I Wasn’t Doing Fine On My Own.

It isn’t easy to explain – even to a sober alcoholic – why Alcoholics Anonymous works, or how it helps keep people sober for a week, let alone a lifetime. So I didn’t understand it.

I’d gone to meetings – off and on, usually with Paul – for three years. Thanks to meetings, I knew the basics of the program: read, call sponsor, work steps, more meetings. Blah, blah, blah.

Meetings didn’t really help me, though I had no idea why. I thought AA was ineffective, when the problem was definitely me. I wasn’t going to AA to get better – to feel better, to think better, to be healthy and happy and have a future.

I was going to AA because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. So I did only the bare minimum in AA.

I knew I was supposed to read the AA Big Book which, to the best of my recollection, held about 200 pages of gibberish and a bunch of stories. I only read the stories.

I knew I was supposed to call my sponsor, but I’d stopped calling my sponsor after determining that I was smarter than she was. So really? I didn’t have a sponsor. I didn’t even know why I should have a sponsor, since she was just another AA person. And why did I have to call another AA person when I was doing fine on my own?

Except: I wasn’t doing fine on my own.

I knew I was supposed to work the steps, and I had done some of that. I had read about the steps in the “12 and 12” – AA’s book that detailed each of the steps and traditions, and why they mattered. I read them whenever I thought I needed to know something about them, and then I forgot whatever I read. So I guess I wasn’t really “working” the steps, whatever that meant. I just knew what they were. They had something to do with a Higher Power and I believed in God ever since the shooting star so I figured I knew what I was doing.

Except: I didn’t really know what I was doing. And after Paul and I broke up, I didn’t have a soul to talk to about that.

I thought having (almost) three years sober meant that I had my act together, I could teach other people with all the wisdom I’d acquired (from Paul) and I could stay sober all on my own (because I was still sober) and I could do whatever needed to be done for the rest of my life without any help (even though I desperately needed help) because I absolutely, positively had to stay sober no matter what happened, and that included breaking up with Paul.

Except: breaking up with Paul was the worst thing ever.

In AA, they talked about building a foundation. That foundation, they said, is important. It’s what sobriety is built upon.

I had no idea what that meant.

“Foundation” meant: I needed to meet people. Get to know them. Share with them. Tell them how I was feeling – really – and call them – often – so that when everything fell apart, I would know where to turn. I’d know what to do. I’d know who could, and would, help me get through things without picking up a drink.

I knew a few people from meetings, but I didn’t hang out with them. I didn’t talk to them outside of meetings. And I didn’t turn to them for help when I needed it.

My entire “foundation” of sobriety was Paul.

And Paul was gone.

I Felt Trapped, Confused, Absurdly Young.

After student teaching, which was a disaster that ended well, I got a job as a teaching assistant at a Head Start preschool. I played with the kids and tied their shoes and served their lunches while the lead teacher did all the teaching.

When that preschool lost its funding, we teachers lost our jobs. I landed at a daycare, where I fell in love with all the kids and tried hard to be helpful. When my “help” included mentioning to a parent that her four-year-old might have ADHD, I was fired. (In my defense, the parent asked what I thought.)

So in May of 1992, I was unemployed again. I stayed up all night playing solitaire on my new computer. As a side profession, I created resumes for sober friends and found out (the hard way) to never accept personal checks.

I was still with Paul, blaming myself for anything I did imperfectly in our relationship.

I met a guy named Gary who, unlike Paul, was willing to stay up all night and talk on the phone. Every night we discussed philosophy and books and deep, meaningful stuff until the wee hours of the morning.

Meanwhile in spite of my lack of employment, Paul and I started looking at engagement rings. Kitty had been dragged back and forth between apartments for long enough; we were talking about making it legal. While Gary and I discussed existentialism and the meaning of life, Paul and I discussed taxes and houses and shared retirement accounts.

At the jeweler I found rings I liked, and Paul found rings he liked. The last ring I’d worn was a giant steel skull ring, so I liked silver and non-traditional. Paul liked traditional gold.

