CHRYSALIS

dedication.

god ive written and re-written this so many times in the last month.

it never feels like enough.

I bet you thought this book was about becoming a butterfly, huh? That it was supposed to be about how to transform into that beautiful, graceful, fleeting creature that everyone stops to look at and admire.

You're wrong.

This book is called Chyrsalis for a reason. It's about the soupy stage in life. It's about that phase in life where you have to melt down every idea that's been put in your head, every part of you, everything about yourself that you thought you knew, it gets melted and dissolved into goo. Into a fucking mess of a life that sometimes seems hopeless.

It's about that the fact that you could be hanging from the prettiest branch in the tallest tree, on a royal palace, but the inside is still fucking goo. Soupy. It doesn't matter if you have every opportunity at your fingertips.

Sometimes we look at the soupy mess that we're in and it seems too hard to try to make something of it. It's too hard to form a leg to stand on. It's overwhelming to restructure how we think about the world and even harder, how we think about ourselves. How we treat ourselves, how we talk to ourselves, how we love ourselves.

It's a story about being inside that chrysalis and fighting like hell to put yourself together. It's a story about being able to face yourself in the mirror, being able to forgive yourself, being able to celebrate yourself, being able to stand up for yourself and realize what you deserve. Harry Styles is just there for fun, this story is Jo's.

This story is yours.

And it's beautiful. I hope it made you happy. I hope it made you smile, I hope it made you gasp, I hope it made you tear up, I hope it made you clench your thighs once or twice, and I hope it made you stop and feel the breeze in your hair or on your skin.

I hope it made you smile at a caterpillar AND a butterfly because one can't exist without the other.

I hope that you found a piece of yourself here, a piece of grief or shame. I hope that it helped you face the girl in the mirror one day and tell her that she's wrong.

It's not perfect, in fact it's heavily flawed much like its author. If you read it while it was being written, you got to experience my first attempt at writing. You got to experience it raw and fully unedited. The rough draft.

I wrote this story because I needed to get the daydream out of my head. I wanted to give it a life somewhere else outside of my own fantasy. As I've said many times, every character in this is based off of people in my own life. My childhood best friend, "Miranda." My co-worker turned best friend who used to be the only one crazy enough to leave life behind and move to LA, "Nicki." A lover, "Marcus." An Aussie dreamboat, "Britt."

The only friend that I made up was Frankie, and throughout the process of this story "Frankie" became the friends I've made along the way. My "internet friends." You. The friend that knows what to say and when to show up, and has just enough attitude to keep things interesting.

This story became therapy for me before I got a therapist. I put my shame into it, my grief into it, my fears and anxiety into it. I also put my humor and my fashion sense into it, so thanks for shitting on Jo's outfits...

I started writing it for myself, as what I thought I deserved. Along the way I realized that I deserved it all, the whole dream. I deserved the full meal deal and so I gave it to Jo. I gave her the dream to remind myself that I deserve it.

To remind you that you deserve it.

I wrote this story for daydreamers. For "whores," and "bad daughters," and the people who feel like they can't stop fucking up.

For people who are working a job they hate and dreaming of more.

For people who can't accept that they deserve good things.

For people who feel guilty for leaving their life behind.

For people who feel unappreciated in their relationship.

For people who feel soupy.

For people who feel nothing.

For people who are fighting that bitch in the mirror everyday.

For people with an unhealthy attachment to a certain junk food item ( it's cute, it's not weird. it's endearing, Jo says so.)

For people who have felt the crushing weight of life on their chest.

I dedicate it to the group of people who have been with me on this story since almost the beginning, who have cried and laughed and dreamed along with me. This wouldn't be what it is without you.

"I don't have the words to tell you what it means to me, but someday I'll try."

Today's that day. Watching you love Jo has changed my life. Watching you root for her and understand her and truly care for her, changed my life. It changed the way I thought about myself. It changed the way that I grieve. It changed the way that I speak to myself and the way that I handle bad days.

You have changed my life, by reading a Harry Styles fanfic.

It's not even a very smutty fic!! I probably would have stopped reading it. Jk...kind of.

Thank you. Thank you for loving her, and forgiving her, and allowing her the space to grow and change. Thank you for allowing me the same. Thank you for telling me your stories, every time one of you reaches out to tell me about your grief or your girl in the mirror, it touches me in a way I can't explain.

When you send me pictures of butterflies that you've seen or tag me in posts that remind you of Chrysalis, my mind is truly blown. The idea that my silly little daydream has impacted anyone's life, even for the briefest moment, it's astounding to me.

I love you so much, I hope you can feel that.

My butterfly babies, my soupy sisters, this book would be nothing without you. They'll never leave you, they'll always be here to make you giggle, to drive around LA near midnight, to sit on the beach, to read with on the balcony, to spend Sunday mornings with.

They'll never leave you. You can visit them anytime. They'll live here and on the wings of the butterflies you see, they'll remind you of your potential. They'll remind you that the soupy part is necessary. That magic happens inside a chrysalis and it's made purely of you.

I know it's hard to say goodbye to them, but who knows? Maybe we'll see them again someday.

Thank you for being here. I love you.

I can't wait to see you fly.

-mo.