I'm a party pooper.  I'm a downer.  I'm no fun.  I ruin other people's good times.  (Because I totally have control over other people's good times, you know.)

You see, yesterday Mark and I had plans to take the kids to a pumpkin patch.  We were going to let them run around and jump off hay bales and find pumpkins and navigate a kiddie corn maze.  But I woke up a few hours into my night's sleep when one wet child tried to climb in bed with me and an hour later when another child sniffling from the tail end of a cold woke up early and was ready to start the day.  And, as people who don't get enough sleep will be, I was cranky.  Bite your head off cranky.  Stab you in the eyeballs with a fork cranky.  Blast your eardrums straight out the top of your skull with my screams cranky.  That is, if I could open my bleary eyes long enough to find you.

I decided that I needed to go back to bed.  And that was a good decision.  But there was that whole pumpkin patch thing.  Now, the kids didn't know we were planning it, because I'm no fool or at least not so much of one as I used to be.  I know that my kids get so hyped up about exciting events that they can't sleep.  (Not that they slept anyway on this occasion.)  And then they become sorely disappointed (read: wail all day as if the world has ended) if someone gets sick or it rains or the car blows a tire and we can't go.  So I rarely tell them what we're up to until we're up to it.

I knew that they were none the wiser, but it still triggered that whole party pooper speech in my head.  That whole "I should work harder and do better" speech.  That whole "Why is it that everyone else in the world seems to be able to juggle jobs and sleep and housecleaning and taking their kids out to one freaking pumpkin patch once a year and I can't?!" speech.

I knew those speeches were coming from a place of exhaustion, but they were still pretty persuasive.  (You do have a point there, crazy voice in my head, I can be pretty sucky.)  But I went off to bed anyway.  And hours later, when I woke up, all the crazy talk was gone.  I took my son out to a park while my daughter went to a friend's house to play and Mark took a nap of his own, and suddenly I felt like the most together Mama ever.  Amazing what a little sleep will do to turn the party pooper into the life of of her own party.

"Worry Brain, your mama's so ugly, she makes onions cry!" I found myself saying after I got off the phone with my husband.  I had to hang up the phone because I'd burst into tears, and now I was trying to beat back the anxiety that was consuming me.  I'd read a book on helping children cope with anxiety that suggested we learn to mock the part of our brain that produces those irrational, anxious thoughts.  As a feminist, sometimes I worry that I shouldn't use ugly mama jokes on it, but then I remind myself that's probably just my Worry Brain trying to get out of having its mama called ugly.

The company Mark works for is on shaky ground.  There have been layoffs and the people he knows that have been let go have had a hard time finding new jobs.  But I wasn't worried about that.  I was worried because he had a job interview.  For a really good job.  That pays a lot more than what he makes currently.  Working in an industry he's really interested in.  And the interview went well.  Crazy to be worried about that?  The job is (gasp!) in another state.  We'd have to move.  And the thought of that level of change grips me with anxiety.

I started whirring right into a panicked overdrive, "Fine.  I'll just tell him he can go, but I'm staying here with the kids.  I can't believe he'd pick a job over us!  And if we're not there, he'll probably just go on an incredible acting out spree.  He'll pretend he's not married and have sex all over some new town.  But I can't move, can I?  It took a year for Austen to be able to sleep through the night the last time we moved, and we stayed in the same area.  We'd have to find new 12 Step meetings and new doctors and new friends and a whole new set of resources for Austen.  And for crying out loud, we are a mixed race family and I look like a crazy bohemian.  We can't just move anywhere.  People will burn crosses on our lawn and the neighbors will tear the Darwin fish off my car and kill us.  We're safe here.  Everything is familiar here.  Everything is under control here."

That's when I brought out the big guns and called my Worry Brain's mama ugly.  (I mean she had to be ugly.  She was a big slimy brain, right?)  Mark still has a job.  He hasn't lost his job.  He hasn't been offered a new job.  Even if he were offered the job, we'd have time to discuss it and decide what's right for our family.  No need to try to soothe my anxiety by jumping on the computer and spend the next two hours doing Internet research on school districts a thousand miles away (although I was sorely tempted to), not when I can use my prodigious recovery skills to stay in the moment and tell myself ugly mama jokes instead.

