This Time, As A Writer
When I turned sixty-two in 2015, I didn’t expect to be pondering once again what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” After all, I was an adult now, and one with a full-time, successful career. Hadn’t I had answered that question many decades before when I chose to become a clinical psychologist, one who immersed herself daily in helping others to sort out their lives? My passion for my work as a therapist had neither waned nor had I ever considered slapping an expiration date on how many years I was going to commit to this profession I so loved.
Perhaps the question would never even have surfaced had not life intervened then and upended my plan to remain parked in my therapist’s chair indefinitely. Early that spring, the health of my business partner of twenty-five years took an unexpected and steep dive. To have labeled this development with the word disaster would have been an understatement. Like yin and yang, Roxie and I had been complementary forces in achieving the goal we shared: “to do good work.”
As professionals and sisters of the heart, we trusted and respected one another without reservation—not only for both consultation and advice, but with the extra bonus of emotional support and abiding friendship. And while we each valued the privilege of working on our own with our respective patients, it was also apparent that we functioned best as collaborators. Co-pilots. The prospect of working solo or of bringing a new partner into the practice we had built with such love was a dreary one. And, I concluded in short order, simply untenable. With questions like these pounding at me, I was also grieving the possible loss of Roxie.
And that was when my mind began to whir, fast, around a new challenge: What do you want to pursue in this third stage of your life? What about that fantasy you’ve harbored in secret since you were a kid: “someday I’d like to write a book.” The voice in my mind—one that I recognized as my own—shifted tone then, and sounded exasperated: Because if not now, when?
Initially, I became overwhelmed, just as I always had when I was younger. Back then, writing stories that others might want to read was an air-castle dream. The prospect seemed a nearly impossible vertical journey with sheer drops on either side. For years, I believed that I lacked the potential to grow into being a writer of quality because I didn’t have enough drive. And so sometimes I sat in my office and tried to take solace in the knowledge that though I’d never gotten a foothold on the wordcraft path, I had at least done the next best thing: incorporated my lifelong love of stories, and my reverence for language, into my work as a psychotherapist. Written psychological evaluations that were comprehensive and clear—and somehow “creative”—had been my forte.
I was a keen listener, the kind of therapist who reveled in exploring patients’ personal narratives. Once better understood, these anecdotes could eventually bring new insights about emotional struggles experienced in the here and now—insights that could eventually lead to a more fruitful, less fraught life. Through such storytelling, treatment was often propelled forward. However, one afternoon shortly after Roxie’s diagnosis, I reflected with sadness that I’d denied myself the opportunity even to consider writing as an enjoyable pastime—much less valuable work that could bring a new focus to my life. I’m running out of time, I thought to myself with a sigh.
To come to writing later in life has been like coming home to myself. How remarkable were the parallels between the countless hours I once spent on a couch during my own psychotherapy and the long sessions spent at my writing desk. Both entailed similar searches for my own authentic voice: in the quiet moments they engendered I gained the courage to rake through my emotional past and then to take those revelations and slip-slide down the writer’s path. I began to experience the happiness and the fulfillment that transformation in the face of doggedness brings.
Certainly, the writing remains daunting, often in ways that are maddening, but I feel none of the loneliness that many writers seem to battle. Undoubtedly this is due, at least in part, to the fact that I am blessed—much as I have been on every hard scale I’ve ever attempted—to have the support of several extraordinary women. Roxie cheered the idea from the start, and continues to read my work, despite the time she spends volunteering with underrepresented communities. Also, under the guidance of my first remarkable mentor, Julie, I became part of a collective of women who met each month for two years in a writer’s workshop.
After the writer’s circle ended, and with an audacity prompted by creating a fiction for myself about having nothing to lose, I sought out acclaimed author, Linda Gray Sexton. I had admired all three of her memoirs. Astonishingly enough, when I emailed this complete stranger, I had no conscious awareness that I might want to write a memoir of my own. In an early, serendipitous conversation with her, I began to make peace with the idea that I might want to tackle a memoir rather than a clinical book filled with psychological theory. Did I really want to focus on my work as a therapist solely, rather than explore my life as a daughter and a mother on a personal level?
Writing a memoir meant jettisoning the draft of the book I had already written, but in so doing, it allowed me to step out of my own professional shadow and place myself squarely in my reader’s sights—and mine, as well. To connect in a way that was vivid and real. I reminded myself that I knew a great deal about the pain experienced by those women—daughters of emotionally unavailable mothers—whom I hoped would constitute my readers. I’d heard their stories in my consultation room and I’d spent the better part of my life searching for my own mother. It took very little for Linda to convince me that I was more than qualified to write a memoir that dealt with the topic.
We began our work together, and she openheartedly guided me through every draft (and there were many!) of what would become In Pursuit of Radio Mom; she continues, even today, to offer brilliant advice as I work to get my memoir published and also to polish each blog I post. My explanation for such good fortune? Beyond persistence and a glorious alignment of the stars, I’m uncertain. But I can’t imagine having come so far on my climb without this beloved Sherpa by my side.
Today, I am no longer concerned with the question of what comes next? I’m too immersed in this new undertaking that brings me such joy, as words tumble out onto the page—even though the process sometimes does leave me wondering if it might have been less risky to climb an actual mountain. As in Everest. Still, I am thrilled and humbled at age sixty-eight to look at the woman reflected in the mirror and recognize myself. This time, as a writer.
