Where is Joseph?

One holiday season, 15 or more years ago, times were hard and I was a client of our local food pantry. I made the comment to my friend who worked at the pantry that I wish we had a nativity set.

The next time I went "shopping" there, wouldn't you know, somebody had donated a nativity set! It may have been part of the toy donations (since at Christmastime, the pantry also made it possible for me to give my children gifts), I don't remember.

I thought it was interesting that the set had for wise men, instead of three. I learned that some people believe that they're actually work for a wise man and I thought that was a neat coincidence.

We've had the same nativity set ever since then and have never even lost the baby Jesus, even though he is as tiny as a nickel.

This year when I got the nativity set out and set it up, I realized that there is no Joseph. I don't know if there ever was a Joseph or if maybe the fourth wise man was mistakenly included in Joseph's place.

In my nativity set, Mary is a single mom, just like I was, and in many ways still am. (Although I am remarried, I am, for the most part, responsible for my children, including the two in college.)

I wish I had noticed that Mary was a single mom way back when... Although I know a lot of single moms now, I did not know a lot of single moms at the time when I was single with three children ages 5 and under. Maybe it would have been a nice reminder that I am not such a weirdo, because it did feel somewhat shameful at the time.

Sometimes I look back and think about how amazing it is that my boys turned out the way they did given the circumstances that we were up against. I wonder if any of my friends who make a big show out of collecting food for the food pantry realize that it is people like me, who are really not that much different than they are, that were or are clients of that food pantry?

I used to feel humiliated, standing in the checkout line with my vouchers. Now I feel humbled. There is, however, a fine line between the two with which I sometimes struggle.

Big-girl boots

It’s raining today so it’s time for me to tell this story.

Four days into the new year, I got an email from my son with a link to a laptop backpack he wanted on Amazon.

I rolled my eyes to the heavens. The idea of spending any more money that soon after Christmas was the last thing I wanted to do. His big gift was me going in on a laptop with him.

I started a tirade in my mind: This kid has a lot of nerve asking for this at this time! Doesn’t he realize how much money I just spent and how much work it is for me to put on Christmas? Because I didn’t see anyone else putting ornaments on the tree or even helping me get decorations out! Never mind all the shopping, planning, wrapping, and so on. It must be nice sleeping in on Christmas morning and waking up to cinnamon rolls, coffee, and a fun treasure hunt to find your gifts. No way am I buying another thing until I figure out how to pay off the holidays! I traveled down the dark path of indignance for a minute or two.

Then I thought, Okay, calm down. Take the emotion out and just stick to the facts. I’ll just explain to him that he can either buy it himself or wait for another occasion like his birthday or graduation. He had a perfectly decent backpack. He just wanted one that he could carry his new laptop in, in case he ever brought it to school, which I don’t think he has.

Later, when I was doing dishes at the kitchen sink, he brought up the email.

I said, “About that, honey…I didn’t click through the link yet. Now is not a good time for me to be spending…”

“No, no, no,” he cut me off. “I’ll pay you back.”

I was glad I’d had time to rationalize a calm response. I didn’t have anything to apologize for.

“Hon, that’s why we just set you up with a checking account – so you can use your debit card.”

“Well, you have Amazon Prime – I thought you could get it faster.”

“Not anymore, Prime was a gift last year and I didn’t renew it.”

“Ooooooh.”

So, he ordered the backpack himself, with his own trial of Amazon Prime. I suggested he set a reminder for himself to cancel it if he didn’t want to pay for the service. He may or may not have done so. It’s his bank account and his business and his lesson to learn if he forgets.

I remember when I was a kid, maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I needed a new pair of rain boots. There was a considerable amount more walking and being outside when I was a kid than there is today. Plus, we actually dressed for the weather, unlike today how kids wear shorts and sneakers three seasons out of the year and never wear a winter coat (maybe okay in Florida, but we live in New England).

