The Best Friend Experience with Jenny Mollen

“Hello?” A man’s voice crackled through my headset. “It’s me,” I said, twisting my hair excitedly as I snuggled into bed next to my computer and an unopened bag of Bjorn Corn. “Me who?” the voice asked, perplexed. “Jenny!” “Jenny who?” I hadn’t spoken to Adam (Not his real name. His real name is Ben) in years. We dated when I was nineteen and the kind of trainwreck a lot of us are at nineteen. A girl who lied about her grandmother dying in order to end a relationship.

My friend Chelsea swore that Mallorca was a mystical island, and that everyone who comes to stay experiences some sort of major life shift. I’ve been to this island three times in my life. Once when I was nineteen, with my German ex-boyfriend, Aleks (I used to change his name in my writing, but who cares anymore), and his college friend, Oli.

I don’t know what it is about August, but every year around this time I start to get anxious. Who will I be in September? September has always felt more consequential to me than January. And as a Jew, I have thousands of years of precedent for feeling this way. January asks you to make resolutions you already know you won’t keep. Occasionally, I make resolutions for the people around me too, which tends to go even worse. September on the other hand, still believes in you.

I’ve spent my entire life preparing to be murdered in a house. When I was a little girl, we lived briefly in a cabin in the woods in Oregon. My room was on the basement level. My sister’s was one floor above, near the kitchen, and my mom was a floor above that…if you had any questions about her maternal instinct. Each night, I dreaded going to bed. I knew that as soon as the lights went out, it was only a matter of time before my imagination got the best of me and I spiraled out of control.

Unless it’s for work, I’m never in LA. And when I moved to New York twelve years ago, I purposely didn’t bid this place a proper goodbye. I’m terrible with attachment, to people, places, things... basically all nouns. I always have one foot out, or maybe it’s that I never have both feet in. Unless we are talking about Sid or Lazlo Biggs, and occasionally Jason, though I think he’d probably say that pinning me down still felt like I was half filled with helium. But I digress.

I was nine years old and visiting my father in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the Fourth of July weekend. My half-brother, Brad, was also in town for the holiday. Brad had recently gotten his license, and my mom made my dad promise not to let us drive with him. My dad agreed to this, then most likely blocked it out of his head completely and carried on with his life. I have this same propensity.

I’ve been vacillating between whether it’s better to write the truth as fiction or write fiction into my truth. Maybe it’s all the same thing. But there are moments in our lives that are too fragile to be put into words at all, and I wish I could stop myself from trying. I don’t often write fiction. I mean, sometimes I guess, but usually my real life feels more batshit than anything I can conjure up in my head. The scene below isn’t real. Or at least not in the way people mean when they ask that.

Let’s Talk off Camera with Kelly Ripa | Listen Here Two time New York Time’s best selling author, Jenny Mollen joins Kelly to chat breast augmentation, plastic surgery, and the “Hot Priest” calendar scandal. Jenny shares her open and honest opinions on motherhood, doing ayahuasca with Chelsea Handler, and how she got Kelly to examine her own Vagina.

This past Tuesday, I took my son Lazlo to the Hamptons to do a private padel camp with some of his friends from school. It was the kind of camp my father would have refused to pay for even if I begged, which is not the point of this story but also somehow the point of every story. This place, Brisas, was filled with terracotta pots, bougie branded gear, and a little Airstream filled with fancy sparkling water.

I was recently psycho-dialing my German ex-boyfriend, Bruno, on WhatsApp, and he wasn’t picking up. I hate when he does that. I only call him once or twice a year, and when I do, I expect him to drop what he’s doing and immediately answer. Granted, whenever I do call, it’s usually about something dumb. I also never hesitate long enough to calculate the time change. Regardless of whether it’s two in the afternoon or two in the morning, I feel like Bruno should be thrilled to hear from me.