John Dufresne

In this blog, I write about people who have changed my life. Experiences I’ve shared with friends and neighbors alike. Sad, funny, touching stories that have shaped me into the person I am now. Out of all the people who have impacted me, both significantly and slightly, one persons words changed my life more than anyone else’s.

I was assigned to read a book by John Dufresne last semester for my short story writing class. “The Lie That Tells A Truth,” is a book about writing technique and how to become a better writer. But more than just that, it’s also largely about John’s life.

Junior year was the hardest scholastic year of my life. The workload was overwhelming from classes alone, and while I wasn’t studying, I was trying to remain un-fired from two separate jobs. I was working more than forty hours per week and had hardly any time to go out and get drunk at night like most college students. Despite my stress about school and work, the end of the year was creeping ever closer, as was the end of my college experience. I was continually and glaringly aware of the “light” at the end of the tunnel. What the HELL was I going to do after I graduated? The thought loomed in the back of my mind all year long, and trust me, it’s still there, although, it isn’t as glaring since I read John’s book.

I flipped through the book casually, hardly paying attention to his words since it was an assigned book. I may not have read the whole thing from cover to cover, but one passage stood out at me. Whether I was paying particular attention that day, or whether his words rang so clear as my eyes passed over them that I automatically focused, I’m not sure. But the passage was burned into my brain and evidently meant so much to me that I later (currently) wrote about it.

You get to revise your life again and again until you’re living the life you set out to live. You get to examine yourself, and if you’re not doing what you want to be doing, you get to start over. You create the world you want to live in, and you go there. No one else gets to write your story. Every day is an opening sentence, a new beginning. Every morning is a new youth, every afternoon an aging, every sleep a little death. And in every sleep, the dreams you have deferred will haunt you.
 I read it again and again, over and over. A weight was lifted off my shoulders. Not only did the thought of a JOB after college now sound insignificant, but the passage made me reanalyze my whole life. I, and only I, am in utter control of my own life and what happens to me. I constantly worry about making mistakes and what will happen to me and ultimately ending up unhappy. But after reading John’s passage, I looked at my life in a new light. If ever I’m unhappy, I thought to myself, I’ll just find a way, do something, that will make me happy again. It’s as simple as that.


In the beginning of second semester, John came to campus and spoke in the college auditorium. I went to see his speech and the whole time he was speaking, I stared at him and thought….You are the wisest man I know and you’ll never know how you changed the way I thought about my life.

Heather

I worked at a clothing store for a few months earlier this year. Although I didn’t like the job particularly, I loved the people I worked with. I’ve just finished my junior year at college and had to quit my job to survive exams and final projects during the last months of the semester. Junior year as a whole was insanely difficult. I was dealing with not only an overload of school work and difficult classes, but an unhealthy relationship with a boy in my life. Between the two, it was nice to escape to my job, which was easy and exceptionally boring.

One of my bosses was a 25-year-old named Heather. She seemed to be much older than I was since she was my superior, but in reality, she was only my sisters age. We talked sometimes when we closed together and one day, she shared something very personal with me.

Heather told me that her current boyfriend, who she had been with for two years, was an alcoholic. I wasn’t surprised, and most people at work new that Heather was involved in a bit of a scary relationship, she never tried to disguise it. But the details that Heather began to spill, startled and scared me. Not only was her boyfriend an alcoholic, but he was extremely abusive and from her stories, I began to wonder if he was mentally unstable. She told me that night that she was moving out but she would always be there for him, despite everything. I was shocked and asked her why. She told me that he was her best friend and even if she wasn’t his lover anymore, she would never turn her back on a best friend. I was obviously appalled and couldn’t understand how she could remain devoted to an abusive man. Clearly he wasn’t a best friend if he beat her up. Two weeks later, I learned that she never left him and she was still not only his best friend, but his lover as well.