I didn’t want yellow galoshes. Those were for babies. Instead, I wanted some “big-girl boots” with low heels. They were still waterproof rubber boots, but they were made to look like leather. So grown up, I thought, and stood up as straight as I could after I’d slipped my feet into them, even taller with the little heels.

My mother said no. We couldn’t afford them. “Get those off right now. Who do you think you are!?

I deflated. 

"You’re going to get the yellow boots, same as your brother!” She shut me right up and down.

Tears welled up in my eyes and my shoulders slumped. I couldn’t look the sales clerk in the eye when she was ringing us up. I thought bitterly, Of course I should have the big-girl boots. Why would they come in my size if they weren’t made for girls like me?

On the way home I leaned against the car door and looked out the window, watching the raindrops slide down. A tear trickled down my cheek in unison.

My mother must have snuck a glance in the rear-view mirror because she started justifying her mandate about the yellow boots. 

"Blah blah blah," was all I heard.

“I won’t wear them," I stated blandly. "I’m too grown up for yellow rain boots.” It wasn’t even defiance as much as a simple fact, with which my mother must have secretly agreed, because,

“Fine!” she hissed. “I’ll exchange them for the other boots.”

I don’t think we got them that day. I don’t really remember.

All I do remember is that I felt so ashamed and selfish for wanting the big-girl boots that I never wore them, either. Every time it rained, my feet were wet and cold all day at school (or wherever I was), and I was forced to think about what a selfish person I was who surely wasn’t as grown up as she thought she was and didn’t deserve the big-girl boots but had them anyway, at the great expense and sacrifice of the family. The guilt was such that I couldn’t even look at the boots and they remained in the back of my closet.

As an adult, I know what it feels like not to be able to afford things for my kids, but I tried never to say “We can’t afford it.” Instead, “It’s not in our budget right now,” or “We can afford x if we forego y.” Children don’t need to be aware of adult problems.

For example, the food pantry was a fun place to go because I called it “The Special Food Place,” and you never knew what kind of “treats” you might get. Some people might have donated Lucky Charms cereal. Or there might have been almost-out-of-date-code bakery items from the local supermarket. There was usually a movie for kids on in the waiting room, and later when the pantry was moved to a bigger location, there was a play area and a room for clothes shopping. It was very special indeed.

It was only when my kids got older and we participated in the Good Friday Walk for Hunger that I explained to them that it was to benefit The Special Food Place, and they learned that the food pantry was for people who didn’t have enough to eat and needed other support services. I doubt they ever felt the crippling insecurity I felt as a child, who never had a lot of confidence that things were going to be okay.

As an adult, I understand that my mom did the best she could.

At the same time, I cannot continue to justify that behavior because it invalidates the feelings I had as a child. Sometimes a parent’s best IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

What if my mom had said any of these things?

• “I really wish I could give you those boots."
• "I’d love you to have them. You’re getting so grown up."
• "It’s not in our budget this week (or month), but we can get them next week (or month).”

Something I’ve done with my boys when they want the high-end athletic shoes is: “I’ll pay x amount, and you can pay the difference,” which is a great deal because it also teaches them about the difference between needs and wants, as well as empowers them to participate in the decision-making process.

I imagine if I had heard those messages as a child, I would not be thinking about this particular incident at the shoe store in Middleton, R.I., decades later.

To my inner child: it’s okay to want – and have – nice things. 

Girl power

Yesterday I was at the doctor's office with my youngest. He has been sick-ish for a week now and it turns out he has the flu.

He didn't want to talk because it hurts, so he was looking at his phone. I picked up this book from the end table next to the row of chairs where we were sitting.

It was really cool to look at pictures and quotes from girls who were doing all sorts of awesome and

physical things... From sports to making mud pies, to overcoming adversity (showing their scars or posing with a prosthesis or in a wheelchair).

I used to be like those girls until I reached about age 10.

