Jenny Lawson - Broken (in the best possible way)

You probably just picked up this book thinking, What the shit is this all about? And frankly Im right there with you. Honestly, I just got here myself. By the time you read this it will be an actual, fully formed, and probably horribly offensive book, but at the moment Im writing this its just a bunch of sentences, paralyzing anxiety, and a lot of angst. Some people write a book a week, but Im achingly slow and filled with self-doubt and writers block, so by the time you read this I will have gone through years of WRITING IS SO LONELY AND I HATE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. I will have gone through the writing period when I tell my husband that real writers write drunk and edit sober, and then later the editing period when I tell him I have edited this notion and have to write drunk and also edit drunk, and even the period where I just lock myself in a room and force myself to write and its glorious and beautiful until I wake up the next day and realize its garbage and delete everything.

You, on the other hand, will only see the finished product. Shiny and edited and pasted together with the tears of copy editors whom I have sent to an early grave and/or multiple bars. Will it be worth it? No damn idea. But I cant stop, because writers write always. Not well, necessarily. But they write. And you are a reader. So you read. (Unless you are listening to the audiobook, in which case, I guess you are a hearer? Is that right? That seems like the wrong word but I cant think of the correct one right now. But I bet youre a great hearer, even if that word doesnt exist.) I dont even know you and I can tell youre special. Mostly because everyone seems special to me. Granted, some of that is because I have avoidant personality disorder and imposter syndrome, which automatically makes me think everyone in the world is better than me, and some of it is because youre still reading this (or hearering it) even though its pretty obvious that Im stalling because Im not sure what to write about; I appreciate that and I owe you a drink.

(OH! LISTENING TO. Those are the words I was looking for. Not hearering. Although I sort of like the melody of the word hearering now, so lets keep it.)

This whole introduction is a pretty good indication of the baffling wordsmithery that you can expect here, and thats a good thing because 1) now youve been warned, so you cant blame me if you hate this book, and 2) youre going to feel so much better about yourself in comparison.

Im not just saying that to flatter you. Truly. I have managed to fuck shit up in shockingly impressive ways and still be considered a fairly acceptable person. In some ways Ive actually made it my living. And because Im so good at being publicly terrible, other people feel comfortable telling me about how awful they are at being an adult, and then I try to top them with a Oh, you think thats bad? Let me tell you how I tried to rescue a decapitated human head from my work, and then theyre like, Nah. HOLD MY BEER, and in the end I end up with a new best friend because how could you not love a person who couldnt understand where those terrible farting noises were coming from on the bus but then she realized that they were the noises of the dog toy in her purse that she was leaning on and everyone looked at her and so she ended up shaking a rubber foot at them while yelling, IM NOT FARTING. ITS MY DOGS FOOT. Answer: You cant. YOU LOVE THEM. Hard.

Its weird because we often try to present our fake, shiny, happy selves to others and make sure were not wearing too-obvious pajamas at the grocery store, but really, who wants to see that level of fraud? No one. What we really want is to know were not alone in our terribleness. We want to appreciate the failure that makes us perfectly us and wonderfully relatable to every other person out there who is also pretending that they have their shit together and didnt just eat that onion ring that fell on the floor. Human foibles are what make us us, and the art of mortification is what brings us all together.

A lot of people read my books because they love to laugh about all the terrible things you maybe shouldnt laugh at. I hope you find this book just as funny, but theres some really serious and raw stuff in here too, mostly related to my battles with mental illness. If I could choose the themes of my life, I assure you this book would be all about my successful otter rescue and how I became a sexy vampire who isnt allergic to dairy. But we dont get to pick who we are. I am still as broken as I was before, but with better stories and a little more insight into just how fucked up I am.

Even the title for this introduction comes from a conversation I had with a friend where we tried to win worst at adulting. I pointed out that I could barely even be human and that at most I was just a full-grown mammal. But then I remembered that the thing that makes you a mammal is laying live young instead of eggs and lactating, but I couldnt even lactate properly. But then I remembered that men dont lay live young and theyre still mammals, and I thought maybe I needed to consult a science book because Id fucked up the definition, or that maybe it was another situation where men just get a pass because of that whole I own a penis thing, and then my friend was like, I dont think youre supposed to say that you lay live young, and I was like, Yeah. Poor phrasing on my part. But in my defense, I cant even mammal correctly, and she refused to accept that and insisted that I recognize my accomplishments. You are Jenny Lawson, full-grown mammal! she said encouragingly and with confidence, and I said, I think you just came up with my next book title, and she was like, I think you could do better, but GUESS WHAT? I CANT AND NOW I FEEL BAD AGAIN.

But fuck that. Fuck feeling bad about eating floor onion rings. Fuck the shame that comes from wearing your clothes to bed so youre technically never (or always) in your pajamas. Fuck the people who make you feel bad for glorifying the odd behavior and questionable decisions that make you who you are. Those things are perfectly acceptable.

Be good. Be kind. Love each other. Fuck everything else. The only thing that matters is how you feel and how youve made others feel. And I feel okay (for the moment), and I make others feel okay by being a barometer of awkwardness and self-doubt.

I am Jenny Lawson, full-grown mammal.

And I am ready to begin.