Lena Dunham Reflects on Her 'First Grownup Job' While Celebrating 'Girls' 10-Year Anniversary

"My life is too transformed to imagine a world without this having been my (admittedly singular) first grownup job," Lena Dunham wrote of Girls

Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO

Lena Dunham is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of her HBO series Girls.

Dunham marked the milestone occasion by looking back on the project in an essay for Vogue. The actress and writer said the series served as her own personal attempt to understand female friendships.

"By the time I wrote Girls, I had 24 years of experience with feeling both connected to and separated from, well, girls," she wrote. "Many people saw the title of the show as a pronouncement that I was speaking for all the girls, that I fancied myself a microphone for half the population and, in the process, was grinding us down to one monolithic and unlikable soapstone. But this was actually my attempt to understand, perhaps even master, my relationships with girls, with women."

Dunham created and executive produced Girls, which ran for six seasons between 2012 and 2017. The series followed aspiring writer Hannah Horvath (Dunham) and her three friends as they navigate their 20s in New York City.

Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke, Andrew Rannells, Adam Driver and Alex Karpovsky also starred in the popular comedy-drama.

In an Instagram post, Dunham continued to express the lessons she learned from her time on Girls, as well as the way it shaped her adult life.

"There's no insta wrap-up that can describe the magic and mayhem of this journey, or room enough in a caption to celebrate the people I made the show with (though a big fat thank you to my @hbo family is the place to start,)" she captioned a series of photos of herself and the show's leads, Adam Driver, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Allison Williams.

"The audience is better equipped than I am to argue the finer points of what we did and didn't do, so all I can say is: my life is too transformed to imagine a world without this having been my (admittedly singular) first grownup job."

Lena Dunham, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, and Allison Williams on the set of Girls. Everett

She continued to credit the series as her first break, which opened the doors to her current career.

"Because of Girls I am a working artist, which is all I ever wanted to be- and even on my worst days I don't take the chance to keep writing and making things for granted- and even as the nudity jokes keep on comin' (note to those young 'uns considering showing your breasts dozens of times on national TV, and your vagina once- it will follow you well into your thirties, once you've started wearing mostly art teacher sweaters and literally living the life of a librarian,)" she said. "To quote my mother on matters of destiny: 'it could have been no other way.'"

Earlier this year, Dunham opened up about the possibility of rebooting the acclaimed HBO hit.

"We all recognize it's not time yet," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "I want it to be at a moment when the characters' lives have really changed."

All six seasons of Girls are available to stream on HBO Max.