I had wild hair and when my mom cut it off people in our new neighborhood thought I was a boy until I showed up at the bus stop with a dress on for picture day.

I remember when kids saying to me, "I thought you was a boy!" (I was 8 years old and more horrified by his grammar than the fact that he would think I was a boy.)

The 5th-grade spelling bee is my first memory of acquiescing to a boy. He misspelled the word "assassin." I should have easily spelled that word, and I remember fumbling with it, being embarrassed to say "a-s-s, a-s-s"... I don't think I was ready to step into the spotlight, or feared success, perhaps. Or didn't want the boy to be mad at me?

My next word was "battalion," and I had no idea what that was and couldn't spell it, but the boy could, so he won the spelling bee and I got second place. It is the first of many times I remember putting myself in the shadow of a boy.

(Funny, I have been wanting to write more memoir-type stories for a long time, but debated whether I really wanted to dance with skeletons from my past. I have bought domains and let them expire and started blogs and then deleted them. One of my deleted blogs was called "Out of the Shadows.")

I won a $25 savings bond at that spelling bee, which I have never cashed in. I wanted to cash it in immediately when I was 10 years old because I knew it would be worth about $17.50, and for a 10-year-old in the '70s, that was a heck of a lot of money-- a lot more than $25 would be to a 20-year-old.

The font of financial wisdom my mother was (not -- she was horrible with money), she said no.

Living in the shadow of other people can be a dark place to be. For me, it means people pleasing, being afraid to say no, going along with things that I don't really want to do ... just so someone -- often a man -- won't be mad at me, or I wouldn't stand out. This also happened in Camp Fire girls when I suggested the name "Wizards" for our group, and none of the other girls wanted anything other than "butterfly or flower-type" names. I didn't even vote for the name I suggested and went along with one of the other names.

Where did I learn to do that? I am guessing it had to do with seeking approval from parents who I felt wouldn't accept and love me just for being me; that I needed to do something specific in order to be worthy.

(Often, I have felt like a human doing, rather than a human being.)

What would Mr. Rogers say?

"It's you I like."

I remember a 9-year-old me with leaves and twigs stuck in her growing out hair from playing in the "fort" under the giant willow tree in front of the post office in Newport, RI, arms and legs strong and tan from spending so much time outside.

I want to be her again.

Girl power! ⚡

The trapped bird

I wondered what the heck the dogs were barking about and went to let them in off the screened porch. I don’t like them outside barking too much because I don’t want to be the annoying neighbor.

That’s when I saw the bird, frantically flying against the screens and pecking intermittently. Occasionally it made peeping noises

.

It had flown in flew in through the door that I leave open for the dogs to go in and out, but couldn’t figure out how to get back out.

I opened the slider and put the dogs inside. Before I closed the door, I let the curtain down so it covered the glass slider and they couldn’t see me or the bird.

I tried to coax the bird towards the door. “C’mon little bird, don’t be afraid, just go that way…”

I’m not sure the bird was going to be comforted by a human voice, but certainly my voice isn’t as scary as three dogs barking at it?

Every time I got it close to the door, it would get stuck behind the door, or go back the other way.

A couple of times it tucked itself up under the frame around the top corners of the screens.

I decided to give the bird a break and see if it would figure out what to do if no one was around. I didn’t want it to have a heart attack or crash so hard into something it broke its neck (which sadly happened to another bird on our porch on a different occasion).

I peeked out a few times and it was still flapping desperately against the screens.

I figured maybe it would tire itself out and then I could get it to step onto a small branch, so I could carry it out the way I had helped a hummingbird off our porch once.

It didn’t like the branch. It didn’t like me talking to it. It wouldn’t stop beating its little self against the screens. I could hear its bird friends in the trees calling to it. (I imagine they were friends, but I don’t really know. Maybe they were also stressed out by this bird’s flailing and chirping.)

Eventually, our girl dog had to go potty and asked to be let out.

I opened the door and herded her straight off the porch and went down to the yard with her.