I groaned as Paul held a stupidly large diamond with a very traditional setting. “You’d get used to it,” he told me, unflinching. Paul handed it back to the jeweler and we left, unable to agree on what I might actually want to wear on my hand for my life.

Appearances mattered most to Paul.

“What about wedding rings?” he asked later as we sat on his couch talking, as we’d done so often for almost three years.

“What about them?”

“Well you wouldn’t just be wearing an engagement ring,” he said. “We’d need to find matching wedding rings, too, and our wedding rings would need to match the engagement ring.”

“Can you wear a silver wedding ring?” I asked, still stumped about the process. He hadn’t yet proposed.

Paul grunted. “It wouldn’t be my first choice.”

I stared at the wall. Paul sat silently.

“Are you ready for a wedding?” he asked. “Do you think you’re ready to be married?”

I thought about my job, my minimal sobriety, my general immaturity. I thought about Gary and our late night phone calls, about playing video games all night, about summers off as a teacher, about vacations and unemployment and commitments.

I felt trapped, confused, absurdly young, like a princess randomly tossing aside a crown.

“Actually,” I ventured, “I don’t think I’m ready for marriage yet.”

The statement just popped out and landed in front of me with a thud.

Paul didn’t miss a beat. “I think that’s the only time you’ve been honest about that,” he said.

We sat in silence for a long time.

Finally Paul said, “I don’t know what we’re doing then.”

I thought I would marry him at some later date, when I was more prepared.

But I said, “Do you think we should break up?” I couldn’t make that momentous decision alone.

“I guess so,” he said.

Are You Ready For This?

Paul and I went on vacations together. We went to visit the new AMA Motorcycle Museum in Ohio where we watched the world’s dullest light show and laughed about its seriousness. We went to a cabin in the woods and watched deer in the snow from the kitchen window as we sipped hot cocoa. We went on long, woodsy hikes and tiptoed through waterfalls, splashing and giggling.

We went to Ocean City, Maryland, and strolled the boardwalk. The wind was wild there and we couldn’t swim, having arrived right after Hurricane Bob visited. The waves were so high, lifeguards warned us away from the water.

In the afternoon, Paul and I argued about something, no idea what. I stomped down the boardwalk, the wind painfully whipping my hair into my face. I was so frustrated by the gales that I stormed into a random stylist and said, “Just cut it all off!”

For the first time since infancy, my long red hair vanished. It barely covered the nape of my neck. I hated it instantly; I wanted to cry. I felt cold, bare, ugly. I didn’t have enough self-esteem to pull off this boyish style.

I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and walked into our hotel room.

Paul gawked.

I blurted: “The wind was awful so I chopped it off.”

He spoke cautiously. “Can I be honest?”

“Sure.”

“This is the first time I can honestly say that I like your haircut.”

The first time???

“I hate it,” I said.

“I love it,” he said. “You should keep it short.”

Paul maybe didn’t care about what I wanted or how I felt. But I kept my hair short – having no choice to make it grow faster – and when my sister got married in October, I still had that awful short hair.

Paul and I were in my sister’s wedding. Before we walked together to our places supporting the bride and groom Paul asked me, “Are you ready for this?”

It was my sister’s wedding, our presence a mere formality. Yet Paul was concerned about how we would appear on our 10-yard walk down the aisle.

Paul was always extremely concerned about appearances, as though anyone cared.

Paul once said I was the least pretentious person he’d ever known. I had to look up the word “pretentious.”

I still have no idea if this was a compliment coming from Paul.

For example, I missed my black leather jacket, which I’d tossed after getting sober. I told Paul about how cool I’d felt, how strong, in that jacket.

So when, for Christmas, Paul bought me a brand new leather jacket, I was conflicted. It was soft, supple leather … but it was brown, with a bright red lining inside – expensive, and probably Paul loved that jacket. But after two years with me, I thought Paul should have known I preferred black leather.

I wore the brown jacket anyway. My hair was short because Paul liked it that way. I didn’t realize I was sacrificing my own identity because I cared more about Paul’s opinion of me than I cared about finding my own identity.