I woke up this morning, muscles clenched like a fist and throat tight with anxiety, wanting to grab my son and never let him go. I crept to where he was sleeping and ran my fingers through his curls, reassuring myself he was there and safe. He'd actually been better than usual in this morning's version of my recurring nightmare; at least in this dream, I'd found him in the end.

I've had some variation on this nightmare — in which I lose one or both of my children — countless times. In a nightmare theme a few weeks ago, I'd happily, if absent-mindedly, voiced my assent to my 6-year-old daughter's trip to the mall with a friend of hers on Christmas day. Dream-hours later, when she wasn't home yet, I realized I didn't know the friend's name, address or phone number and there were no stores open on Christmas. She was gone, taken, and it was my fault.

Last night, my husband was the bad guy for a change instead of the usual villain: me. In my dream, he'd planned to go out to run some errands alone, but Austen begged to come, so the two of them went off together, but only Mark returned home, having forgotten he'd brought Austen with him. We rushed back to find him, with my dream mind running through the very real-life possibilities that Austen would not be able to communicate his needs and get help. We found Austen and he burst into tears mingled with a steady stream of anxious, repetitive shouts and questions with no answers, very much like what I'd expect of the real Austen under stress. Then the chime of my alarm woke me, still tight and panicky, and truly wanting to punch my husband, who was sleeping innocently beside me, totally unaware of what he'd been doing in my dream.

I realized, as time passed and I calmed down, that on top of the fear that I will lose my children, the sheer panic that they could be hurt or lost or worse — a fear any parent understands — there extends through all of these nightmares a different kind of fear. In each dream, at some point, I always think, "Oh, no. I'm not going to be able to find this child by myself. I have to ask someone — the store clerk, a police officer, a neighbor — for help. But if I tell them I lost my child, they are not going to want to help me. They are going to blame and judge me. They are going to tell me I didn't work hard enough and do well enough. They are going to tell me that it's my fault. And even if we find my child, they are going to think that my husband and I are such bad parents that they take our children away forever anyway." It's not just the realization that my child is missing that causes the nightmares to be so traumatic, it's the realization that my child is missing, that I might be blamed and that the problem is so big, I can't fix it by myself.

And I recognize that isolation and loneliness, that self—blame and guilt. I recognize those fears: The fear of asking for help. The fear that mistakes or weaknesses or imperfections will cause me to lose everything I love. The fear that I'm not working hard enough. The fear of judgment and of blame, and not just in and of themselves, but as agents of loss. I recognize in all of these the deep roots of addiction and codependency still present in my mind, gripping me when I sleep.

A few months after I first met Mark in college, we ran into each other in a campus dining hall. As we chatted, he admired my high school class ring. I held my hand out to let him see it more closely, and peering down at the ring, he said, "Would you mind taking it off?" So, I took off my ring and handed it to him, expecting that he wanted to look at it more closely still. To my utter astonishment, he simply said "thank you," pocketed the ring and walked away. I stood there in the lobby, open-mouthed and paralyzed with wonder, like a newly carved statue. Had this man just stolen my ring? Was this a joke? Had he taken it to show it to someone else? Was he intending to come back? What did he mean by it? What kind of person does something so odd and unexpected? And what on earth do I do now?

Fortunately, Mark's roommate, who had witnessed the interaction, approached me. "Come on," he said wearily, as if this sort of thing happened all the time, "Let's go get your ring back." He led me, mute and meek, through the building until we finally found Mark in a game room, playing pool. "Mark," said his roommate, extending a palm, "the ring..." Mark smiled at me, looking both sly and awkward, as he handed over the ring, and I knew then that it had been a joke and that he was disappointed that I didn't (or didn't know how to) play along.

