on mistakes

99 DAYS comes out two weeks from today, which feels insane to me. I think because I sat with HOW TO LOVE for so many years before it was published, the idea of this book coming out already makes me feel kind of like you’re seeing me in my underwear.

All my writing kind of makes me feel that way, truthfully. But you know what I mean.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Molly, my main character. Molly makes a lot of really bad decisions in this book. Like: a LOT. And then when she’s finished making them, instead of going and sinning no more, she turns around and makes them again.

MOLLY. GET IT TOGETHER.

Full disclosure: I was nervous to write her that way. I thought a lot about fixing her, about painting over some of the uglier parts, putting some makeup on her face. Because what if people didn’t like her? What if they wouldn’t forgive her for all the boneheaded, hurtful things she does? What if they shrugged and said “Well, she deserves what she gets, then. I never did anything that stupid.”

And then I remembered: I did LOTS of stuff that was exactly. That. Stupid.

Stupid boy-related things I did when I was a teenager, a selected list:

* Made out with a guy at a baseball game even though his mom was there and I knew she could probably see us. (She could.)

* Hid in the bathroom for the duration of an entire party because I didn’t have the ovaries to tell a boy who liked me that even though I liked him back, I thought people would talk about us if we dated, and I didn’t have the ovaries for that either.

* Threw my friends over when I got a boyfriend.

* Did a bunch of stuff with a boy that I wasn’t ready to do and that, frankly, was uncomfortable and unpleasant, because I thought there was something wrong with me for not wanting to.

* Wore an Abercrombie T-shirt that said CO-ED NAKED WATER POLO TEAM to a my now-husband’s family barbecue. To be clear: the first time I met my mother-in-law, I was wearing a shirt that said we do it better in the water. 

And again, this list is selected. The point is, if you are a person who doesn’t look back on stuff you did when you were sixteen (or twenty-six) and want to die a little, I salute you. But I am not that person! And I kind of don’t want to write about those people, either. Yes, Molly acts in a way that is occasionally kind of shitty. But so did I. And I was lucky enough to have people in my life who loved me anyway and taught me and rooted for me, and I learned, and now I am (at least marginally, I hope? Right? Guys?) less shitty.

I wrote this book rooting for Molly with every particle of my being. I hope you’ll read it and root for her, too.