All adventurous women do. Ever since Hannah Horvath typed those words in a Tweet on HBO's series Girls, with Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" blasting in the background, I was hooked. For six seasons, Lena Dunham, Jenni Konner, and Judd Apatow gifted me one of the most relatable, real, and out there shows on television. I could write a million love letters about each episode.

I don't remember why or when I started watching Girls, but I do know that I binge-watched four seasons in only a few months. I was obsessed, absorbing these characters' lives and wanting to wander around New York City with them. They were people I could relate to, people I could see myself spending time with if I was older and lived in another area of the country. Every character showed me something: Jessa that you need to take life a little less seriously, Shoshanna that you should make your own choices, Adam that you treat people how you want to be treated, Ray that you can't control everything, Elijah that wit and humor are important, and Marnie that putting others over yourself is necessary sometimes. These characters were so real to me, and you relate and sympathize with them as they navigate their messy lives.

And then there's Hannah Horvath. Hannah was like a tiny window into my soul, the many-faceted woman that so many people can relate to. She highlights the different sides of people, the side that won't put on pants or function one day, and then will be published in The New York Times the next. Hannah is imperfect and often disagreeable, but you still root for her at the end of the day. You watch her struggle, and pine for people, and yearn for a life of writing and recognition, and you empathize when her life veers off track. Hannah is an art form, a way for women to recognize themselves in fiction blended with reality.

Lena Dunham is a force of nature. She shows life in an accurate and thorough way, exploring the difficulties and triumphs one faces every day. I'm not in my twenties yet, so I can't really attest to the accuracy, but so many moments on Girls have spoken to me, touched me, and inspired me. Hannah's anxious, writing-fueled brain so often mimics my own, and it often relieved me to see on the screen that someone else had similar thoughts and actions.

Every week, the acting was tactful, graceful, and all-around superb. Andrew Rannels always brought a smile to my face, prompting me to go "Oh my God, I love him" multiple times per episode (once, he answered my Tweet during a Girls Q & A and I screamed in the middle of chemistry class). Adam Driver could be heartbreaking and infuriating in the course of thirty minutes, Allison Williams was always the center of every scene, and every other character was a delight and a present to watch. I grew to love these characters, and the actors that crafted them made you come back for more to see what they would do next time.

I've heard a lot of people complain about Girls, complain about how unlikeable the characters on the show are. Shoshanna is childish and whiny. Marnie is self-centered and out of touch with reality. Jessa is reckless and jaded. Elijah is snarky and caustic, Adam is unsympathetic and narcissistic, Ray is fickle and repetitive in nature, and Hannah is a little bit of all of this combined into one person. No matter how flawed these characters are, or how much we might disagree with the people we saw on the screen every week, that's exactly the point: everyone is flawed, and everyone is disagreeable. We all complain, we all focus on ourselves a little too much, and we all have some sense of recklessness and stumbling blindly through life. We all try our best, and as stated by Jessa in the show's finale, "Our best was awful." In a way, the "unrealistic" characters and character traits shown on Girls were the most realistic things in the world.

I'm going to be attending the University of Iowa for the next four years, pursuing creative writing. Every so often, I tell people this, and their eyes light up, exclaiming, "Oh, like in Girls!" I always smile, thinking that if I can be even just a little bit like Hannah, if I could share her ability to be vulnerable and real and unabashedly fearless when writing, then I would be more than a little satisfied. I don't know if I'll be a voice of my generation, as Hannah thinks she is (and her character can be, to relating audiences), but I can sure as hell try.

Thank you, Girls, and thank you, Lena Dunham. I am inspired and grateful.