I was still waiting for Paul to propose marriage.

Instead he said, “Don’t you think it would be better to wait until you’re 60 to get married? Then you could do whatever you want for your whole life, and still have someone to take care of you when you’re old!”

I laughed; I thought he was kidding.

At almost 60, Paul married a woman 23 years his junior – his first marriage.

(Paul didn’t marry me.)

I Needed to Sing in Nashville.

During summer of 1991, before I started my student teaching, I decided to follow my dreams. I’d always wanted to be a rock star. The fact that I had virtually no talent and could barely play the guitar didn’t matter to me. I dreamed about becoming famous. I wrote a million songs – two or three that didn’t suck. I wanted to sing.

In the days before the internet, only one thing was required for me and my brilliant songs to be discovered. I needed to sing in Nashville, Tennessee.

So I packed my purple duffel and my guitar and bought a bus ticket to follow my dream. Paul was too busy to follow my dream with me. So I hopped on that bus alone.

The trip was excruciatingly long; I slept most of the way with my guitar between my legs so it wouldn’t be stolen. I awoke long enough to think, Wow, Fort Knox! Then I went back to sleep. Eventually the bus dropped me in Nashville.

At the bus station.

With my guitar.

Imagine how many stupid youngsters arrive at the bus station in Nashville carrying a guitar.

I expected a neon welcome sign pointing me toward the nearest talent agent, but everything was dark and dingy. I had no idea what to do next. I hopped in a cab and rode to Music Row, where I wandered through gift shops and bought myself a Randy Travis magnet.

I found a hotel with a shuttle to the Grand Ole Opry. I hopped onto a bus full of blue-haired ladies; everyone gawked. This was not the hotel shuttle, so I took another cab.

I was the youngest person in the audience by five decades.

The next evening I scoured a flyer: “Open Mic Nights!” I grabbed my guitar and caught another cab to a little strip mall nowhere near Music Row.

I may as well have been buying pizza instead of planning to sing.

I sat at one of the plastic checked-clothed tables and plopped my guitar by my feet. I was so scared, I could barely move.

I hadn’t publicly sung sober since middle school chorus.

I waited hours. I heard lots of people singing before a man got up and said, “Okay! That’s the end of Open Mic Night unless there’s anyone else who wants to sing!”

Confused and without thinking, I leapt up, grabbed my guitar still in its case, and jerked toward the stage. The guy watched me walking forward, smiling.

“I want to sing,” I choked.

“Okay!” he boomed. “What’s your name?”

“Kirsten,” I said.

“Give it up for KRIS-tin!” he said as I strapped on my guitar.

Everyone else played two songs, so I played two songs that hopefully didn’t suck. My guitar was out of tune from traveling and I played so fast, my shaking voice could barely keep up with my over-zealous strumming. In four minutes, I was done.

There was a smattering of applause from the few people who were still there after Open Mic Night. I half-smiled as I packed up my guitar and headed back to my seat where – I realized – there was no longer any reason to sit down.

I took a sip of my Diet Coke, left some cash on the table, and walked outside to wait for my cab. Then I rode back to my hotel and slept until morning.

When I got up, I took a cab back to the bus station and went home.

I can tell people: “I sang in Nashville.” Because it’s true.

Somehow I did not become famous.

Alcoholism is Just an Excuse.

Paul and I studied together. He was working toward getting his MBA anyway, so I felt right at home sitting quietly in his living room, working on homework. On weekends we’d get takeout chicken salads from the Village Inn and chat about the ways of the world as we munched on our lettuce.

I felt really grown-up and sophisticated with those chicken salads, but I needed to pay for school, for rent, for food.

So I got a job working for the garage-sized video store near Paul’s house, where we rented movies. I just walked in and asked for a job, and the very, very, very old guy behind the counter said, “Sure. You can start tomorrow.” And that’s when I discovered all the movies that I hadn’t seen – which was, pretty much, all the movies other than the handful I’d seen in high school.

