As a child, Joanna Manning briefly believed that God was trying to kill her by poisoning her saliva, and her anxieties only escalated from there. In a mix of formal essays and slice-of-life vignettes, Now I Understand You delves into the anxieties underlying everyday life, including the universal fear that we may never truly be understood. With tenderness and humor, Manning examines the ups and downs and absurdities of her own life and shows that, through it all, laughter has been some of the best medicine-second only, perhaps, to CBD.