The Writing Companion
By Sonia Nanescu
I am the introvert; she, the extrovert. She is your friend as soon as you meet her. We were born across the globe from one another, me in a city among gray buildings, she surrounded by nature. I grew up through the storm of a communist-born dictatorship, that of Ceaușescu in Romania, and she experienced the childhood freedom in the States. Yet we had so much in common, my mother-in-law and me. We both loved to explore. We just started from different places; me from the inside of myself, she from the outside of herself, and we rescued each other from the limbo of wanting to write a message to the world and the fear that it may not be good enough for anyone to care about it.
Rhona (my mother-in-law) is a caregiver,She feels stuck at home sometimes, as her mother can’t leave her bed anymore, so she finds refuge in her happy childhood stories. When she shared them with her friend, a primary school teacher, Rhona noticed that she may not be the only one who would relish her past adventures. Once she started writing, the stories practically wrote themselves. The hurdle came afterwards, when no one seemed interested in reading them. She did not know what to do for a long while until she saw something I posted on my blog, and felt inspired, recognizing a fellow writer. And yet, it still took several years until she dared show me these stories. She was not worried about rejection as much as she was about asking too much. She loves her son, her first-born, and until it came to challenging her core values manifested through a voting choice, she had always tiptoed around us, always worried she may upset the balance - but she couldn’t change her identity just for my sake.
It turns out she had conservative values, which included those on immigration, and I was the immigrant. Perhaps not surprisingly, I felt targeted by her anti-immigration view even if I had nothing to fear. l knew that she was not seeing me as someone who should not have the same rights as her to live in this country. She was worried about the waves of immigrants crossing the border illegally, afraid of chaos they might bring. To her, I did not belong in the immigrant box where all the others were neatly stacked.Instead, she saw me in a separate category, all on my own.
Knowing this logically could not stop me from feeling angry and rejected. Even though I knew it was not her fault, it still was impossible to process. The more she tried to explain, the only thing she could do to try to fix it, only made me angrier. This could not be fixed. Listening to her voicing her reasons as she was appealing to my logic was yet another reminder of the divide between us and it made me angrier still. What she was telling me sounded like an excuse for voting against who I was and for whom I represented, and I was too angry to even try to voice how I felt. Stuck in my own mind, I was unable to move past our conflict. Even though a part of me - a part that I could hide well even from myself - knew that her empathy transcended her political views, I needed time to heal the pain of rejection.
I was not angry with her for her choices, anger was just the smokescreen that was covering my fear of what I had experienced as a child repeating itself, and I was powerless. I knew even then, when I released all the pent-up frustration at her, that she was not the one who was even reminding me of my childhood trauma. She too regretted our rift, but neither of us could find the way to each other. Not yet.
I wish it was the shared love for writing alone that brought us back together, but instead it was life itself: my husband - her son - got sick and into the emergency room with a life-threatening condition, and both of us were frightened about what could happen to him. We were now both in agony and we needed each other. Suddenly, none of our conflicts mattered, only the person we both loved instead. It was then that I was reminded of how much she loves him, and how much she loves me too. This shared pain brought us together, Itreminded us of how lucky we were to still have each other, all else was forgiven, all else was forgotten. I was calling her from outside the emergency room, and she was there for me, on the other side on her phone, encouraging me and praying, for this was all she could do at the time. It was more than enough. To our shared joy, her son - my husband - recovered fully, and we were given a second chance to see each other's hearts and watch how love can heal. We had a fresh start, and she knew it when she showed me her stories. Neither one of us knew then that when doing so, she would become the fixed point in the universe of writing for me and, like Archimedes, with her by my side I would feel like I could move the world.
Her writing was not perfect, but neither was mine, and I wanted to help her with every piece of me. I wanted it so badlythat it made helping her fine tune her writing easy. In what felt like no time at all, I was getting swept in the passion for a good story, for her story. Seeing through her eyes a different view of the battle with words and ideas reminded me that writing is not just a gift, but that it also takes patience, that a good piece doesn’t just show up, suddenly and perfect, but it usually gets there after many rounds of editing and what may seem like a never-ending draft stage. More importantly for me, it made me see that writing takes self-compassion.
So, while my own self-critic would not accept anything but perfection, I could treat her message more gently. Finding ways to build up her writing helped me apply this to my own when I had given up . As she released my passion to write from behind the prison bars of perfectionism, this gave her wings to explore a whole new world, one that mirrors both of our souls.
We are now on a shared journey that keeps us going and breathing life into our drive for writing. When my perfectionism bites with its sharp teeth of the “not good enough”, I know that Rhona can bring me back on the path of love and hope when I reach out. All I need to do is show her my story, and watch her excitement for it, which turns the former bite into “maybe not good enough yet, but still good”. I know that she believes, and I trust her. This wouldn’t work without trust, but there is a community of writers out there, ready to lend their thoughts and support to fellow writers. So, reach out, write a critique or post your piece, and you may be amazed at the results!
As for the two of us, the old fissure gave depth to our perspectives, so we have the whole story rather than half of it. Now we are complete, not despite our differences, but because of them.
As we had forgiven each other, we know now that there is room for differences, mistakes, and for growth. We wouldn’t have known it without conflict, and it gave us courage to look at our flaws under the microscope and share it with one another. This makes for even better stories as every good story has struggle and joy within, just like the story you finished reading.
Sonia Nanescu started her career as a dentist with shaking hands, so she had to reinvent herself. Trying to find her way led her to explore being a researcher for a while, and while doing so, she gained two PhDs in Biology, and she is now a science administrator. She writes to inspire and encourage herself as well as others. She has published poetry in WestWard Quarterly, and in the 4th Poetry Downtown Anthology (the Raven) and she is making her debut as a creative nonfiction writer by the present essay in Author.