I spent a great deal of time devouring videos during my early sobriety. But I also learned a valuable lesson, again, about how my idealism conflicts with real people.

One day I said to my boss, “I don’t drink anymore.” I giggled. “I’m an alcoholic!” I giggled again.

“You’re not an alcoholic,” he said.

“I am!” I said. “I even went to rehab! I’ve been sober for more than a year!”

“I don’t believe that,” he said. “Alcoholism is just an excuse for people who don’t want to quit drinking alcohol. They’re just weak. Anybody can quit drinking alcohol. It’s just willpower.”

My eyes grew wide as I stared. “I couldn’t do it,” I whispered.

He ignored me. Or maybe he couldn’t hear me. He was, after all, ancient. “It’s like cigarettes,” he continued. “I quit smoking cigarettes one day and never smoked again. People say it’s so hard to quit, but I quit! You just have to know what you want out of your life and make it happen.”

“I don’t think it’s willpower,” I said, fighting back tears. “I really tried to quit smoking, too, and I couldn’t do it.”

“You can do it,” he said. “Anybody can. And that’s that. There isn’t anything else to say about it.” And he walked into the storeroom, effectively ending the conversation.

I got a second job shortly after that and eventually, when I’d seen all the free VHS rentals I thought were essential, I got a job working two 12-hour shifts at Montefiore Hospital, walking distance from the hospital lab where Paul worked – although he worked weekdays, and I worked on Saturdays and Sundays.

My new coworker was not only young, but self-confident and friendly. She was happy and self-assured without being arrogant. I’d never seen anything like it.

I thought everyone was a mess, like me.

“How did you get to be so … happy?” I asked her, genuinely curious. “Didn’t your parents mess you up?”

She laughed. “My parents are great,” she said. “And I think I was just born this way!”

She blew my mind. I learned from her how to be a friendly person, though I was definitely not born that way. It was very much a learned effort to treat my coworkers and the hospital patients with respect and care.

But I did learn. I learned from both jobs that (1) I was kind of weird in how I thought about the world, and (2) I could get better at dealing with people if I really tried.

Still, I preferred holing up in Paul’s living room and talking to nobody other than Paul. I felt validated, simply because someone so smart and wonderful liked someone as lost and discombobulated as me.

I Stood Among Them.

At Chatham College, I stood in a long line to register for my classes. I studied my course catalog and thought about my choices, but my classes had rather been chosen for me. Still, I was happy to be there, doing something I really wanted to do for my future.

Chatham had long been a college for women (although I later discovered one man in my program) so in line with me were other young, eager women, all giggly and chatty.

Sober for the first time ever in a collegiate environment, I stood among them.

I felt extremely uncomfortable: socially awkward, quiet, weird, completely abnormal among normals. I couldn’t take a comfortable breath. Without knowing a soul, I believed that every woman on the entire campus was more beautiful, more intriguing, funnier, smarter, more social and more interesting than I would ever be.

I knew all of my flaws and none of theirs. I compared my insides to their outsides. I’d done this since the beginning of time and found it to be the only way to guarantee my appropriate place at the bottom of the social ladder.

I had learned nothing about friendship since getting sober. I spent most of my time with Paul, and the only woman I really knew was my exceptionally fun neighbor, Louise who – I believed – only liked me because I lived next door.

My interests were stereotypically un-female: I liked dogs instead of dolls, cars instead of fashion, baseball instead of dance, blue instead of pink.

But standing there at Chatham I realized, quite suddenly: This is my chance to be accepted by women!

I looked around, excited, and pondered how to proceed. I wasn’t sure how to get comfortable, but I knew from Mount Union that I would need to find some female friends.

So when the woman in front of me started talking to everyone within listening distance about her experiences at cosmetology school, I perked up.

“I went to cosmetology school for two years!” she said to all who surrounded her. “If you ever need any advice about hair or nails, I’m your girl!”

This must be how she gets accepted, I thought. Girls like cosmetology stuff.

One girl stepped unapologetically from the crowd. “What can I do with my nails?” she cried. “The red paint is always chipping on these two fingers!”

