The Last Coming of Age: What GIRLS Teaches Us About Coming of Age in Midlife
Because becoming isn’t just for the young, it’s the secret power of midlife and beyond
I’ve recently re-watched GIRLS, the HBO series that had people talking over a decade ago. I loved that show.
So this week I thought it would be interesting to see what a Millennial TV series reveals about staying curious, growing older and hopefully bolder, and embracing our unfinished self. Because we will always be a work in progress, right?
I’m Gen X by the way, the generation that came after the Baby Boomers and before the Millennials, aka the forgotten generation. So I was already much older than the protagonists in the series when I watched it all those years ago.
When Lena Dunham’s GIRLS was first released in 2012, it was hailed as a raw, sometimes excruciating portrait of young adulthood.
Critics loved to point out how unlikeable Hannah Horvath was because of her entitlement, her self-absorption, her flailing attempts at art and love. Yet watching it again, years later, I see it differently. I still found it infuriating at times, but I could see so much of me in so many of the characters, their flaws, their experiences.
Because if you look past the Williamsburg hipster backdrop, GIRLS isn’t simply about twenty-somethings becoming adults.
It’s about something that never really ends: the constant, restless process of becoming itself.
And this, I believe, is exactly why the series resonates just as much with those of us navigating our Third Act as it did with Millennials still paying off their student loans.
The Myth of Arrival
One of the most persistent illusions in life is the myth of arrival.
We tell ourselves that when we hit a certain milestone like graduation, the right job, a steady partner, the perfect number on the scales, then we’ll finally feel whole.
In GIRLS, each character is chasing this mirage:
Hannah is convinced that if she can just get her essays published, she’ll be legitimate.
Marnie believes marriage will stabilise her identity.
Shoshanna thinks success is a checklist she can complete.
But no matter how many goals they achieve, the sense of being unfinished never dissolves.
The same is true as we grow older. We might imagine that by midlife we will have arrived: confident, self-possessed, certain. Instead, we often discover that a new terrain of uncertainty opens up.
Who are we when we’re no longer defined by our careers?
What do we want when our children no longer need us?
Where do we belong when society begins to decide we are invisible?
In this sense, ageing isn’t a decline, it’s the ultimate coming of age.
The Neuroscience of Never Being Finished
If this sounds like poetic overreach, it’s worth considering what neuroscience tells us.
Throughout life, the brain remains capable of adaptation and change. This is known as neuroplasticity:
In childhood and adolescence, this plasticity is explosive.
In early adulthood, it becomes more selective, refining our neural networks.
And in midlife and beyond, it doesn’t vanish, it simply becomes more purposeful.
The ageing brain builds scaffolding or alternative neural pathways to support learning, memory, and meaning-making.
In other words: even when some abilities fade, our brains retain a remarkable capacity for growth and integration.
So the feeling that you’re still becoming? That’s not an immaturity to be ashamed of.
It’s a sign that your brain is alive and responsive.
Belonging and Comparison: The Lifelong Dance
One of the most uncomfortable aspects of GIRLS is the characters’ relentless comparison.
Who’s making it?
Who’s failing?
Who’s attractive?
We like to think that by midlife, we’ll outgrow these reflexes. But they simply mutate:
Who’s ageing well?
Who seems content in their marriage or single life?
Whose children have made it or not?
Who has the resources or freedom to reinvent themselves?
The social brain doesn’t stop measuring. The key is not to pretend comparison disappears but to learn how to question it, to soften its hold.
This is the deeper work of any life transition: replacing the compulsion to measure with the curiosity to understand.
The Body as Territory
In GIRLS, Hannah’s unapologetic depiction of her body was groundbreaking. She refused to be tidied up or photoshopped into acceptability.
Midlife brings a new reckoning with the body:
Menopause and hormonal shifts.
Changes in metabolism.
The cultural invisibility that arrives, uninvited, at a certain age.
Yet the essential question remains unchanged: How do I relate to this body that refuses to stay the same?
Hannah once said, “Life, man, I can’t guarantee perfection, but I can guarantee intrigue.”
The Third Act of life embodies that sentiment perfectly. The body will never be perfect, but it will continue to intrigue, surprise, and teach us. But only if we let it.
Rebellion Reimagined
In our twenties, rebellion is loud. We dye our hair, move cities, date all the wrong people.
By midlife, rebellion becomes subtler, but no less vital.
It might look like:
Refusing to become invisible.
Choosing pleasure without apology.
Prioritising your health and brain over the expectations of others.
This, too, is a form of becoming, an insistence that your life is still yours to shape.
The Salience of New Chapters
Neuroscience shows us that the brain’s salience network, responsible for flagging what is important or self-relevant, remains highly active in midlife.
This is why transitions feel raw, even decades after adolescence. The brain registers them as critical to our identity and survival.
Starting over is never neutral. It’s wired to feel consequential.
If you find yourself in a season of reinvention, by choice or circumstance, know that your brain is doing exactly what it’s built to do:
Highlighting what matters.
Urging you to adapt.
Helping you integrate your past into a coherent narrative.
A Different Kind of Arrival
So perhaps the real gift of ageing is this:
The chance to become less interested in arrival and more invested in presence.
To discover that your worth doesn’t hinge on perfection.
That your story is still being written, and the next chapters can be richer, sometimes stranger, and more meaningful than the first.
Because if Hannah’s chaotic journey taught us anything, it’s that life is not an audition you can fail.
It’s an ongoing process of showing up, making mistakes, and beginning again.
Coming of Age, Again and Again
We rarely talk about ageing as a coming of age, but it is.
It’s the coming of age where you finally learn what enough feels like.
The coming of age where you discover that approval is optional.
The coming of age where your body is not an adversary but an archive.
The coming of age where you can look back and forward with equal curiosity.
Neuroplasticity might slow with time, but it never stops.
Your capacity for reinvention doesn’t expire.
And your life, no matter how messy or unfinished, remains a work in progress.
"Life, man. I can't guarantee perfection, but I can guarantee intrigue."
— Hannah Horvath
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