The the phrase “your twenties are the best years of your life” makes you feel hopeful, incredulous, and like you’re doing it all wrong, Jenna Tico has a book for you: a heartfelt and hilarious true story of 20-something survival, from someone who just made it to the end of that era and learned some useful things along the way, ‘Cancer Moon: How I Survived the Best Years of My Life’ (She Writes Press, September 17, 2024 – a full harvest supermoon!).
Organized through the cycles of the moon, Jenna’s collection of personal humor essays and poetry vulnerably and jovially guides readers through the turbulent twenties – aka the “age of wallowing.” Jenna invites women to embrace this necessary phase of life, helping them understand their self-worth, sexuality, and empowering them to become who they want to be in the world.
Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, way too close to the Hollywood dream machine, Jenna Tico’s self-esteem wanes to invisibility when her identity becomes enmeshed with validation from celebrities and spiritual F-boys . . . until she claws her way back to empowerment.
Observing the world of twenty-something relationships from perspectives as diverse as a bachelorette houseboat, a music festival afterparty, and the airplane ride to a death bed, she validates the experiences of women who feel like they have been abandoned by the generation that came before them. Her self-reflective stories encourage healthy life choices for young women without telling them where, what, or how to live their lives—and always with a healthy dash of humor on the side.
Here’s a memorable quote from the book to whet you appetite:
“Before you freak out and burn all your bridges; before you throw your phone in the ocean and pierce your nose in the name of Satan and fuck that guy with a pet snake who doesn’t chew his food; before you throw away every item of clothing you own and then max out your only credit card on nail polish and oven fries; and before you decide that now is the time to tell your mother every single thing she has ever done that has bothered you, and then quit your job and go back to snake guy’s house, please ask yourself the following question: Do I really desire the end of society, or am I just dehydrated?”
We knew we had to read more, so we asked Jenna if we could share an excerpt from ‘Cancer Moon’ with our readers, and she agreed! Read on below to get acquainted with how Jenna survived her 20’s.
INTRODUCTION – CANCER MOON
Come Sit in the Palm of My Hand
And take a rest for a while. It’s been a long life getting here,
which I know, because I am here too. Take a beat. Try
and relax. Or don’t try, and see what happens.
Don’t get too caught up in what any of this means, or
whether I’ve exaggerated, or if I’ve changed the names of those
involved. Because I have and also haven’t. I don’t know if this
is poetry or prose, in the same way I don’t know if I’m old
or young. Do you?
Life is nuanced, truly, and stranger than anything I could
invent here in these pages, so I haven’t bothered. Instead,
I’ve tried to be kind; to myself, mostly, and to the memories
committed here to word. What follows represents the years
of my life between twenty and thirty. I was on my way to
becoming a partner, a mother, and a decent human being, with
something resembling self-esteem, but not at all there yet.
People (who are these people? I’d like to meet them, and maybe
accidentally-on-purpose spill hot coffee on their shoes) often
describe the twenties as the “best years of your life,” but I
found them to be a bit like doing a cartwheel on top of a moving
vehicle, while also trying to suck in my stomach and wondering
if it’s too late to take Plan B. I also spent most of that decade
being told I was too much, or pining after stunted unavailable
men, or trying not to cry on public transportation, when it
even existed. I live in Southern California, so I more often
tried not to cry while riding a borrowed bicycle or coasting my
1,000-year-old Toyota Camry down a hill on $5 worth of gas.
For me, the twenties represented phases of the moon:
the only constant being change and the amount of light vis-
ible. At the start, I waned—shrinking away from the person
I’d constructed to survive childhood and launching straight
into an ego death, or whatever you want to call the time when
we feel the compulsive need to cut our own bangs and bang
people who make us feel shitty about ourselves.1 After that ran
its course, I went fully dark—at least to the naked eye—in the
shadow of partners who had not tackled their pain and, in my
survival, became new. Then I grew: and I don’t want to give
anything away, but a big part of that growth had to do with
finally being cool with the women in my genetic line. I stopped
blaming others, and claimed my life. Before long (but what felt
like a gazillion years) I was full: of joy, reflection, sometimes
crap, sometimes myself, and then eventually another whole
human being. That human being is almost in preschool now,
and we are both very sleepy. (Okay, mostly me.)
I have always been one with big feelings. In 2000, I was
the only one in the whole fifth-grade class who voted for Ralph
Nader in the mock Presidential election, simply because I intu-
itively felt he needed more love.2
As a teen, I invited my friend
Nate to the King of Hearts dance, a Sadie Hawkins-esque experi-
ment interesting in principle but utterly stupid in implementation
(much like high school). I made this choice despite my better
judgment and despite the quite obvious fact Nate loved my
friend, Elena. But wait—he listened to Death Cab for Cutie!