The cosmetology student stepped toward her, took her hand, considered the problem. “Oh! You should use gel polish!” she advised.

“Thanks!” The girl nodded and stepped back.

I didn’t paint my nails, and barely knew they existed. But I realized: I am a girl! I can be part of this!

I really wanted a friend, any friend. I stepped boldly forward and held out my hands. “What can I do?” I asked meekly.

The cosmetology expert held my hand, considered it, then let go abruptly, as though I were a leper. “You have fan-shaped nails,” she said. “There’s nothing anyone can do with those!”

Then she turned her back on me and moved toward the next set of fingernails.

My eyes welled with tears. I didn’t care about my fan-shaped nails, but I was suddenly on the outside of the circle, again, all eyes turned toward other nails on other hands.

Somehow, even though I’d given it my best effort, I’d been rejected by women again.

Right then and there, I gave up on making friends and decided I’d just focus on my classes, which is exactly what I did. Other than the one male in my program (whose name, I still remember, was Robert), I never even got to know the other students’ names.

I Wanted To Be a Teacher.

With Paul working just down the street in a hospital laboratory, I stayed committed to my secretarial job at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I stepped up whenever I could do something more than answer phones and type letters, and I felt good about my contribution.

So when the Education Department needed someone to teach a class about bears to preschoolers on a Saturday morning, I jumped at the chance. My hangover days were behind me, and I was actually excited to get up on a weekend and go into work to teach “Teddy Bears and Me” to three- and four-year-olds.

Children brought their favorite teddy bears, and I showed them pictures of different bears. We played games, we danced, and we had a grand finale parade of teddy bears roaring through the classroom.

I don’t know if the preschoolers enjoyed the class, but I had the time of my life. While I was exhausted after an hour of corralling small children, I felt productive. I felt happy – joyous even – after doing work on a weekend.

And I believed, for the first time in my life, that I’d found my calling. I’d never had more fun doing a job, or felt better about myself after doing a job, than I did after teaching those preschoolers about bears.

I wanted to be a teacher.

I was allowed to teach two more classes at The Carnegie before I made up my mind for sure.

Then, in September of 1990, I quit my truly wonderful job at The Carnegie. With the support of my boss and colleagues, who gave me a fond farewell, I enrolled into Chatham College’s 18-month post-graduate program. If I completed the program, I would have a Pennsylvania teaching certification in early childhood education.

I could hardly wait. I’d spent my entire childhood “teaching” my sisters through Fisher Price toys. I remember making worksheets and educational games for my (poor) sisters to complete when they were in my “class.”

There was nothing more fun for me than teaching. I just hadn’t realized it for the previous ten years.

I remembered standing on a beach in my biker boots and skull rings, soaking in the sun. A little girl, just rollicking in the sand, looked at me – and I smiled. Then she ran, terrified and crying, back to her family. She saw only the drunkard, hardened by alcohol and self-induced trauma.

For a moment, I’d been in touch with my own soul – but when she ran, I vanished as well.

After years of being a drunk and swearing that I didn’t want anything to do with children, I had a year sober – and I’d become myself again. I’d turned my life around to such a degree that not only did I love children the way I had when I was younger, I wanted to spend my entire life with them.

The Chatham College program was going to cost me some money and time, but it would be worth it. I’d take tons of education classes, and I’d be student teaching in only a year.

My parents supported me. Paul supported me. Even The Carnegie supported me, though I’d gone to rehab after six months, then left the job entirely after less than two years.

I still think of that job as the one that saved my life.

We Had a Holiday Party.

Missing Bonnie’s wedding was a necessary step. And by Christmas, sobriety had buoyed me. The Carnegie had been not only supportive, but incredibly fun. The longer I stayed, the more my colleagues liked me. And the more they liked me, the more I liked them.

We had a holiday party that inspired me to write an article for the AA Grapevine back in 1990 – which was published in the magazine, back when magazines were still published. It was an exciting moment for me.

The story described just how completely and utterly addicted I still was – in spite of my clean time. It is reprinted here, in its entirety and complete with typos, below.