The other day, I closed with Heather again and she rattled off another list of crazy things that her boyfriend had done. He had no desire to seek help or go to rehab, things were not looking up. She told me she was leaving this time. Actually leaving. I went home that night and searched online for single women around Heathers age, who were looking for roommates. I found one and sent Heather the number immediately. Nothing ever became of the situation and as far as I know, Heather is still with her abusive boyfriend.
After hearing her story, I began to wonder, how such a beautiful young woman, who was my boss and seemingly had her life together, could be stuck in such an awful situation. I knew this situation was familiar to many women all over the world, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Heathers situation hit closer to home than I ever imagined.

I was in the middle of a sticky, complicated and nothing even close to healthy relationship of three years. Although the boy I was with had never laid an angry finger upon me, he also didn’t treat me the way, deep down inside, I knew I deserved to be treated. One evening, both of us arrived at his house late at night, we were laughing and joking together, happier than we had been in quite a while. Together we entered his room, and to both of our surprise, there was a girl laying in his bed. I was immediately in tears and calling my friend to pick me up. He grabbed me, chased after me and tried to explain, claiming she was a friend and she was staying at his house because she couldn’t go home. I wanted to believe him more than anything. I wanted to think it was the truth and take him back, even just shrug it off and pretend like I didn’t care. But another part of me, the weaker part, thought about Heather. Am I really like Heather? Or can I be stronger than that? Whether your boyfriend is beating you, lying to you or cheating on you, why do so many women get caught in the crosshairs and sacrifice their happiness and self-respect to stay with men like this?

Heather’s situation, though it may still be going on, helped me to realize just how weak I was. I was really no different than her. I was being disrespected by a boy who wasn’t worth my time or energy, yet I could never leave him. What does it finally take to leave these men behind? Unfortunately for me, it took the misfortune of my boss, to realize just how horribly I was being treated, and how horribly I was treating myself by staying with him.

Autumn

When I was in high school, I had the best of friends. There was nine of us, Kayla, Kayla, Michaela, Kirstin, Melissa, Sunni, Amy, Casey and Kylynn. Most of us had grown up together, developing our friendships from kindergarten to graduation. We grew up together, survived puberty together, developed our lives together. We were there for each other in moments of change, fear and growth.

After graduation, we all went our separate ways. Sunni and Casey went to the same college and became roommates. Michaela and Kirstin did the same. One of the Kayla’s and Amy went to neighboring schools in the same town and visited each other often. All of them stayed in the Northwest; Washington, Montana and Oregon. After graduation, I boarded a plane and flew to Florida, all alone. I left my best friends on the opposite corner of the country.

My first two years at Flagler College were rocky but exciting, full of surprises, mistakes and realizations. I made friends with the first people I met and clung to them. We became inseparable and had wild adventures in the dorms throughout freshman year. They were good friends, maybe even great ones, but none of them even approached being as close to me as the girls I had left at home.

The following year, my new friends and I found a house and moved in together. Sophomore year was filled with even more mistakes and mishaps. We were growing up and clearly beginning to grow apart. I never bothered to become close with any of them because I still believed I had best friends and didn’t need more, I wouldn’t dare replace the girls I grew up with. At the end of sophomore year I realized that I wasn’t happy living alone in Florida and depending on girls four thousand miles away to be my best friends. I couldn’t call them and tell them about my life when they hadn’t met any of the people I was talking about. I couldn’t give them advice when I wasn’t experiencing their life with them.

Junior year I went out on a limb and moved out of my roommates house. I was back in Montana for the summer and didn’t have anyone to live with in the fall when I returned. Days crawled by and I tried to not stress about how few friends I had and my lack of living situation. Out of the blue, I talked to a friend in Florida one day. He told me that his girlfriend, a girl I knew by acquaintance, was looking for a new roommate too. We began talking and we decided to take the chance and live together. Throughout the summer we talked only about housing, communicating through texting and face book. She found a house for us and I mailed her appropriate amounts of money to cover my share of the expenses. When I returned to Florida, Autumn and I greeted each other awkwardly. We had communicated so much throughout the three months of summer but we never had officially spoken face to face.

