalism is a pipe dream and that what I really wanted to do work in a health clinic in Africa and add something real and tangible and necessary to the world. This was before I realized that, like Hannah, I’m terrible at both science and being nice to people. After my week-long breakdown, I dropped my nursing classes and enrolled in the classic undecided course of studies – econ, english, philosophy, etc.

Maybe my most disparate quality from Hannah is that she always knew exactly what she wanted. She never tried to make herself into anything she’s not. That’s admirable in theory. But in practice, her detractors might call her single-minded to the point of recklessness, to borrow a line from my favorite sisterhood (of the traveling pants).  

So, I’m taking a cue from Hannah Horvath, one of the worst decision makers I have ever seen. There are a lot of things she’s incapable of doing, but no one can say she gives up easily. My best friends call me a Hannah when I’m having a breakdown over something minor like my split ends, or whatever, or when I’m unable to express my feelings (this happens often). In those moments I doubt they’re admiring my tenacity or my desire to follow my dreams. At this point it’s up to me to channel my inner Season 3 Hannah – I need to cool it on the breakdowns and amp it up on the perseverance.