**************************************

A Deadly Disguise

by Kristen M. – Swissvale, Pennsylvania

the holiday cookies looked so innocent

I’ve been a secretary with the same company for almost a year, which is an amazing feat for me. As a drunk, I was only able to keep jobs for two or three weeks at a time. I consider myself fortunate to still have this one, since I’ve been sober only about 100 days.

With this job came my first attempts to socialize without alcohol. Being painfully shy, I departed from most office gatherings within ten minutes. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of: “accidentally” having a beer with my co-workers or keeping a conversation going. Christmas season brought party after party, complete with plenty of bottled holiday cheer. I skipped most of the get-togethers, but I didn’t want to be excluded completely. I made my appearance, ducked away from the booze, and swelled with pride as I scurried out the door.

During work one day, someone brought Christmas cookies – a wide variety of them. I grabbed several and popped a round, chocolate one into my mouth. “This is great,” I thought as I bit deeply into it. The taste was sweet, sour, wicked, and fantastic.

Rum. Not a murmur of rum, but a good deal (proportionately), enough to make the bit burn down my throat. I winced momentarily, recognizing with horror the oh-so-familiar taste. Then I raced back to the cookie plate and, like a squirrel storing nuts, picked out all the round, chocolate ones I could find. I ate every single rum ball.

I thought I felt rum swimming in my brain. I certainly wanted to feel some effect; why else would I eat all of them? Maybe what I felt was a psychological high. Whatever kind of high it was, it wasn’t high enough.

For a long while I wondered if I should change my sobriety date. I considered “lunching” at the bar across the street. If I was going to change my sobriety date, I wanted to do it right. How would this sound in my lead: “After three-and-a-half months of sobriety, I ate a handful of rum balls – and that was my last drunk.” How embarrassing.

I shouldn’t have eaten the first one, but it was an accident. I’d never seen a rum ball before; I didn’t recognize its hidden power. Once I tasted alcohol, the thoughts that flew through my head: Stay away from that plate; get them before anyone else does; get out of the room; have one more. But one more was not enough.

Maybe this is what Alcoholics Anonymous means by “powerless:” the complete and total inability to control oneself when alcohol is nearby, even minuscule portions of alcohol. To think: I avoided all those office parties where alcohol was served, then I tried to get drunk on cookies.

If that isn’t powerlessness, I don’t know what is.

I Just Can’t.

Other than marrying Paul and having his babies, my only goal in sobriety was to self-advocate. I did not want to be a meek little mousy thing, like I’d been before I started drinking. I didn’t want to be bullied in adulthood. I wanted to stand up for myself, to be myself, and to not care what anyone thought of me.

Unfortunately as soon as alcohol was removed from the equation, I morphed back into the quiet, wanna-do-good little girl I’d been in 1978. As such, it took a lot of practice for me to learn to stand up for myself, to figure out what I wanted without being all wishy-washy during decision-making times, and to say no when I needed to do that.

Most important on my list of things to do right: stay away from triggering people, places and things.

But when the Grateful Dead returned to town in July, with Crosby, Stills & Nash opening, I couldn’t miss it.

And I couldn’t take Gregg or Kurt or Bonnie, or any of the people with whom I’d gotten wasted. Paul said he didn’t have any interest in being “part of that scene.” So I camped out alone for tickets, put on my old hippie hat, and took my sister, Tracy, to the arena.

The place was packed with dancing young adults in baja hoodies and flowing skirts, every single one of them high as kites. And I was stone cold sober, trembling, walking among them, trying not to notice.

We got to our seats, sat through a really great set by CS&N, and then I begged Tracy to leave.

“Please?”

“Okay,” she said, and we walked out. She didn’t have to be asked twice. I never even attempted to see the Grateful Dead again.

So a few months later, when Bonnie called me from North Carolina, I faced a major dilemma. I’d never spent one sober minute with Bonnie, unless you count mornings at college before we ingested our first beers.

And Bonnie was getting married.

