I’m not sure if this is how you send a message to Jane. Not the end of the world if I’m yelling into a cave! Here goes nothing, message to Jane Fonda in 3, 2, 1! My name is Mia, I’m 20 years old and I live in Australia. I recently started reading My Life So Far, and I’m only just about to begin the Roger Vadim chapter, but I’m already reeled in. You are such an engrossing writer, and you say so many things that ring inside me and make me say ‘Mmmhmm mmhmm’ out loud. I found out about your blog when you mentioned it in an interview I watched when I was going down a mini youtube rabbit hole of videos of you and Lily Tomlin. (I gotta say, you are both so hilarious and amazingggg to watch together. It’s like watching two fireworks crackle together.) I just wanted to say, you are so strong and gutsy and admirable, and though I am very very weary of having idols (after all, you don’t know celebrities etc and they could be projecting an image of goodness while being a horrible person behind closed doors), I gotta say, you fit the idol bill! And circling back to the book, I knew actresses were treated horribly around the 60s, but goddamn! So stomach churning and disgusting how they had the audacity to tell you to change yourself like that. Though standards of beauty definitely are changing, I can still feel the box of conventional beauty. You just have to tell yourself ‘Everything I was taught about beauty is bullshit!’ and make your own definition of beauty. Back to your book again, (Sometimes my mind drives me in circles, I’m sorry if this is a nightmare to follow) it’s so refreshing to see someone talk in such frank terms about eating disorders and generational trauma/mental illnesses, having experiences with both. One of my parents has generational trauma that hasn’t been dealt with, and has been discouraged from deconstructing by their parent, so much so that the trauma was passed on to my sisters and I. Sometimes you can’t change other people, they are going on their own journeys, and the only thing you can do is take control of your own life, and forge your own path, stopping the cycle of trauma with you. Your book has resonated with me very much and I’m so thankful you put it out in the world. Hope you’re having a beauuuuutiful day! – Mia