Eventually, I got used to Mark's odd tricks, spontaneous decisions, sudden new interests and chance conversations. He'd point over my shoulder and say brightly "Look over there!" while deftly swiping whatever was in front of me and seeing how long it took me to notice. We'd walk down the street, discussing what flavor we thought of when someone said "milkshake," and when we differed, he'd stop the next five random passersby to ask what they thought, as if he were Jay Leno and I were his camera. He'd decide he'd want to learn Russian or juggling or how to play the recorder. He'd strike up a conversation with a strange couple at the next table in a restaurant and leave with their phone numbers. I'd say I was thirsty, and he'd run out of the dormitory, returning with a plastic champagne glass from the cafeteria filled with soda and a flower from the nearest accessible blooming plant.

And I greeted it all with a mix of delighted awe and nagging discomfort. I loved that he did these crazy things that I was too scared, too shy, too bound by rules, too afraid of failure to do myself, and as I grew used to him, little by little, I started to feel more comfortable with spontaneity and novelty both in him and in myself, which I thought was a good thing. Yet I'd often find myself appalled and apologetic. "Yes, I'm sorry he took your coffee cup. It was a joke. He does those things," and like Mark's roommate had, I learned to take care of the people he startled or embarrassed or to tie up the loose ends he left straying behind him like jester's ribbons.

When, years later, he admitted to his sex addiction, much of that spontaneity didn't seem like fun anymore. I started to see that some of his tricks and jokes were ways to test people's limits, that collecting contact numbers wasn't always in the name of friendship and that he hadn't taken Russian so much from a sudden passion for the language as a sudden passion for a Russian classmate. And in an attempt to protect myself from more hurt, I started to wall off and become even more of a compulsive planner, even more rigid about rules, even more strict about structure, even more wedded to routine than I ever had been before.

Spontaneity is still extremely difficult for me. The other night Mark came home after the kids were asleep and said, "Honey, I'd like to take a shower and then make love to you." And as he showered, my mind raced: "That's not right! That's different. It's supposed to be make love first and then take a shower. That's the way it always has been. Has he been with someone else? Is that why he wants to take a shower first?" For a moment, I was as paralyzed as the first time he took my ring and walked away. What did he mean by it? What kind of person does something so odd and unexpected? And what on earth do I do now?

But I have a new guide within me now. One that gently led me to see that a shower was hardly a purloined ring, and not being able to tolerate even so small a change in routine without pain is the damage of disease. But it also led me to see that the gift of recovery is being able to talk to my husband honestly about it rather than pretending the fear and anxiety don't exist (because they "shouldn't"). And I trust that eventually, as my recovery continues, my need for that protective wall of structure will slowly slip away into balance with a new and healthy spontaneity.

A few years ago, I was visiting my friend Ellie and was a guest in her house for the first time in my life.  I had just taken a shower and was standing in her bathroom, a wet towel in my hand, at a loss for what to do.  Should I hang the towel on the rack?  Sling it over the shower?  Hang it on the bar inside the shower door?  And should I fold it in half or lay it out flat?  Maybe I should fold it in thirds?  Should I throw it in the laundry room?  Or maybe there was some other way of handling towels that I wasn't even aware of...  These seem like small things, but they deeply concerned me.  What was the right way to take care of a wet towel?

Oh, sure.  I knew what I would do at home.  But I also eat in front of the TV, chewing with my mouth open and resting my bare feet on the coffee table, at home.  And that, my friends, is certainly not the "right" way to eat.  I was pretty sure that there was a way to hang the towel that would signal that I was raised by wolves and would bring shame to my entire family.  My parents would be greatly disappointed in me, knowing they had told me a million times how to hang a towel, and now, at this critical moment, I had completely forgotten all they taught me about how people ought to do things.

I was going to be judged and found wanting.  I was going to be unmasked for what I was: crude and thoughtless.  Ellie was going to walk into that bathroom, see that towel hung up in some clearly, horribly, offensively wrong manner and was going to think I didn't love her enough to take care of her towels properly.  I'd never be invited back.  Our friendship would grow distant.  All over this towel!  And even if — through a sheer luck, — I passed this towel test, I was probably going to use the wrong fork at dinner.  Or put my elbows on the table.  Or forget to make my bed in the morning (I don't make mine daily at home).  Or make the bed the wrong way.  Or put my foot square in my mouth over something.