She was marrying an Australian who needed a green card. “You have to come to my wedding!” she whined. If I ever wanted to see her again, this was the time. Plus I loved North Carolina. But ….

I remembered Marti’s wedding – which I had survived sober before my rehab days, only to come home and get drunk for another six months. I remembered my cousin’s wedding, where I’d drunk from all the abandoned glasses while everyone else danced. I remembered the last time I’d seen Bonnie, doing LSD at a Grateful Dead concert.

And I remembered how I felt being sober at the Dead concert with my sister.

“I can’t,” I said, almost in tears. “I know I would drink and I can’t drink.”

“You don’t have to drink!” Bonnie said.

“I just can’t.”

Another day, I called Bonnie to see if she had any interest in trying Alcoholics Anonymous. “It’s all about a higher power,” she yelled loudly through the phone, directly into my ear. “And there is no power greater than me! I am the highest power!”

Of course Bonnie was drunk.

This made me glad I hadn’t gone to her wedding; I’m not sure I would have survived. Bonnie got divorced – twice – anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter that I missed the celebration. I wasn’t invited to the second.

Like most other friends, Bonnie drifted away.

Meanwhile I learned how to talk, eat, shop, play games, read, watch movies, drive, work, socialize, dance, party and live, all without the influence of alcohol.

It was hard.

But I had Paul.

“They Call This Stoopin’.”

Paul introduced me to Louise, who immediately became my favorite person on the planet. Louise was the life of the party wherever she went, using brilliantly sarcastic wit to leave friends, colleagues and even strangers in hysterics.

When I met her, Louise was telling stories, drinking iced tea, and laughing like I hadn’t laughed in years. I admired her right away, and I envied the ability of the people around her to laugh.

Sober laughter took me a long time to learn, but that changed as I got to know Louise.

Louise lived in Oakmont, a Pittsburgh suburb further north than I’d lived before. Oakmont was a darling little community with local stores and restaurants that stayed afloat whether the steel mills closed or not. It was so adorable, it was practically fictional.

When I was younger, my parents used to drive through the brick streets of Oakmont, me admiring the little stores and movie theater as we rumbled past over bricks. I’d think: This is what a town should be. And then we’d be past it, and I’d forget about it until our next trip through.

Louise lived in a duplex – and the other half of her house was vacant. After being attacked, I rented it quickly, in spite of my fear of living next to a female (who might not like me!) Then I spent years at that residence enjoying the company of my next door neighbor and, eventually, my dearest friend.

On most nights, Louise and I would sit outside and smoke cigarettes. We both had cats, and we’d watch them chase critters (and once, birds chasing my cat) along the street. Louise would tell me stories from her shift working as a prison guard, and I’d share my museum day. We’d be visited from passers by, delivery drivers, kids down the block.

“Where I’m from,” Louise said as we whiled away the hours on our shared porch, “they call this stoopin’.”

I don’t know what we talked about, night after night, hour after hour, but I became closer to Louise than any other person in my life. Louise was a better friend to me than any I’d ever had. She not only shared her time with me and allowed me to simply sit and enjoy her company, but she helped me learn how to live life on life’s terms.

For example, when I tried to make a joke and nobody understood it, Louise told me, “It’s not always your fault when people are rude. Sometimes people are just rude.” I’d been blaming myself for other people’s cruelties for my entire life; I’d always blamed myself.

Louise also taught me how to take care of my house. For example: “Baskets,” she said one night. “Ya gotta have baskets.” Then she took me into her house and showed me all the baskets she used to stay organized in her own home, in a stylish, trendy way. I’ve been using organizational baskets for 30 years.

Louise was a single mom to a gorgeous, blossoming teenager, and Louise always put her daughter’s needs above her own – and everyone else’s. Louise showed me how strength guides parenting.

Louise was a fiercely loyal friend, and taught me to be one, too. Louise became my role model for how to live life. She stood up for herself (“Nobody else’ll do it for you!”) and laughed at life from every angle. She was her own person; nobody else was like Louise. She taught me that I could be myself, too.

And somehow Louise loved me enough that I started learning how to love myself.