Weeks turned into months and before we knew it, the awkwardness had melted away and we did everything together. We partied and drank, watched movies and cried over guys. We cooked dinner together every night and developed a routine. We took care of each others dogs and soon first semester had flown by. Autumn spent Christmas in Mexico and I sat alone on my couch through the holidays, all alone. She brought me back a bottle of Mexican Tequila and we enjoyed it together. Over spring break, she drove me to the airport and picked me up a week later. I jabbered on and on in the car during the ride home. I told her all about my friends from home who I had spent the break with. I began to realize, Autumn had somehow become so much more important to me than my closest friends. They remained my best friends but after three years apart from them, I was losing track, losing interest, growing apart from my childhood friends.

Autumn will graduate in six days. Despite my begging, she applied to multiple jobs and internships in different states. She will leave me in July and I’ll have to move in with someone else, and develop another friendship. I’ll always talk to Autumn, our friendship has become so strong we will surely be lifelong friends. But despite her leaving, and despite our closeness, the way we bonded in just nine short months, she taught me how easy and fun it is to make new friends. She is so very different from my friends at home. She has become my best friend in my adult life. Though I will never leave behind my childhood friends, Autumn has taught me about new levels of friendship and what they entail at an older age, and I’m so very thankful.

Kevin

When I was little I spent most of my summer days at my friend Emily’s house. My parents were good friends with her parents and we would often barbeque together, celebrate the Fourth of July together and go camping together. My older brother, who is four years older than me, was in the same grade as their son, Kevin. I remember the fun I used to have when I went to their house. We would stay up late watching gory television shows which was a treat for me since my parents didn’t own a TV. Emily and I would play dress-up for hours on end. She had make-up kits and it was at her house that I learned how to apply eye shadow and lipstick. I remember feeling like a grown-up when we would model our clothes for Emily’s family, showing off our costume make-up and flowered hats. Kevin was thirteen at the time. To me, he was like a brother. He was a boy and absolutely had cooties. He would play with us sometimes, he taught us how to play truth or dare and made us tuna sandwiches. But it was also Kevin that took away the innocence of a little girl one summer. She was about my age and I knew her. He forced her out of her childhood and into the adult that we so often dressed up as.

I didn’t understand it at the time but I was old enough to know something was wrong. It started with hushed conversations between my parents behind closed doors. Things were tense in our household. My older brother was pulled aside and spoken to in private by my parents for a long time in their bedroom. He came out looking serious and said nothing when I asked him what was wrong. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Then name was dropped a few times but no one would say what he did. Finally, after several days of serious tones, my parents asked me to stay seated at the kitchen table after everyone else was excused. They kept it light, they were sweet. But I could tell from their eyes that a piece of their world had fallen off, they were frantic with worry. “Has Kevin ever touched you?” The question seemed simple enough to me. I repeated over and over the truth, Kevin had never once laid a finger on me or made me feel uncomfortable in any way.

It was years later that my parents finally admitted the truth to me. His trial was still not over and Kevin was being tried as an adult for molestation of a six year old girl. I knew her. She was two grades beneath me. The story was kept quiet in my town. But my parents never really recovered from the severity of what happened. Years later, when I talk to them about it, their shock is still evident. Their best friends, the people who they trusted their children’s lives with, had raised a child that committed unspeakable acts at the age of thirteen. Kevin claimed to have been sexually abused when he was a child as well. I remember that after the storm blew over, I didn’t go over to friends houses for a long, long time. You never really know what happens within families and who you can trust in the wild and wonderful world, and I think my parents learned that lesson better than most.

The man in the orange shirt

People buzzed past me on either side, speaking in languages that I couldn’t understand or identify. I was in a train station in Denmark. It was a beautiful day, sun cast down and warmed the city. I walked through a park next to the train station, wrote in my journal and ate a granola bar from my diminishing stash. My train was scheduled to depart in an hour and I sat on a bench alone watching the families stroll past me.

