I STARTED GOING to a meeting in my neighborhood every morning at 7:30. That was a dicey hour for the girl who struggled to get to work at 10 am, but it was a good alternative to hiding in the closet. I liked the location of that meeting, which was a big airy room inside a pretty church, with a chandelier and a door in back that opened onto a leafy courtyard. I got there at exactly 7:30 am to avoid itchy small talk. Otherwise, people would descend on me in the coffee room, and they would say things like, “How are you doing today?” and it was like: Jesus, stop prying.
The meetings weren’t bad. I liked listening to stories about people’s last gasps. Overdoses, alcohol poisoning, swerving down roads in a blackout. There were riveting narratives, but it was also astonishing what the human body could endure. And I couldn’t believe how articulate people were. As I listened to them share some epic tragedy or riff on some philosophical point, I wondered: Where is this speech coming from? Are they reading from a teleprompter?
I struggled to string words together. I always assumed people who quit drinking snap into shape. But often they fall apart, which was certainly what happened to me. I was experiencing classic signs of withdrawal. The hammering heart, the slow response time, the sensation of moving underwater. But I didn’t understand it at the time. I just knew I felt sluggish and stupid. I wanted to be strong and forceful again.
On the 15-minute walk to the church each morning, I started scripting out what I was going to say in the meeting. I wanted people to know I was intelligent and well spoken like they were; I didn’t want to remain silent and unknowable. I buffed and polished my revelations, rehearsing them in my mind: I used to think drinking made me more interesting, but then I realized it made other people more interesting. I liked to insert a twist when I shared, a surprise ending of sorts. Personal essays work on this principle of inverted expectations. A writer friend described the arc like this: Let me tell you why it’s all their fault. Now let me tell you why it’s really mine.
I took my seat in that pretty room, and I spent the first 30 minutes practicing my script and the second 30 minutes scouring the room for my next boyfriend. You’re not supposed to do this, but I did it anyway. Fuck you, I was there at 7:30 am, and I could do whatever I wanted. I had been single for nearly three years—the better part of a presidential term. I’d never been around so many lonely, haunted men in broad daylight. Any halfway decent one was a candidate for my future spouse. I listened to the guys share their inner turmoil, and I leaned toward them in my seat, already coming to terms with their deficiencies. I could date a bald man. Forty-five isn’t that old. But then he would gesture to show the glint of a wedding ring or mention the girlfriend back home, and I’d sink back into my chair, defeated.
One morning, a guy I’d never seen before showed up to tell his story. He was thin and lanky, with a five o’clock shadow, a leather jacket, and boots. He had acne scars on his face, like the bad guy in Grease, but he had the eloquence of a natural-born speaker. What struck me were not the details of his story but how he told it. He inhabited his own body. He never raised his voice, but he pulled me toward him with each word dropped into a room of anticipation. I stopped looking at the clock. The chaos in my brain was replaced by a tight spotlight containing nothing but him.
On the subway ride to work, I could not let go of that guy. I wondered how he felt about living on a farm in upstate New York. We could commute into the city during the week, spend weekends reading books in bed to each other with nothing in the background but the chirping outside. We should probably date first. There was a new upscale comfort food place I’d been meaning to try.
I realized I was moving fast, but I also knew—I knew—that I was destined to find a boyfriend in those rooms, and I was not saying it had to be this guy, but there were several qualities to recommend him. He was sober, for one thing. He did not have a wedding ring, for another. I could love a man with scars on his face. I would not be embarrassed by his leather jacket and his boots. And he probably didn’t even realize how verbally gifted he was. I had so much to teach him.
I promised myself I would talk to him should he ever come back. Really enjoyed your story. Wanted to chat with you more about that thing. A week later, he did come back. Like we were in a romantic comedy, he came back! And my heart did a triple lutz to find him across from me. The meeting that morning was a round-robin discussion, and he was at four o’clock and I was at 7, and when it was his turn, he offered the same effortless poetry I’d heard earlier. Except this time he talked about his boyfriend.
Wait: His boyfriend? He was gay? The focus on the lens sharpened, and I could see it clearly now. Of course he was gay. Everyone could see that, except the chubby little lonely heart sitting at seven o’clock, drawing sparkly rainbows on the page with her glitter crayon. I was still beating myself up when the round-robin arrived to me, and I sputtered along trying to assemble some phony epiphany with strong verbs, but tears dripped down my face.