Once, while reading a vulnerable poem in front of my English
1. Maybe you never did that? If so, good for you. No, seriously. Do a TED talk.
2. This inspired a kid named Max to harass me for the remainder of the year,
saying “Jenna! Nader ONE” while holding up a solitary index finger and laughing
maniacally. Naturally, I pledged to marry him.
class, I watched as a solitary tear slipped from his eye and tracked
down his cheek. Soulmates!!! After the dance, and after watching
pathetically on as Nate and Elena danced to “Get Low” for three
hours straight, I was wracked with angst, if not surprise. While
sitting on the steps, my best friend, Isabel—already an anthro-
pologist of my moods—placed her arm around my shoulders.
“Why?” I asked her, a solitary tear slipping from my eye.
“Is there something wrong with me?”
She paused, before finally answering. “There’s nothing
wrong with you. He just can’t handle you. Jenna . . . you’re a
lot of car.”
It took approximately fifteen years, many more tears,
and many more moons to recognize that Isabel had given me
the best compliment of my life.
I’ve always been a lot of car. Astrologically speaking,
I’m a Cancer moon, and only just realized not everyone ugly
cries at the opening notes of The Lion King. I spent much of
my early adulthood trying (in vain) to hide my sensitivity,
which resulted in bubbling up and mass explosion all over
whomever happened to meet me in the 2010s. I could say I
regret nothing, and that is probably true. But, I also know
more now and have more love for the squishy parts of myself
living under the rock. They are important, too.
Making sense of my experience in retrospect—usually late in
the night—was an essential part of the treacherous and beautiful
terrain of growing up; of falling in love and getting ghosted,
sometimes in the same day; of finally saying NO to men who
kissed me in the dark but “oopsie, have a girlfriend!”; of pulling
above the waterline of emotionally abusive relationships and
ultimately meeting my life’s true partner, who is now my husband.
He looks good in almost EVERY SHADE OF YELLOW,
which doesn’t make sense, and is almost impossible to freak out
(believe me, I’ve tried). And that kid I mentioned, who is almost
in preschool—we made him together. Pretty cool, right?
Life is nuanced. I collected these pieces, many written
in my early twenties, and decided not to fuck with them too
much. I accept them as they are, not for what I wish they were.
I kept many in the present tense, because the woman who
wrote each one is still alive within me—and she is a gift. Even
when I no longer agree with what she has to say, the woman
who believed she had to keep an eyelash curler in the pocket
of her pajamas (for the morning after, obvs) is as real as the one
who sits here now, barely willing to use a hairbrush.
I remember her.
Anything more current I’ve managed to get out by freeing
myself from the tragic myth of perfectionism, by engineering
an escape hatch from the Desire to Sound ImportantTM and
bribing myself with Oreos at odd hours of the day. Recently,
I also had to subject my toddler to 10,000 hours of Daniel
Tiger’s Neighborhood so that I could hide in the closet and
proofread. I also had to admit, at thirty-two, it is probably too
late for me to become a child prodigy. What a fucking relief.
It might be too late for you, too, and that’s okay. It’s not
too late for any of us, though, when it comes to making art
out of what we have learned. You are exactly on time to your
life. I am happy you are here. It makes sense and also not at all.
Take a rest. I believe the best years of our lives are the ones
still ahead or perhaps (squee!) right where we are—having learned
enough about ourselves to laugh at the fallout, to wear comfort-
able shoes, and stop sending questionable texts after 11:00 p.m.
It is so, so vulnerable to love this much. Loving takes a
lot of courage.
Courage requires a lot of rest.
You’re doing it.
Keep going.
Jenna Tico survived the best years of her life by incessantly journaling, scribbling poetry, and distracting herself from her questionable choices with potato chips and excellent friendships. Jenna is a multi-disciplinary artist, group facilitator, and ninth-generation resident of Santa Barbara, CA. She graduated with honors from Scripps College, and spent the next ten years working as a dance instructor, grant writer, and occasional, terrible waitress. She earned her counseling certification in 2016, and is passionate about creating spaces for the intersection of art and healing. She is the founder and host of Backbone Storytelling, a platform for true, body-centric stories told live. She lives in Santa Barbara with her family. Find out more about her at her website and follow her on Instagram: @jennaticowrites.