When I came back, the bird was standing on top of the dog crate, all puffed up, with its head hidden beneath its wing.

“I am so sorry, little bird. This must be so hard for you! The door is right over there but you’re so freaked out you can’t figure out how to get out there.”

I knew I was going to have to put a towel over it and carry it outside. I have done that with bats that have found their way into our family room a time or two (I have no idea how the bats get in, unless it’s through the attic and they can squeeze through tiny cracks under doors like mice?)

I went in to get a dish towel and returned to the porch.

I hesitated, and told the bird, “This is going to be awful for a little while but you are going to have to trust me and please don’t flap around. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s going to be dark, and then I am going to pick you up and carry you outside and you will be free.”

Then I placed the towel over the bird quickly. It struggled a little bit, and I tucked the towel under it as I scooped it up.

The back yard was alive with bird sounds. I imagined the little bird’s friends were cheering it on. Beyond the electronic fence zone, I set the bird and towel down on the ground next to a large branch that had fallen during a winter storm, and gently tugged at the top of the towel to remove it from the bird.

“Voila, little bird!”

Apparently, it was stunned because it just stood there. I retreated to the porch and watched it for a little while until it began to peck at the ground.

The next time I looked out, it was gone.

There have been times when I have been that little bird.

There are times I have felt trapped, and beat my head against the wall (figuratively) trying to find a solution to a problem. There are times I have felt so defeated I give up and want to hide. I can’t really hide, so I might immerse myself in work, take a nap, procrastinate, or eat foods I know I shouldn’t…whatever it takes to avoid the problem I can’t solve.

Sometimes the problem is solved by a power greater than myself: the coworker I don’t get along with gets a new job, for example. Other times, if I get over my fear or whatever is holding me back from figuring things out, and face it head on, I am able to work through it.

I’d like to think that if I shared my problem with my friends, they would cheer me on, but I’m not often a problem sharer. Not asking for help is one of my weaknesses.

Little bird, don’t be afraid to ask for, and accept, help.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Reparenting my inner child

I sat on my hotel room bed weeping as I watched Mr. Rogers sing, “It’s you I like,” with his neighbor Jeff, a young wheelchair-bound guest in his show. It was the second time in two months that I had been in a hotel room, channel surfing, watching Mr. Rogers.

The first time was on a business trip in California, and the hotel TV included movies. The Mr. Rogers documentary was on and since I hadn’t seen it in a theater yet, I watched it.

This second time, I was on a pilgrimage of sorts in Florida where my past and future had collided with a big bang. I had spent the previous two days with my dad’s sister and her husband, catching up after more than 16 years.

Then I’d moved on to spend the next three days in my oldest son’s college town. That day I had taken him shopping at Target between his classes and a fraternity meeting.

My aunt and uncle and I had so many questions for each other. For the longest time, I thought I wanted to know what my dad was thinking when he told my aunt he didn’t want my brother and me at his hospital bedside during his final days. To be honest, I also wondered what my aunt, who was also a mom by then, was thinking when she agreed to his wishes. But we never got to that. Nor did we get too deep into what happened when my cousin (who was much, much younger than me, thus we did not grow up together) died suddenly and unexpectedly a year and a half ago.

Instead, over the course of two days, in between walking on the beautiful beach at Longboat Key, sharing meals, and going on a rainy-day trip to an aquarium that included my brother (we had coordinated our visits to Florida so that we could both spend some time with this side of the family, but he was staying somewhere else with his girlfriend), we talked about our childhood and the events that transpired after our parents’ divorce, and our memories around them.

I was only 5 years old when my parents split, and just 11 when my dad moved to New York City, to pursue his dream of becoming an actor have a midlife crisis the depths of hell because of his lover, like Oscar Wilde. This move was simply the catalyst that changed him from a Harvard-educated Navy veteran doctor to a destitute ex-con living in a shabby studio in a dull beige brick pre-war apartment tower.

