Winona and Me

Remember Reality Bytes? That early nineties movie with Winona Ryder before she turned into a bitch/stopped trying to act and Ethan Hawke when he made flannel look cool? I must have watched that movie when I was really  young cause I remember thinking the characters seemed so old and adult. I couldn't wait to be that old and have real purpose in life. 

Conveniently, I watched that movie when I was back in Boston this past weekend for my 5 year high school reunion. It was a big weekend filled with 'Remember Whens" with my friends who haven't changed all that much in 5 years. Though we have gotten a tad bit more mature and stopped squealing when we see a member of the opposite sex.

Note: I went to an all girls boarding school for four years. 

So that movie was on and somehow I completely phased out the fact that it takes place right after a group of friends graduate from college and figure out what they are doing with their lives. Quite an appropriate time to watch that movie right now. Winona actually starts working in the TV industry but quits after a short amount of time (sound familiar?) She then proceeds to sit on her couch in her apartment that is only $400 a month (that amount SO doesn't sound familiar-damn recession), chain smokes (nope-damn Guiliani) and calls a fortune teller for three days straight (not so much).  

So pretty much Winona Ryder's fictional character from 1994 and I are twins. 

Though I don't chain smoke, dance in gas stations, date bodega attendants or live in Boston- I still feel like we are pretty much the same person right now. 

The movie ends with her not finding much direction or figuring out her next step, but she does find love, of course. 

The main conflict of the movie (besides Winona trying to figure out who to sleep with) is the characters answering and then coming to terms with the old age question: what do I do with my life? Though they don't answer the questions they do accept their overall identity in the world, which is to say is defined by continuously finding their identity. 

Troy Dyer AKA Ethan:

"The only thing you have to be by the age of your 23 is yourself."

Lelaina AKA Winona:

 "Yeah, well, I'm not sure who that is anymore."

Such deep, profound words from a nineties movie...but then of course if you compare the movie to the other nineties soul-searching classic Singles then it just gets blown out of the water- and Singles becomes my mantra of course and Reality Bytes can be forgotten about for another ten years or so.

 So anyway, if you want confirmation that it's okay to be twenty-something and not know what your BIG PLAN is AND a definite confirmation that it's NOT okay to flannel then go rent Reality Bytes and do a big exhale.