While my mind wandered and I suppressed the ever-lurking stress in the back of my mind, I tried to plan where I could sleep for the next few days. I was alone in Europe, with nothing more than a ten pound backpack and a tracking phone with only a few minutes left on it. A man was suddenly sitting next to me on the bench, interrupting my thoughts and peering into my face.

“Hello,” he spoke to me in a thick accent. He had dark skin and dark hair, he looked to be maybe Indian. He wore an orange shirt I remember. I couldn’t identify his accent. Before I knew it, he was talking and talking, his eyes searched the crowd around me. He started asking me questions about our government, about where I was from. He pried and pushed, even yelled with excitement as he spoke about President Bush and his disagreement with our government. I hardly listened to him, I was so distracted by his sudden approach. Paranoia took hold, I remember how people had warned me of getting robbed and how careful I should be traveling alone. My money and passport were secure under my shirt. I pulled my backpack closer, wrapped my legs around it and held the strap with both hands. He spoke on. I wondered if he was distracting me and he had friends that were watching in the crowd and waiting to pounce upon me. Beads of nervous sweat formed on my forehead. Finally, when I began to wonder if he would ever leave me alone, a tall white man sat next to me and opened a newspaper. The man in the orange shirt glanced at him. “Oh is this your father?” he asked. Startled, I realized it was my out. I nodded and scooted a few inches closer to the man holding the newspaper.

After Orange Shirt had left, with a nonchalant wave, I breathed a sigh of relief and realized all my muscles were tense. Had the man been a threat? Was he just genuinely nice? Was my fear an overreaction? It made me wonder. Had society trained us to be wary and afraid of strangers, suspicious of even the honestly nice passerby? I look back and think that my interaction with Orange Shirt could have ended in a much worse manner, I was a hundred and ten pound, eighteen year old girl traveling through Europe alone after all. But it didn’t and I still wonder if he was just being nice to me or if he had ulterior motives.

Jaxson

The first time I met Jaxson, he was teetering on his chubby one year old legs atop the back of a leather couch. He was a friendly baby and gave me a grin and a gurgle as he wobbled to and fro on the narrow ledge. My first instinct was to dive for him, scoop him up and set him down on solid ground. But I was only sixteen and didn't know Jaxson, his family, or their routine, and evidently, Jaxson was allowed to climb onto the couch and risk life and limb for the sheer pleasure of it. "Oh he does that all the time." Said his mom Jen, when she noticed my concern. "He hasn't fallen yet so I just let him do it." Well it wasn't until I had been Jaxson's nanny for several months, that he actually took a tumble right off the back of the couch. I was in the kitchen, cleaning his lunch dishes and keeping an eye on him from across the counter. He grinned from ear to ear and wobbled on his fat little legs, it was clearly his favorite place to be. Suddenly, mid-teeter, his right heel slid over the edge and the smile melted from his face. His balance was lost, his expression registered realization and then fear. I knew I wouldn't be able to reach him in time and I froze in my place, breath held, arms extended. With a bump and a shriek, he hit the floor behind the couch. I leaped across the room and within a mere instant had him wrapped in my arms, shushing and kissing and rocking. He seemed to be uninjured, mostly just shocked and afraid, but it took me a whole hour to finally calm down and regulate my racing heart.

He was the love of my life. I dedicated almost every day to him. I would leave school and immediately drive to pick him up from daycare. We would go home and make dinner, play with his toys that recited the alphabet and mimicked animal sounds. I cut his hot dogs into tiny triangles, always petrified he would choke on to big of a bite. Every night I put him to bed and he fell asleep to country music on station 93.1, Kyss FM. I fell asleep shortly after he did, on the large leather couch that he loved to climb on. His mom was a bartender and would come home in the late hours of the night. She would wake me gently and I would tell her about the day that Jaxson and I had shared. I wanted him as my own. He was so sweet and calm. His thin blond hair and blue eyes melted my heart. I was so young but because of Jaxson, I developed cravings to have a child of my own. He and I would lay in a hammock in the front yard and watch the blue of the sky shift beyond the leaves of the trees. In the winter, I would bundle him up in so many layers he was nearly immobile. I loved him so much.