My aunt and I filled in a lot of blanks for each other and corrected some of our memories. My aunt is 10 years younger than my dad so she was probably barely 20 years old when my parents split. Not only that, she would have only heard my dad’s side of the story.

For example, I thought that side of the family had cast us off after the divorce. My memory was that my grandmother had said, “Don’t ever ask anything from me again,” after my mother sent my brother and me to visit her one summer for a week. However, my aunt told me her mother would never say that and I realized that perhaps my mother had alienated us from that side of the family due to her own shame at having an affair. My aunt wondered if my dad had paid child support. I told her I doubted it because we were on welfare and got food stamps (when they were literally stamps as opposed to EBT cards, so everyone knew) and if we had received the child support we should have, we wouldn’t have qualified for benefits.

I’d had a lot of time to ruminate about our conversations as I made the hour-plus long trip to my son’s college town.

• I felt sad for the little girl who was shamed, criticized, and physically punished; who thought if only she were good, her parents would get back together.
• I felt scared for the insecure girl who never lived in one place for more than a year or two, often sharing dilapidated rentals we couldn’t afford with boarders.
• I felt ashamed for the little girl who was “white trash.”
• I felt sorry for the young lady who made bad relationship choices because she had no clue what a good relationship is.

Then I felt happy when I thought about how well adjusted and “normal” my own kids are. I had got sober (being an alcoholic is another legacy I inherited from both of my parents) long before any of them were born, thus had worked through a lot of my issues (so I thought…at least I learned the slogan, “fake it ’til you make it”). The last thing I wanted to do was perpetuate the same dysfunction I might have been if I were still drinking. (I’m almost convinced I’d never have had kids if I was still drinking. I’d probably be in jail somewhere or dead, no lie.) I have parented my kids the way I wish I had been parented (I still worry that even though they were brought up in a sober home, that “nature” might take its course, especially with my older two whose father is also an alcoholic).

I realized when watching Mr. Rogers that somehow I had missed a lot of his messages when I was a kid. By age 7, we had left our comfortable and secure two-parent home and moved to a big city and apparently, I was already a jaded and cynical person because I hated Mr. Rogers. He was just an annoying interruption between the two shows I really wanted to watch, The Electric Company and Zoom. I used to flip him off. My brother at the time, at age 4, would tell me, “Don’t do that, he can see you!” Mr. Rogers' messages about trust, feelings, constructive approaches to anger (or even that anger was okay) and his daily expression of care were lost on me.

I Googled and learned that there actually is such a thing as reparenting your inner child. It’s just about going back to the age when I was wronged and giving the response or fulfilling the needs that were required at that time.

My parents have been gone a long time. My dad passed away in 1992, and my mom in 2008. I have wanted to write about my childhood for a long time but always chicken out because I feel guilty speaking ill of the dead. But one of the things I learned in my reparenting research is that parents do the best they can. No doubt they also had wounded inner children.

I remember being at a spiritual retreat with my mom one time and in a circle of other women, one of the leaders asked, “What was something your parents told you as a child that made you feel ashamed?” My mom said, “I heard, ‘who do you think you are!?’ a lot.” I blurted out, “Oh my God, me, too!” And we all laughed at how I had just illustrated how the dysfunction can be passed on through the generations.

I have written in the past about parents doing the best they can. Today, thanks to my aunt and uncle’s validation, I know that while the parenting I received might have been the best my parents could do, it was nowhere near good enough. 

I was better off divorced

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the nurse said at my baby’s 18-month checkup. I put my hands over my going-on-3-year-old’s ears, a little too late.

I didn’t know what to say.

I had tried to hint at the change of circumstances. “We’re living at Grandma’s house. We just moved in. No, we won’t be going back to our other house. No, it is not being renovated. It’s just Daddy’s house now.”

I knew this was a necessary topic for discussion, but just how does one sum it all up in a politically correct elevator speech, suitable for all audiences?

