Just What I Wanted

It was one of those days and I was not feeling particularly optimistic about my life. I’d been waiting to hear from this editor, and when I finally did of course he said the book wasn’t for him. I knew he’d say this, I could feel it before it came, but I sat around hoping anyway, my head filled with the notion of some golden ticket was coming that would allow my passage out of a sense of failure and disappointment.

My wife, Jen, and I ate dinner together before my shift at the restaurant. I was in no mood to go to work – that job, which was meant to be a temporary gig, had become something approaching a career. I looked across at Jen, and while I knew she loved me and was rooting for me, it seemed to me she did not fully appreciate my circumstance. Not only didn’t she grasp how unhappy I was, but – most importantly – that my despair was utterly justified.

So, I spelled it out for her. Like a lawyer making his final argument to the jury, I laid down each piece of evidence: the number of books I’d written and not sold; the relentlessness of the rejection letters; that I’d never in my life wanted to spend ten years working in the same restaurant; that we needed the money and there was nothing else I knew how to do; that I was almost forty and how could I call myself anything but a failure?

Normally, when I got on one of these jags, Jen would talk me down from the ledge I’d wandered out onto. But on this afternoon, she just listened and listened. And when I was done, she said: “I’m really sorry.”

I pushed myself away from the table because it was time to go to work. As I got my bag and threw it over my shoulder, she put her hand on my back and told me again how sorry she was. It had been different when she’d try to talk me out of my gloom. Secretly, I realized, this is what I’d always wanted: just to hear how sorry someone was for me.

I wandered off to my car. It was sort of pathetic, and I knew this would be the last time I would complain to Jen or anyone like this, but as I sat behind the wheel, I also thought, “You wanted something, and you got it. Now what do you want?”

It was the first time I’d asked myself that question and really meant it in a long, long time.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com