This Is What It Took

I felt hands on my shoulders. I turned, and there was Kel.

“You are absolutely incredible,” she told me.

I had just read a piece of my writing to a group of people, and when I finished and looked up, I saw everyone was in tears—silent, almost gobsmacked, not even knowing what to say, just visceral reactions. Kel looked at me. “Not to mention you are so absolutely beautiful to look at, but you are an incredibly gifted writer. I look forward to reading your New York Times bestseller someday.”

I gave her a look.

“I’m serious! Look at this room,” she told me, pointing to everyone. “You touched every single person here.”

She drew out the words beautiful and incredibly gifted longer than necessary, probably, but I could see in her eyes that she meant it. She wanted me to hear that.

I am someone who does not get a lot of “flowers” or external validation. I say this not to host a pathetic pity party, but more out of sheer self-awareness. I can understand why. But Kel’s words, and the conviction with which she delivered them to me, gave me my flowers after being unseen for a very long period of time.

I have been writing my entire life, but I haven’t ever read a piece I wrote in front of a group of people—maybe ever. I couldn’t believe the reaction it got. I’ll post things online, and I’ll get two likes from my two friends, and I feel good, but also bad. Even so, I know I’m never going to stop writing. I don’t care if anyone ever reads it; I know I’ll never stop.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt like maybe that meant I did have a gift, or something to contribute to the world—that maybe if I keep writing, someone will read it. That maybe all my demons also meant I was set apart from everyone else. Everyone else doesn’t suffer as much as you do, but they also don’t see as much. They can’t all do what you do. And for the first time, I didn’t hate my demons as much as I always do. I was able to even thank them, in a way.

Kel graduated from Harvard University and is a million different powerful, beautiful, interesting, and endearing women in one. She’s worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and Architectural Digest. She’s traveled all over the world. She’s clever; she’s got razor-sharp wit. She’s always elegantly dressed—tailored dress pants with a white blouse tucked in, dresses with knee-high boots. She’s sixty-eight now and “falling apart” (her words), but her eyes, smile, and energy are just as young and vibrant as if she were twenty-one. She doesn’t seem old or falling apart to anyone.

She once told me a story about how her son Chris made a film in college and it won a bunch of awards. He had called home and told Kel’s husband, “You might not want to bring Mom…”

So the family went to the awards ceremony, Kel sitting right up front next to her son, and the film played.

“Do you want to know what his film was about?” she asked me, a smile in her eyes. “It was this dark story about a boy who was wrapped up like a mummy and his relationship with his alcoholic mother. The mother spent the whole time wandering around in a nightgown—who, might I add, was wearing one of my nightgowns!”

I started to laugh, but she was laughing with me.

“I said, ‘Chris! Is that my nightgown?’”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“I thought, Oh my God, okay, I am going to own this,” she chuckled. “And at the end of the film, in huge letters across the screen, it says, ‘This film would not have been possible without my mom. Mom, I love you.’”

I smiled at her in that secret, special way certain mothers can smile at each other, knowing that through all your “failures” or missteps, the honesty, the humility, and the love you gave to your child rose above it all. It’s what rang true.

“Chris always told me, ‘Mom, I can’t relate to you. I just can’t,’ and I thought, It’s okay. We don’t have to relate. That film brought us closer together. We built our own relationship a different way,” she told me. “But when that nightgown went missing, I never would have dreamed Chris stole it to style the crazy mother in his film…”

She was still chuckling, and she looked truly proud of Chris, like he had surprised her in a way she never could have imagined or hoped. She admired him, even if he had brought her demons to the big screen for an audience to observe.

“I could hide in shame from my mistakes, but I won’t. I’m not ashamed to say, ‘This is what I’ve learned. This is what it took.’”

“I think,” I told her, giving her a look, “I think your kids probably adore you.”

She smiled. “I adore them. I love all their quirks and idiosyncrasies. I love most of all that they have all turned out to be good people.”

She rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and held her face in her hand. She looked just like Katharine Hepburn.

“Noah’s dad…” she asked, watching me closely. After a few silent moments, she concluded, “He doesn’t get you.”

I nodded. She looked at me in such a way that I knew, deep in my soul, that she understood.

“I was always a good actress,” she told me.

And now it was my turn to look at her in such a way that she knew I understood.

“It’s easier that way,” I said.

“But at what cost?” she asked me.

She reached out and took my hand. “You are incredible,” she told me again, sincerely.

Once in my car and driving home, I tested it out. I caught my eyes in the rearview mirror and looked at myself.

“You are incredible,” I told myself.

Iccckkkkk.

But then I heard Kel speaking the words, and all the noise was silenced, and I was able to just listen to them. Hear them. Try to believe them.

You are incredible.