It had taken me more than a year to arrive at the decision to leave my husband. During that year, I mourned the loss of my dreams. Occasionally I felt a ray of hope that things could be the way they used to be, that I wanted them to be, that my husband had told me they’d be. But those moments were fleeting.

My husband told me I was a bad Christian. After all, according to 1 Corinthians 1-7, “Love is patient, love is kind . . . it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs . . . It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” So how could I give up?

Well, I could no longer handle the fact that my husband couldn’t hold a job or stop drinking.

If I tried to talk to him about that, or any topic he didn’t want to discuss, I endured criticism, sarcasm, or name calling—or he’d “punish” me by giving me the cold shoulder.

He went to counseling reluctantly where he gaslighted me (psychologically manipulated, e.g., “You’re insane! That never happened!”), and the therapist believed him. My husband found ways to isolate me from my support group as well.

I couldn’t hide from the fact that I wrote the same things over and over and over in my journal for the better part of that year.

“I think I made a terrible mistake.”

“I’m so disappointed.”

“I can’t live like this.”

The day I knew I had to plan an exit strategy was one when my older son, then aged two-and-a-half, looked at me and said, “Mommy sad.”

I clearly wasn’t fooling anyone and I couldn’t deny it. To do so would set the stage for another generation of dysfunction. I was fed up with being bullied, belittled, shamed, and undermined. I didn’t want my kids to witness me being treated that way nor did I want them to experience it for themselves.

So, finally, I left.

When people told me, “You look great—did you so something different with your hair?” they were surprised to find out what it was that had changed. Because what person in her right mind would leave with two toddlers?

“I’m so sorry!” they said.

“Please, don’t be. I’m better off.”

But at the pediatrician’s office that day, a choked out “Thanks” was all I could manage for the nurse, and really all that was necessary. I just wanted to end the conversation and not predispose my sons to thinking there’s something bad about the situation.

Plenty of kids have parents in two households. “My boys are so young; how will they ever know any different?”

“Down the line, they might,” the nurse suggested and handed me a pamphlet about counseling.

Pangs of guilt washed over me anew, as they had during the previous year of indecision and from time to time since the separation, as I detoxed myself from my toxic marriage.

However, today we are more than a decade and a half “down the line” and while it has certainly not always been easy, it was the right decision.

I wasn’t a bad Christian. I chose to “love” my ex-husband from a distance, meaning that I remained cordial and neutral to him and would only engage with him on topics related to the children. Like I always told my kids, “You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you do have to be polite.”

I learned that gossip is the devil’s telephone as every smear campaign my ex-husband tried to launch backfired.

I learned that living well is the best revenge: I put my kids first in every decision I made, and it seemed like the hand of God was upon us, even through our darkest days.

The boys saw their dad fairly regularly until he moved out-of-state. The distance coupled by the fact that the boys had their own agendas kept them closer to home during their high school years.

Ultimately, I saw firsthand that kids handle a divorce just about as well as their parents. And like I said, I was better off divorced.

This story originally appeared on HerViewFromHome.com.

Falling-down drunk

The other day I went to a fundraiser for a person who has late-stage cancer. The guy is in his early 30's. I was feeling kind of stressed out about the fact that I had so many social obligations in one day (this was just one of several, and I didn't know anyone) until I thought about how fortunate I am to have my health and if you have that, what is there to complain about, really.

Anyway, my husband and I had a lot of raffle tickets so we were wandering around dropping them into the various baskets when we ran into another couple my husband knows. They were just the nicest people. The husband played golf with my husband a few weeks ago and I guess their history goes wayback. The wife was shitfaced.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

She was staggering, swaying, and overly exuberant (hugging me more than once even though we had only just met).

At one point during one of her animated and noisy stories, she stepped back and tripped over an easel that was displaying an enormous mirror, nudging it back half a foot and causing it to sway a little. I caught her arm and pulled her back towards our circle, as I exhaled the gasp that had caught in my throat. She was oblivious to the potential disaster. (There was another easel-mirror combo on the other side of the aisle that would have fallen in a domino effect if the first had bumped it.)

