My Leading Lady Bird

Who will dance with her? She hates to be alone. That's smart, really. Being alone leads to loneliness. She's not going to meditate until she finds her inner light. I know that it doesn't exist, but I can't speak for her.

I may have seen the movie, but that wasn't her end. A lady's senior high school year is formative, but not conclusive. Although my experiences differed from hers, the currents of change were all but the same. How she grows out of these changes is only the beginning of her journey.

When I left her, she was still looking for a partner.

Her best one was Julie. They went to prom together. I went with a friend too. It's where I learned that I had anxiety, but that wasn't my friend's fault. It was the accumulation of things. I did not yet know how to control myself. When I was outside gasping for breath, it was a teacher that came to check on me. The students were busy. When I couldn't sleep at night, it was my sibling that taught me how to recontextualize things.

Lady Bird doesn't see the good things in front of her.

Her first crush was Danny. I never learned her past before him. Was there a paper chain leading back to her first awakening? Greta Gerwig does not answer all of my questions. As far as we know, her experience with boys began with Danny, but Danny was gay. Although I respect Danny, I felt misrepresented. As a teenager who loved theatre, I know that we don't all live up to the stereotype. Perhaps it's out of fear of this stereotype that I continue to fight against it, as if there's some imaginary contrarian that I must prove wrong. She'll have cause to carry that assumption to New York and the industry will almost certainly confirm it.

Danny gave her happiness, a fair replacement for love. Unfortunately, she uses Danny's example of deception as her new method for attracting a boyfriend. Taking away the wrong lesson from a life experience is caused by our inability to properly process said experiences. When I was 17, it happened a lot.

Kyle was her rebound. I didn't have to deal with that kind of psychological experiment until later in life. When you realize too late that you're projecting your past lover's expectations onto this new person without considering that they have expectations of their own. He's a performative reader, an anti-tech teenie bop, a softspoken tortured soul. I wouldn't say he's the antithesis of Danny, but he does have dark hair and Danny's blonde. He's the type of guy who hangs outside at parties to read. I didn't go to many high school parties, but the ones I did never included a sadboy reading novels in the backyard. I guess I never went to one in Sacramento.

To make Kyle hers, she abandons Julie. It's true that friendships suffer the most when you start a romantic relationship. When I started dating, I lost friends too, like the friend I went to prom with. Something happened that is hard to explain. I don't think I changed, yet how I was perceived did. Or maybe what changed was my perception of self. I don't know if Lady Bird felt the same. Her change of allegiance was too blatant to be shocked when Julie was offended. Luckily for her, she was able to return to her good friend after things fell apart with Kyle.

I find no similarities between my relationship with my father and Lady Bird's relationship with hers. We could not have had more opposite experiences. To me, that's the magic of Hollywood in this movie—where things go from realism to fantasy. It's wonderful to watch him remember her birthday and bring her a cupcake. I'm happy for her, even if she doesn't realize how good she has it. Mine never moped around the house, depressed, looking for work. Instead, mine worked and buried his trauma until he lashed out at unpredictable times. Old school. I guess I can't expect to relate 100% to a fictional high school girl.

Her relationship with her mother, I can resonate with a bit more. With mothers, nothing is ever enough. I would do anything to get her approval, but it remained out of reach. It was both smart and cruel. Smart because I grew up with tougher skin. Cruel because I continue to seek this unobtainable validation. They listen to The Grapes of Wrath in the car. It really should've been East of Eden. Once Lady Bird is set free from her grasp, she self destructs—winding up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. This, too, is a side effect of a troubled relationship with the Moms. Once independence is gained, her natural instinct is to rebel against this now-invisible force. I know all too well about fighting invisible forces. I only hope that she doesn't allow it to consume her years. Forgiveness is the only solution I've found and even that can't make everything right.

Maybe I'm vilifying parents because it's an out for having to take responsibility for my actions. I'm not sure if that's the realization that she has at the end of the movie, but I suppose it's possible.

The only person left to dance with is herself. The most important partner and the one that, in my final year of high school, I did not have control over. I too felt like two different people, like Lady Bird and Christine. I don't know when the two merged, if they ever did. Although Lady Bird might think that Christine has taken over for good, life has a way of circling back to old habits, old contradictions, old faults. I can still hope that Christine will be all right, but I know that life will not go easy on her.

Since I left the grasp of my parents, I've revelled in my independence. Perhaps too much so. It has brought me many skills and experiences, but it's also left me with unresolved doubt. When you're alone, there is nobody to turn to. Even if you hated your mother, at least she was someone to talk to. I think that's why her silent treatment bothers Lady Bird so much. In independence, in solitude, the only one who can answer your questions is you. This is a scary proposition for many people. Lady Bird hates to be alone, but how does Christine feel about it?

If there was a sequel, I wonder where we'd find her. Would she be alone or would she room with a soon-to-be-famous comedian? Would the guy she almost puked on end up being the one, or would he just be another Kyle? Would she even stay in New York, or would she yearn to return to Sacramento like a 21st-century Odysseus? Considering her life is more like the antithesis to mine, my guess is that she would find love, live in a beautiful loft and both her parents would be dead. Her liberal arts degree would do nothing for her, and she'd turn to law to make something of herself. This new trajectory would bring her stability, but having the fun sapped from her life would nearly bring her to ruin. The sequel would follow her through her quarter-life crisis, as she tries to find a work-life balance. Still, she would struggle to make amends with her now-deceased mother. Forgiveness and release would be the major themes, but knowing Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, they'd probably come up with something much deeper than anything I can muster up for this article.

Anyways, that's enough trauma dumping for one night. If you need me, I'll be on the pavement.