There went my brain, dashing off down those rutted, well worn tracks.  I'd seen people in my life cut down and cut out for things like the way they hang their wet towels, and I'd been cut down and cut out for similar things enough in past relationships that such questions and worries had become a matter of habit.  Somewhere along the line, I'd gotten it into my head that there was a right way to do everything, and everything must be done that way, perfectly.  If not, what followed was judgment, shame, humiliation, rejection and abandonment.  Those thoughts were so routine, I never even noticed them.  But this time, standing there in Ellie's bathroom, with a little bit of recovery behind me, I finally caught myself on that race to Crazytown and laughed out loud.  For crying out loud, it's a wet towel!  And everything is going to be ok, no matter how I hang it up.

So, I hung up the towel, left the bathroom and joined Ellie for breakfast.

"Do you remember what you said to me when I first started talking about God?" Mark asked the other day, "You said, 'I am willing to try to work through this sex addiction crap, but if you ever become a Christian, I swear, I will leave you!'"

"Really? I said that?!"

"Yes, you did."

"That's completely insane, and exactly like something I would say," I laughed.

When I first started recovery, God was scary to me. God meant the stern guy with the beard on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God meant anger and smiting and judgment. God meant the Christian church of my youth, the one that hadn't worked for me, the one with the one-size-fits-all "right" answer for everyone, the one I felt I had been burned and betrayed and disrespected by even more than my husband. God didn't seem like a path to recovery and healing, God seemed like a wedge that could force us apart. I remember looking desperately for some non-12-Step recovery programs, something we could attend without having to bring God into our lives.

I knew that the church and I weren't getting back together, so I was terrified that if Mark's path did lead him there, he was going to leave me, looking like a fool for having tried to work on our marriage. I had a fabulous fear scenario mapped out in my mind where he would join a big church community and ask me to join him, knowing I would say no, in the same way he used to ask me to go out with him on nights he knew I was busy and to cover up the fact that he had already scheduled a rendezvous with someone else. He would spend his Sundays away from me and have horrible affairs with women in the church until he eventually left me for some codependent Christian woman who was really into Christian sex addicts. Then his whole church would piously mock me and say I deserved to have my marriage fall apart for being such a heathen and it wouldn't have happened if I had worked harder and done better to join the right religion. Yep, the mention of the word "God" (of all things) would have my vivid, fear-based imagination straight at affairs, abandonment and widespread mockery in seconds flat.

At the time, I couldn't envision a world where we could have different spiritual beliefs and still respect each other. So to counteract this, in those first months of recovery, I alternately threatened to divorce him if he found the wrong kind of God and then dragged him off in a panic to meditation centers and temples, hoping I could get him to latch onto some other religion, hoping I could convert him before he got a chance to try to convert me.

The meditation centers never did stick for Mark, although they did (as I suspected they would) for me. Six years into this journey, I've found that those fears never played out. Mark and I don't seem to have exactly the same vision of God or the same ways of connecting, but we do respect each other's spiritual beliefs, and we've each seen the healing that our respective spiritual paths have brought us. I've slowly reclaimed the word God for myself and lost the fear that used to haunt it. I can laugh at the idea that I was so scared of that dreaded three-letter word that I would rather have run away from my marriage than endured it. And I can laugh with joy when Mark says "God is good" right out loud, in the middle of a tense moment, and I find it delicious and intimate and healing.

It was raining the night I first kissed my husband. The wind was hissing and howling through the bare branches of the trees, rattling the last of the dead leaves still clinging to their posts. Before we kissed, we twined our hands together and watched our arms weave against each other like snakes, mahogany and golden. And when at last, softly, lip met lip, I wanted to rush out into the wind and rain and throw my arms out and laugh wildly or scream at the sky, like Ophelia drowning or Lear going mad in the storm. I couldn't resist him, nor he me, and the intensity of the pleasure in that kiss rode the edge of being blinding pain. It was the kind of high that addicts seek to return to and sustain forever, that I, in my own issues around love and romance and sex, have always wanted to return to again and again with Mark.