I've heard the saying, "God looks out for drunks, fools, and small children." He was definitely looking out for this woman that day.

We didn't stay too long at this event because we had another commitment, but I thought about the drunk woman for a while.

I have been that drunk woman -- the woman who is just a little too loud, a little too friendly, a little too sloppy. I envisioned several scenarios about how the night could go for her, based on my own experience.

1. She could maintain her happy buzz. Maybe she'd get something to eat to temper the alcohol. She'd pace herself so that she didn't cross the line into blackout territory. If she felt her buzz slipping away, she'd swill off her husband's drink, or maybe get another one (or two) of her own. Maintaining takes a lot of conscious energy but is the ideal scenario.

2. She could just keep drinking, fortunate to avoid any embarrassing disasters, but maybe go pass out somewhere for an hour or so. It would still be early when she woke up so she might begin round two for the night (or three for the day, as the case may be. It was Saturday.)

3. She could cause a scene. Maybe she fell or threw up or knocked something over. The band would stop playing and everyone would turn to look at her while she stumbled around picking up the pieces and trying to put everything back together again. The silence would be deafening and her face, neck, and ears would burn with shame. Maybe someone would come to help her, or lead her away from the mess she just created, while she slumped somewhere in a corner, sobbing tears of self-pity and remorse, lighting a cigarette and swilling another drink that one of her well-meaning friends brought her (or that she simply found on a table somewhere). She'd keep drinking until she either forgot what she did or convinced herself it wasn't that bad. Best case, someone else would create a bigger scene and she could deflect with a sense of schadenfreude, "Did you see what So-and-so did...?"

If she was lucky enough to live out scenario 1, she wouldn't feel too bad about herself the next day. She might have remorse about overeating, but will probably congratulate herself for staying in control.

If it was scenario 2, she'd have to work a little harder to convince herself that she had everything under control, but it's still possible since she doesn't remember doing anything to call attention to herself. Social drinkers don't get drunk, and they certainly don't get drunk more than once in a 24-hour period.

Scenario 3 would definitely require a morning drink. It would be the only way to dissipate the shame, guilt, and remorse and convince herself it wasn't that bad. She might call or text some of her well-meaning friends who would reassure her that it was not that bad; that yes, indeed, what So-and-so did was far worse. She'll fish around for details, discreetly, since she can't exactly remember the whole night. (She can't remember anything after 6:00 p.m. actually, and has no idea how many hours she lost because she doesn't have a clue what time she got home.) She'll be mixing cocktails and smoking cigarettes while she drinks and dials.

In any scenario, she'll be drinking again the next day.

As horrifying as it is to live like that, I actually said to my husband, "I would have liked to drink with her."

He's a social drinker, but his ex-wife crossed the line and brought everything from the dark side into their marriage (which is why it's over) so he might have more of a clue than many about what I mean.

However, unless you are an alcoholic or an addict yourself, you will never understand how you can simultaneously adore and be reviled by the demon spirits that rule your life; to be at their mercy, to resent being an utter slave to an addiction, yet at the same time feel complete joy when you've got a full bottle in hand.

My new friend, the drunk, told me she was a nurse. To me, this demonstrates the ability to uphold two opposing ideas in one's brain at the same time. Surely a health professional is well schooled on the dangers of alcohol abuse, yet somehow compartmentalizes that into a different part of the brain that she uses when justifying getting drunk. And yes, she's definitely a drunk. She was breathing, spitting, and exuding alcohol, no doubt completely saturated.

When I first started drinking as a young teen, I thought alcohol was the answer to all my problems. When I quit drinking in my late twenties, I knew alcohol was the root of all my problems. ALL OF THEM.

Getting sober was one of the biggest do-overs of my life.