Because fitting in often requires giving up pieces of yourself.
And that's a deal I was never willing to make.
Call me intense.
Call me toxic.
Complicated.
Sarcastic.
Crazy.
Or even a slut.
I'd rather hear every one of those words...
than wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and fail to recognize the woman staring back at me.
So yes...
if thinking makes some people dislike me...
they can get over it.
Peace doesn't arrive the day everyone finally understands you.
Peace arrives the day you stop apologizing for being yourself.
The day you stop trying to become someone else just to make everybody comfortable.
This book wasn't born because I stayed silent.
It was born because I spoke.
Because I warned people.
Because I shouted.
Explained.
Reasoned.
And still watched everything fall apart.
Writing doesn't heal me completely.
I'm not going to sell you that cheap fairy tale.
But it keeps me from dying in silence.
And honestly...
that's already enough.
Here, I don't have to measure every word.
Nobody interrupts me.
Nobody rolls their eyes.
Nobody tells me to lower my voice.
Here, I get to say everything.
And whoever wants to read it...
is welcome.
Whoever doesn't...
can simply close the book.
So...
who the hell am I to write any of this?
I was born on July 25, 1976, in Medellín, Colombia.
Do the math.
According to society, I'm not young anymore.
But I'm not some obedient old woman either.
I'm too young to give up...
and too old to let anyone walk all over me.
I'm a woman who's lived long enough to stop needing approval...
and just crazy enough to write the things other people only dare to think.
My name is Yenny Astrid Londoño.
I'm a mother.
A grandmother.
A businesswoman.
A modern-day witch.
Sarcastic by nature.
A creator of ideas most people don't understand...
yet somehow those same ideas have kept me alive.
And above all...
I'm one stubborn badass who never learned how to keep her mouth shut.
No, not every idea I've ever had made me money.
Not all of them worked.
Most of them would never fit society's definition of success.
I still gave birth to every single one of them...
with love, madness, and faith.
If this were about recognition...
I would've quit a long time ago.
But it isn't.
I keep going because this isn't about money.
It's about existing.
In this absurd world, some people get paid to talk nonsense...
while others get punished for telling the truth.
I wasn't born to play a role.
I came here to break the mold.
I'm not a writer because of a diploma.
I'm a writer because my soul refuses to stay quiet.
Because once I can no longer hold it in...
the words come out like raw truth.
I didn't write this book to be liked.
I wrote it because I couldn't carry it inside me anymore.
This book was born from exhaustion.
From anger.
From every time I swallowed my feelings to keep someone else comfortable.
From every day honesty felt like a battle against myself.
And if someone had to tell these stories...
these f*cked-up stories...
it had to be me.
Because I've survived more than I'll ever tell.
Because I know what it's like to swallow the truth until it burns your throat...
and still get up the next morning with your head held high.
Because I still have questions.
I still make mistakes.
Some parts of life still hurt.
I don't write to close wounds.
I write so women like me understand that being perfectly sane in a crazy world...
is an act of rebellion.
Being a woman, free, and impossible to silence...
the world has never known what to do with that combination.
Writing is how I stay alive...
without killing anybody.
It's how I tell political correctness to go to hell...
without ending up in jail.
This chapter isn't a confession.
It's a warning.
I've always spoken up.
My voice was never the problem.
The problem...
was the echo.
And if you've ever felt like you talked...
explained...
cried...
screamed...
begged...
or wrote your heart out...
hoping someone would finally understand you...
let me tell you something.
Maybe your voice was never the problem.
Maybe you were trying to be heard by people who only wanted you to lower the volume.
Because once you finally learn to listen to yourself...
you never ask permission to be who you are again.