Twelve years
ago, my friend Karen spent Sunday afternoon reading 230 pages of Crazy: A
Diary. At that time, it had another title and was still being culled from
my many journals. She called me on Monday evening and said:
Among the
words she used to enthusiastically describe my work were “wonderful”,
“riveting”, and “honest.” She had read up to the part where I fell apart and
took a mini-vacation to Bryn Mawr, the part I had the hardest time writing
because it showed my warts quite clearly. I told her that I did not always come
off looking so good.
“But,” said
my friend, “you come off as human.”
It was not
the story I wanted to write. I wanted to write of God’s faithfulness through
our many trials, how His strength had upheld me and kept me from falling, and I
wanted a neat and tidy ending, a “happily ever after.” I wanted to come to the
end of the story.
Despite
Karen’s bubbling comments and support, despite the fact that other friends
who read snippets assured me that it was a story that needed to be told, I
resisted. I finished writing it, sent it off to a couple of publishers who said
I had a lovely narrative style but the manuscript would need work to fit the
current markets, and shoved it into a bottom drawer. I continued to write in my
journals, but I figured that perhaps someday a fictional character with more
courage than I would live the story.
I entered a
doctorate program.
I wrote a
dissertation.
I taught
college.
I saw my
husband through a whole bunch more surgeries and hospitalizations.
And every
summer, during a bit of down time, I pulled the damned manuscript out of the
bottom drawer and tried to rework it into something that didn’t make me look so
vulnerable. So human. So full of warts. So lacking in courage.
I failed. It
was what it was.
Last July
(2014), I gave it one more try. I sat on my newly constructed back deck and
read the whole thing. I cried. And I realized that my dream of being a full-time writer was being thwarted by my own inability to accept that I was, indeed,
human. I loved the idea of being a writer, the notion that my words would lodge
themselves into the lives of other human beings and became a part of those
people I might never meet. I carry words in my head, words read in novels years
ago. Phrases and beloved characters, images and descriptions, all are vivid to
me. I live inside my head, continually attempting to achieve a balance between
my outward and inner lives. Even while I am teaching and planning and cleaning
and cooking and sitting in hospital waiting rooms, I am writing the scene in
which my protagonist arrives at a crossroads in her life.
But I wasn’t
writing what I was supposed to write. I was cowering behind the masks of
created characters, letting them live my life. And so I decided to try and be
just a little bit braver. I had read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way two
years ago. I decided to “step out and wait for the net to appear.” I gulped,
took a swig of iced tea, and started blogging.
Within one
day, Crazy: Diary of the Well Spouse had 38 hits. The comments people
left on my Face book page were amazing. One woman admired my bravery in sharing
the journey, the story it had taken me 14 years to face. But sharing it felt
right. Being human felt right. A friend even called me in tears to say. “I had
no idea what this was like for you. I wish I had known. I wish I had done more
to help you.”
In the last
10 months, Crazy: Diary of the Well Spouse has been edited and trimmed
down and read in bits and pieces over 900 times. (My slightly cynical older son
says perhaps one guy has clicked on it 900 times; I sure hope not! That WOULD
be crazy! ) The title has changed to prevent a lawsuit with the Well Spouse
Association who told me, very politely, they owned the phrase “well spouse.” Two
weeks ago, I had dinner with my friend Karen. I handed her the proof copy of my
book. She took it in her hands as if it were a piece of Waterford crystal and
said, “I’m ready for the book tour.”
So am I.
Warts and
all. All it will take is a little bit of courage.
