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Reading Furiously Happy is like being given Lawson’s diary, then reading through passages as she deals with a tinkle bell hanging from her cat’s anus, air travel with a taxidermy armadillo, and how the many facets of her depression and anxiety work into those things. It’s deeply personal, a little heartbreaking, and really, ridiculously hilarious.
While I adore Lawson’s weird sense of humor, what makes Furiously Happy so important to me is how she ties it into her experiences with mental illness. No matter the hilarity or absurdity, there’s an underlying darkness to many of her stories, and her wit acts like a light, a way to shine a little more perspective onto whatever she faces. Sometimes what Lawson faces is struggling with her medications or the urge to self-harm, and sometimes, she just has to face the embarrassment of misreading Latoya for Labia out loud.
In the preface, Lawson writes that her book is, “a collection of bizarre essays and conversations and confused thoughts stuck together by spilled boxed wine and the frustrated tears of baffled editors.” She’s right. The book feels random and cobbled-together, but that’s part of its charm. Lawson likens a lot of her struggles to light vs. darkness, and all the shades in-between. That’s what her chapters feel like to me: the unpredictable ups and downs of dealing with mental illness, struggling to make sense of things while doing our best to navigate toward the light, and enjoying the warmth on our good days.
Laughter and tears and intense second-hand embarrassment make up one of my favorite books of all time. It doesn’t matter where I’m at in my life, what kind of day I had, or what my mood is. Furiously Happy is always something I can use to help me turn my face toward the sun again. It may feel like a diary, but it’s one that Lawson has freely handed over as a gift. Reading this book is always cathartic. It’s like being seen, and understood, and encouraged.
It’s a perfect reminder that “Without the dark there isn’t light. Without the pain there is no relief. And I remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to feel such great sorrow, and also such great happiness. I can grab on to each moment of joy and live in those moments because I have seen the bright contrast from dark to light and back again. I am privileged to be able to recognize that the sound of laughter is a blessing and a song, and to realize that the bright hours spent with my family and friends are extraordinary treasures to be saved, because those same moments are a medicine, a balm. Those moments are a promise that life is worth fighting for, and that promise is what pulls me through when depression distorts reality and tries to convince me otherwise.”
"Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things" by Jenny Lawson; Flatiron Books; 2015.
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