Be a Gretchen

“Do you come to every show?” she asks excitedly, beaming up at me with inquisitive eyes. “No, I don’t,” I say quickly. I want to make it clear to this random fan that I have my own life, that I am not a woman who follows her husband around, chasing his dreams, putting her life on hold so he can do, be, and accomplish and achieve. I’m independent, can’t she tell by looking at me?

I hate when people ask me this at Justin’s shows. It makes me feel small. It makes me feel uncreative. It makes me feel less than. I especially hate this question when it follows, “So were you a groupie first?”

My friend Kari often encourages “generous assumptions,” which is her kind way of saying, “Try again without the thought spiral”. In this case, the generous assumption, the positive reframing, would be to believe that the woman asking (it’s almost always a woman) is happy for me, and thinks it’s cool that I chose a partner who earns a living in an alternative, fun way. The generous assumption is that she is confirming my good fortune: that I do indeed get to see fantastic live music, performed by the man I love.

But dang it if my inner critic doesn’t have a loud voice, one so powerful it can drown out the music blaring from the speakers that Justin and his bandmates set up an hour ago because (little does this curious fan know) being a musician isn’t as romantic as it looks. It’s a lot of emails and driving and loading and unloading and setting up and tearing down - until you make enough money to have roadies. To the people who have joked with us that what he does can’t really be called “work”, you are wrong; generous assumptions need not apply.

Back to me, the lifetime groupie. Even after wrapping conversations like this in all the warm fuzzies I can muster, my self-judgement and insecurity ring loud, clear, and with follow-up questions:

“Why do you go to so many shows?”

“You could be pursuing your own creative endeavors.”

“If you really want to write a book, spending your Friday nights out late at his concerts isn’t the way to do it.”

“You’re a decent photographer, but you’ll never work for [insert well-known magazine or outdoor company here] if you don’t level up.”

“You don’t have forever to uncover and chase your dreams.”

This past weekend, I attended two shows, back-to-back. I could have knocked out a few chapters of the aforementioned book. I could have applied to a dozen dream photo gigs. Instead, I answered more in-person queries about my concert attendance records and if I fell in love with Justin because “How could you not?!” they exclaim while gesturing towards him, singing on stage. They’re not wrong.

At Justin’s Thursday night gig, I was cutting through the crowd to say hello to some friends when a woman stopped me to ask if I was Abby. I assumed she knew me as Justin’s wife, a permanent ABF plus one, and would likely chat about how great the band was, or how she came to discover their music.

But I was wrong. She didn’t mention the band but rather began to talk about my art, this Substack in particular, and loved everything I had been writing. She offered something that I so badly needed to hear: “Your husband has it going on, and you do too. Don’t forget that.” Her name is Gretchen, and she made me feel seen. With that simple gesture, my inner critic took a seat.

By seeing me as separate from my husband’s dream, Gretchen gave me what I’d been craving: permission. Permission to stop defending myself to people I barely knew (and let’s be honest, to myself). Permission to own my choices without apology, but instead with confidence, and a side order of audacity, please.

The next time someone asks if I go to every show, I’ll answer honestly with something like, “As many as I can because I love watching him play, because his art inspires mine, because bravery in creative spaces deserves to be celebrated, and the vulnerability that’s generated as a by-product needs to be held.”

I probably won’t be that eloquent in person, but they’ll get the gist. No defensive knot in my stomach. No need to prove I have my own life, because Gretchen’s gentle encouragement reminded me that I do.

Maybe that’s what we all need - someone to nudge us back towards this truth: that you can be devoted and be driven, be supportive and be seen, be his and be yours.