The Lies I No Longer Believe
By Lesley Sebek Miller
Soon after graduating from college, I enrolled in a writing for publication class at the local community college. The class would end up being one of the better courses I’d taken in my formal education, both in confidence boosting and content.
My instructor, a newspaper editor, asked me to stay after class one day.
“You have a real talent,” he said. I blushed, equally shocked and confident in only the way a writer can be when it comes to her work. And then he paused. In my memory, the pause felt dramatic––whether that’s because time will do such a thing once you’ve watched your life play out, or because he made sure it was delivered with the intended punch.
“I don’t want to assume anything about you, but I’ve seen young women like yourself and they wait too long. And then life gets in the way. If you’re going to have children, start publishing now.”
He knew I’d eventually be contending with the harsh and conflicting reality that writers hardly ever make much money and children cost a lot of it. I still don’t know if he was married or a father, but his words felt prophetic. Wise. A challenge of sorts to not push off my passions. It’s true—women have many factors to consider in our career aspirations and timelines.
There have been many variations of me since then, all of them determined to prove I could be the girl he challenged me to be. There was me, age 26, publishing articles to build my resume. 27, a professional copywriter. Then me at 28, planning for a freelance business so that I could stay home with our first baby. There was me, age 29, putting those plans on hold for a husband with cancer. Then, a year later, shocked to be pregnant and determined to sign with a literary agent before another baby got in the way. There was me, age 31, unable to find a publisher for my memoir (and unable to sleep through the night, ever, which felt equally devastating). There was me, age 32, the editor of a parenting magazine, and then me a year later when the publication folded. There was me, 34, pregnant a third time, still determined to be someone with a title after my name besides mom.
Must write. Must publish. Must podcast. Must grow an audience. Must follow my passions. Must not give up. Must find childcare. Must make enough money to cover childcare.
Must not wait too long.
But a lot of things weren’t actually working with this striving game. I realized that my mind never stopped running anymore, and, as a result, I could no longer distinguish the sound of my own voice from the voice of God. I felt anxious and tired and disappointed in myself all the time. What would it look like to pursue stillness and quiet? For six months I tried it—quitting some key commitments and pausing my career goals.
And then my family life went into an unexpected spiral.
***
Super Bowl Sunday 2019 marks the fourth straight day of heavy rain. In other places this is not noteworthy, but in Southern California it’s significant. Even more significant is that I’ve spent the last three days in a pediatric intensive care unit. Every night the rain pounds our windows and the helicopters land in dramatic succession on the roof directly above my five-year old son’s room. Accident after accident. No one in Los Angeles knows how to drive in the rain, but we’re always in a rush. Why are we always in a rush? I imagine there are family members showing up on the first floor, begging for answers. I am months past that stage. I do not know why tumors formed in my son’s kidneys, and I don’t know when he will be healed. For now I only know what’s right in front of me: a living, breathing, tiny bald body covered in tubes in a room that moves so very slow.
Friends bring us lunch. I duck out of the room to eat my sandwich—it would be cruel to eat it in front of a boy that hasn’t had more than a few sips of water since Thursday. I am tired of discussing my problems; conscious of being fragile. Instead, I take the lead. “How’s work?” “Any fun writing projects coming up?” Eventually they ask me the same in return. I know they are being thoughtful. These intentional questions are subtle reminders there is life beyond the walls of a hospital. They want me to know I am more than a caregiver and a mom. Their hope for me, and their hope for my son’s healing, is so genuine that I almost give them the answer we all want. But the truth is, the only thing I’ve been writing recently are cancer update emails. There’s nothing creative left in my bones. I’m wearing a bracelet on my wrist and it says “One Day at a Time.” For today, I dream about when my son will get to eat real food. Tomorrow I will dream about him leaving the ICU. And next week, I will dream about receiving a favorable pathology report.
“I don’t dream anymore,” I say.
***
The healing process after a traumatic event is different for every person. When my son is declared cancer free right before his sixth birthday, we all begin trying to move forward. For him, healing looks like counseling and art therapy, lemonade stands and camping trips. For me, healing looks like time alone. The kids start school and for the first time since becoming a mother, I have three mornings a week with margin to breathe. Instead of doing anything productive with the time, instead of trying to publish, I fill it with meditation and books. I meet a friend regularly to hike or surf. And I start talking to God about how I feel, without needing to be fixed right away. It feels really good to cry often.
It’s in the middle of this attentiveness that I realize I’m starting to dream again. The dreams are not familiar and I don’t assume they will come true. Every three months, my son’s abdomen gets scanned to see if his cancer has returned. It will be this way for many years to come. When I dream, I do so under the banner of hard earned realism: life can be very cruel. My plans are not my own but I take the next step anyway. I pull transcripts, write essays, ask for recommendations, do the phone interview. The steps don’t feel like desperate attempts to prove myself anymore. They feel hopeful but not controlling. The admissions office assures me that if a family health crisis unfolds again, I can defer. A few weeks after I pay the deposit for a master’s program, my children are sent home from school due to a different health crisis—a global one that’s still evolving. They haven’t gone back to school. That means I’m not going back to school either.
***
Once, when I was a new mom, a counselor noticed I was angry. Anger, she explained, is when something you love is being threatened. What did I love so much that was threatened?
I knew, but I couldn’t say it aloud: the ability to make my dreams come true. I wanted to be a mom and a writer. Not any kind of writer––a successful writer. It felt like I’d have to give up one for the other because they were in direct opposition. I’d become the girl my professor warned me of.
But of course, we know that’s not the real story. The real story is not that I’ve waited too long to pursue my passions or chase my dreams or publish the book, but that I’m finally willing to let the dreams evolve. Change the timeline. To live the life right in front of me. Recognize the lies about where my significance comes from. Release the anger. Give up the need to be someone with a following. Pivot when things don’t work out. Try new skills. Write for joy rather than resume building. Learn to listen. Support a sick husband. Parent a sick child. Figure out how to clean spit-up, administer asthma medications, train a puppy, teach fractions. Sit in the tension that life is full of the unexpected, and sometimes the unexpected is what gives us life. True hope, it turns out, can carry us through the darkest days.
While my children have been growing up, I’ve been growing up too. Sometimes I want to find that professor—the one who made it seem like I was bound to fall behind—and tell him that despite how much his class changed me as a writer, it also changed me as a mother. I’ve spent years unraveling a lie that I had to prove my worth by doing all the things at once.
Now this is me, age 38: waiting. No longer pushing, pushing, pushing but adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. Trusting that a dream delayed is different than a dream denied. Settling into the freedom that time is not as scarce as I once believed, but that growth is slow. These are the lessons I didn’t learn years ago and they are the most important ones I get to model for my children as we face disappointments, tackle scary unknowns, shift our direction, and try new things.
I’m not the student this year, but the teacher. Which, I’m convinced, is one in the same.
Guest essay written by Lesley Sebek Miller. Lesley is a mom of three who lives in Santa Barbara, California. She was the Coffee + Crumbs podcast co-host until the end of 2017, then spent the last several years not publishing. Her son is now 18 months cancer free and she’s grateful to be sharing a piece of her story with the Coffee + Crumbs audience. You can connect with her at lesleym.com
Photo by Lottie Caiella.