Last night, the kids were asleep and after a long busy week, Mark and I finally had a moment alone together. We were lying in bed and he twined his hand into mine, a sweet prelude, just like that night we first kissed. Only this time the contrast -- between what magic I thought we had back then and all the craziness of addiction and fantasy and delusion and denial that overlaid it and everything else since -- was too much for me. I burst into tears and Mark said, "Whoa, you're sad. What's the matter?"

I fumbled to explain where that gesture, so reminiscent of an earlier time, had taken me and said, "You know, people who are just starting recovery sometimes ask me if it ever stops hurting. And I tell them it does, mostly. But I say that sometimes it comes back, just not as strong. This is one of those times. It's better, but the pain's still there. Sometimes I just miss that fantasy, that irresistible passion. I miss the person I used to be, when sex didn't seem so complicated."

I put my head on Mark's chest and he stroked my hair and shoulder while I lay there feeling angry and disgusted at myself for being so caught up in the past and in the unknown that I couldn't enjoy an intimate moment right here in the present. I worried that Mark would be angry at me and level the charges at me that I'd heard others had leveled at them (and that I'd even leveled at others myself): that I was "freaking out," being "neurotic" and "overly emotional," being a stereotypical woman "too uptight" to have sex. I mean, geez, why didn't I just say I had a headache while I was at it? I imagined he wanted me to "get over it" so that he could get his needs met without having to deal with my troublesome and annoying emotions. And I thought about a conversation I had with a friend who said healing from the violation and trauma of being in a relationship with a sex addict has similarities to healing from the violation and trauma of rape, and I tried (without much success) to be forgiving of myself for still struggling sometimes, even six years after disclosure.

Then Mark interrupted my thoughts as he ran his hand over my shoulder, sighed happily and said, "I love you, and I'm so glad to be here with you!" I looked up at his face, and he was beaming. "God is good!" he said, almost laughing with happiness. What? No sex and he, the sex addict, was still happy? To be here with me? Wow. I snuggled in close and kissed him, and then I started laughing. "You know," I said, "just a minute ago, I was missing that irresistible passion and addictive inability to say no. I was thinking it was the sexiest thing in the world and I was never going to be able to get moments like that back. Now, a minute later, I'm seeing the ability to say no as such a gift, and I don't have to get back there, because recovery is looking pretty darn sexy on you..."

This past weekend, I had the privilege to attend a daylong class on Buddhism and recovery led by Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. At one point during the day, we broke off into pairs to do an exercise in which we shared around our spiritual journey. I sat down across from my partner, who said, "Hi, I'm Amanda, and I'm an alcoholic." "Hi, I'm Mary," I said, "and I'm... codependent." And I thought, "Oh, that sounds so lame. She really belongs here. She has really struggled. She has real problems and real pain. I'm just a codie."

That feeling came up again as I listened to Kevin Griffin, himself a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, talk about how he wasn't just talking from theory: he'd been there and he got it. What on earth did I get? I've never had more than three glasses of alcohol in the course of a day: never enough to get sick, never enough to black out, never enough to get hung over. I've never taken a single puff of a cigarette. I've never done any illegal drugs: never even tried pot, although I've lived with roommates who smoked it regularly. I once had prescription pain medication after surgery and it made me vomit, so on occasions when medications have been prescribed to me since, I've been too scared of the side effects to take them and have gotten by without.

At one point, the issue of compulsive eating was raised. I could have said, "Ah ha! I struggle with that! There's something that qualifies me to be here." But instead I thought, "I'm not working an active recovery program around that. People here are in recovery. I am working on codependency, but that's lame and doesn't count. That's not a real problem. Addiction is a real problem, and the addictive issues I have, I'm not focusing on. I shouldn't be here. I don't fit in. I'm a poser."

