Meeting Jenny Lawson

On Monday my parents and I adventured out to La Jolla, California to attend Jenny Lawson's (author of Furiously Happy and Let's Pretend This Never Happened) book signing for her new book, You Are Here, at Warwick's book store. This was not an easy task but it was so incredibly worth it and I wanted to share with you how it went.

This past week has been a very positive week for me and therefore I've found myself wanting to push myself a little extra. I have been focusing on my anxiety related to being in a car and have thankfully been having some success at it. For about the last year I haven't been able to be in a car for longer than about thirty minutes before I would start panicking, but I have really been noticing how limiting that is and was determined to change it. After talking to my therapist about where my car anxiety seems to be stemming from I was able to attack the problem more head on. My parents and I have spent the last week going on driving adventures and my confidence when being in a car has really increased  to the point where I can spend multiple hours and be okay. So when I saw that Jenny Lawson was having a book signing in La Jolla I thought this would be the perfect test for my new found abilities.  Not only is La Jolla about an hour and a half drive from my house but we would also be driving during traffic time, which is a definite trigger for me. The reward though would be getting to meet Jenny Lawson, so I really wanted to give it a try.

One of those books in the back is mine!
Taken from Jenny's Instagram

I prepared  the best I could and we had all kinds of back up plans in place. The good news is that we hit very little traffic and the drive went very smoothly for me on the anxiety side of things. The bad news is that this whole time I never prepared myself for actually going to the book signing because I was so focused on the drive, so when we actually got there I was in for a surprise. Now the whole time I was aware of what I was getting myself into. I knew book signings involved other people and time spent with these other people; however, I never actually prepared for this or really thought about what I was doing. You may be thinking to yourself that this makes no sense since I am a person with anxiety who tends to overthink and analyze every single situation before I enter it. You would be correct, the only thing I can think is that I was so focused on surviving the drive it was all my brain could handle. So when we finally got to the venue at 6:30 for the event that started at 7:30 and there were already people in line, my immediate reaction was, what have I done? I immediately regretted coming because I wasn't ready to stand in a line and be surrounded by people for an entire hour before the event and then also during the entire event. Lucky for me both my parents came with me and recognized my immediate spiral into panic mode. My parents took turns standing in line while I walked around with the other one and pretended that I wasn't freaking out about this whole situation. I eventually conquered this line anxiety but then I got back in line to hear that there were only 40 seats available due to reserved seating. Cue anxiety again. I knew I was going to struggle with sitting but the thought of having to stand through this was just not an option for me. I was completely ready to go home and forget it all together. I had to repeatedly tell my parents please don't let me run away from this because I really want to be here but I also was recognizing that I was entering into flight mode. Luckily having them there helped so much, my dad even walked down the line counting people to reassure me that I was close enough to the front of the line to get a seat. When the doors opened at 7 my  mom and I entered the venue and were lucky enough to get a seat and it was close to the back which made it way easier to be in this crowd of people.

The view from my seat, so many people!

Waiting for the event to start was not super easy but the second Jenny Lawson started speaking I was fine and more than that I was so incredibly grateful I had stayed. She is hilarious, real, honest, weird, and incredibly motivating. I could go on and on about how much I admire her but this post is already getting long so all I can say is read her blog, (you can find it here), buy her books and/or follow her on social media, you won't regret it. After we got to listen to her speak it was time for pictures and book signing. Cue another line that I was not a fan of. I thought that the earlier line would have helped show me that I could survive this line but once again all I wanted to do was run. I was able to handle it but not without a short break outside to sit in the car with my dad for a little while my mom waited in line (seriously my parents are amazing). Eventually it was my time to meet Jenny and I got to tell her we were birthday twins, thank her, and hand her a note for her to read later explaining just how truly thankful I am for her. After the signing we stopped for some In-n-Out and headed towards home. I DID IT!

As previously mentioned Jenny Lawson was promoting her new book You Are Here which is mainly a coloring book of doodles she drew when she was depressed. I bought my copy from Barnes & Noble but you can also find it on Amazon here. Let me know if you purchase it and we can color together or share our coloring achievements with each other!

All in all this trip is one I definitely put in the success column! Was it all easy? Absolutely not because even during my positive streaks my anxiety can come out to play. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Not only did I get to meet Jenny Lawson but I also got to have a positive experience that helped me believe in myself, gain confidence in my abilities to handle situations that aren't completely comfortable, and gave me a moment to feel like my normal self again. It also gave me a chance to feel proud of myself instead of disappointed and frustrated and I can't even explain how great that felt! Now in the future when I'm in a situation with anxiety triggers I hope to be able to look back to this adventure as proof I can survive.

Until next time. 💜