One day, after I had been Jaxson's nanny for a little more than nine months, his mom told me that she and Jaxson were moving to Costa Rica. Apparently, her family owned a vacation home in Costa Rica and she had decided on a whim to move there. I was shocked that she had so suddenly decided to move their lives across the nation, but I was more shocked that I would never see Jaxson again. Two months later, they were gone. I was unbelievably heartbroken, but also, in a way I was liberated. I was free to see my friends more often and didn't have to work every night. But I missed Jaxson terribly. I missed our routine and his laugh. I missed how he made me feel inside. The pain didn't last long. I felt like I'd had a puppy taken away from me. I loved him but I also began to realize, once he was gone, he had been such a burden in my life and had consumed nearly all of my time. I adjusted back to living a normal high school life and began to think about Jaxson less and less. Jaxson’s mom sent me one picture, it was of the two of them in a swimming pool, Jaxson was smiling his big goofy grin. He was tan and splashing. Years have passed, he must be about seven now. That’s crazy for me to think about. I wonder sometimes if he would remember me if I were to ever see him again. I'm glad he was such a large part of my life for a little while. I learned how to love and how to respect children and I learned an appreciation for the freedom I still have without a child of my own.

Megan and Michael

There were two people I met during my high school career that changed my life significantly more than anyone else. They weren’t the boys I dated or the best friends that I made. They weren’t even the teachers I had or adult figures I looked up to. No, Megan and Michael were just six and nine when I spent the summer before my junior year with them and they were the two most inspirational people I grew to know in my four years of high school.

“You need to be prepared when you see her,” my mom said to me. “She looks shocking.” I shrugged it off, I imagined it couldn’t be worse than anything I’d seen on TV. My mom’s best friend, Vicky, was taking care of a woman dying from liver cancer. She was in denial, somehow she hadn’t accepted her fast approaching death despite the tumor that had swelled her failing liver to thirteen times it’s normal size. When I finally did meet her, I realized that my mom was right. I had to consciously control my facial expression when I saw her stomach. Her liver was filling it and it hung down over her thighs. But besides her bloated middle, the poor woman’s body was emaciated. She wouldn’t live much longer.

Megan and Michael seemed strangely detached from their mothers deteriorating condition. She was a single mom and was still living at home with both of them. Vicky was going in and out daily, helping take care of her, as was my mom and other friends and volunteers. However, I began to get the feeling that Megan and Michael contributed most of the care.

I was sixteen and jumped at the chance to help two kids whose mother was dying. “Just hang out with them,” Vicky told me. “Give them a chance to be kids.” While their mom went to chemo, we went hiking. I packed lunches, salami sandwiches and animal crackers. While their mom slipped away day by day, we went to the lake and floated down the river on inner-tubes. I took them to the counselor once a week, each time they would come out with grins on their faces. They always said how much they loved their psychiatrist.

One morning Megan found her mom unconscious on the floor of the bathroom. We went out for ice-cream that day and Megan and Michael were nothing but smiles. I began to realize that these two kids were the strongest people I had ever met. They had become accustomed to the painful appearance of their own mom. There was a little furrow that had appeared across Megan’s forehead, a wrinkle most likely caused by stress. She was only six and she had developed a stress line on her face, but I never once saw her cry. They experience was undoubtedly hard on both children, impossibly hard, but they bounced. They appeared happy when we were together, they laughed and played just like kids. Maybe they compartmentalized, maybe they suppressed their fears and tears. But I believe that they found the ability to truly feel happy while their mother died in front of their eyes. And to me, it was inspiration in a time of grief.

A few weeks later, their mother passed away. I didn’t see them after that, they moved away with family, to a new school and a new life. All alone without their mother. It’s been five years now and I know that two of the strongest kids have grown into two caring, happy and brave teenagers. I still think about them, and I still wonder how I would hold up if I had to go through what they did.