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Newlyweds
An
attitude adjustment: Should you change?
by Jennifer
Jeanne Patterson
"I hate my job," I say to Matt, who is digging pulp
out of a grapefruit while reading the newspaper at the kitchen
table. It's early in the morning and I'm tired. "I want to
be a writer."
"Then do something about it," Matt says. Sometimes I
get annoyed by how practical he is, how he offers up easy solutions,
although admittedly, that's what attracts me to him too. He tells
me to visit a relative of his, Al Sandvik, who I've never met
before, because he writes a column for a local newspaper.
"How will that change anything?" I ask. I wrote one
novel that 20 New York agents rejected. How can Al change that?
"Stop being so afraid of people," Matt says, as he takes
a sip of milk.
"I'm not afraid of people," I say defensively, but he's
right; I am. It bothers me that he sees my aversion to people
as a weakness, that he forces me to see it as a flaw. I've learned
to compensate for my fear. At parties, I sip water and, with my
fingers, retrieve the floating lemon to chew on it while Matt
talks. I let him draw me into the conversation, but he wants me
less dependent on him.
"Do you realize how much your fear of people limits you?"
he asks, and, of course, I do. He says he wants others to see
in me what he does and they can't if I stay silent. Matt tells
me if you're not improving yourself, you're declining. He compares
it to how your muscles and circulatory system degenerate without
exercise.
"He'd love to meet you," Matt adds, and that helps alleviate
some of my fear. I realize my fear isn't so much of Al, but how
he will perceive me.
I call Al to prove Matt wrong. As I drive to his house, I purposely
take a wrong turn to try to convince myself that I am lost. When
I arrive, he leads me to the living room, where he sits down in
a high-backed chair. I stir cream into my coffee, pretending to
concentrate on the vanishing white lines of cream so that I don't
have to speak first.
"So, you want to be a writer?" Al says. I nod. He doesn't
speak much more than I do, but he knows how to guide the conversation.
"Why don't you try writing a column?"
I look at him blankly because I know nothing; I have no advice
for others. "About what?"
"About what you know." He sees I'm still puzzled. "You
know what it's like to move from New York to Minnesota. You know
what it's like to be married." He hands me a book of columns
that he self published. "Write what you know."
I go home and write a column. The words come out easily, and it
sells.
"Networking pays off," Matt says, because I am one step
closer to becoming a writer, but I shrug him off.
I've always equated networking with asking for favors from people
you don't know, but, as Matt has demonstrated, it's about more
than that. It's about that spark your interaction discloses, which
your insularity won't.
While I cried over boys in high school, Mom said, "Never
change for a man." And she was right. You can't make somebody
love you by changing who you are. But what if that person already
does love you? And what if their changes make you a better person?
Four months after I met Al, he died of cancer. Matt held my hand
as we walked into the funeral parlor.
Al's son gave the homily. He said that while his father was dying,
he asked to have his wife at his side. Matt squeezed my hand.
I knew then that I would change for him. He gives me the strength
to turn to face my fears, and, through that, I grow.
About
Newlyweds
I received
my MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University. My work
has appeared in the literary journal, Creative Nonfiction, and
I freelance for Sun Newspapers in Minnesota. I received The Loft's
Creative Nonfiction Award and was a finalist for Chase Manhattan's
Best Essay Award.
Company Website: http://www.newly-weds.com
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