Then I realized, I've had the same feelings before, "Oh, I don't have a right to be here, to be hurt, because... His life has been harder than mine. She's lost more through her actions. My childhood wasn't that bad. My parents didn't beat me. I wasn't raped. I don't have it that hard. I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'm crazy." It was that same old soundtrack was playing again this weekend.

It's my own twist on "I'm not good enough": I'm not good enough because things aren't bad enough! Oy!

I suspect crossing the Golden Gate Bridge must get tiresome for the folks who commute across it each day -- the traffic, the fog, the monotony of routine -- but I am not one of those people. I was in the San Francisco area just for the weekend, a long-awaited vacation that was a gift from my husband and some other loved ones. I spent two glorious days relaxing on Point Reyes and one participating in a daylong session on Buddhism and the Twelve Steps with Kevin Griffin at the Spirit Rock meditation center. During my trip, I had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge twice -- once as I headed from the airport to my destination north of San Francisco and once on my return -- and each time it was exhilarating.

In all that was wonderful about the trip, I think driving across that bridge may have been my favorite part: the view, the wind, the adrenaline rush of being suspended over the mouth of the ocean far below, the way the transition from vibrant city to quiet hills marked my own transition with "Now you are really leaving the bustle of life behind to begin a vacation" and "Now you are really coming back to the rushing flow of your life."

During the time I was in meditation at Spirit Rock, a fear came up that often arises for me, especially in travel: the fear of not knowing what I'm doing, of making mistakes. My thoughts were seemingly endless stream of: "Am I in the right place? Am I supposed to be using those cushions? Am I doing this meditation right? Did I say something thoughtless or inaccurate during that group exercise? I've never done a walking meditation like this and I've never been here. Am I walking someplace I'm not supposed to? Am I getting in that guy's way?" In fact, these thoughts came up so often that, at the end of the day when Kevin Griffin asked us to contemplate what "persistent visitors" had been present in our thoughts that day and to set an intention to address them, mine was around the fear of making mistakes. "Just for today," I vowed, "I will let go of my need to do everything perfectly."

And I almost immediately got a chance to practice it. Imperfectly. On the Golden Gate Bridge.

That day at Spirit Rock was the last day of my vacation, and I was running low on cash. I had brought what I thought was an adequate amount with me, but ran into a few situations where I couldn't use a credit or debit card. Then I had a series of adventures with small town ATM machines being out of order. The end result was that I had very little left to use as a donation to the teacher. (Kevin, you were awesome, and I didn't give you enough. Note to self: next time bring your checkbook. Also, find a way to give Kevin Griffin an extra donation.)

When I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on my trip north to Point Reyes, there hadn't been a toll, although I had passed through some out of service toll booths. I wasn't sure if there was a toll going back in the other direction, but just to be cautious, I held on to $2, knowing I had enough in change to make $5 and thinking that would be plenty. I gave the rest of what I had as my donation. Then I drove south.

I emerged from the tunnel north of San Francisco to the spectacular sight of the Golden Gate Bridge red against the white city skyline ahead of me. I drove across, thrilled both at being there and at the thought of heading home to my family. But as I neared the end of the bridge, I saw the toll booths ahead. Open and in operation. Toll: $6. Crap. I hoped I had enough change to make up the difference, so I dumped my purse onto my lap and started fishing for coins. I reached the booth before I finished counting and handed the toll booth attendant a collection of change, which he painstakingly counted out as the line grew behind me. The final count still had me 19 cents short of the $6 toll. And that (during the third pass through my purse) was when I found a twenty dollar bill wedged between some old business cards and a Target gift card. Whew! I handed it to the toll collector, who (clearly annoyed at the entire situation) said, "You should have given this to me in the first place!"

To which I snapped, tingling with anxiety and defensiveness, "Well, if I had known I had it, I would have!" Oops. That would be me. Not being perfect. And not being mindful. Imperfectly handling not being perfect.

I realized only afterwards why I'm so afraid of mistakes when traveling. When I was growing up, I learned that tourists were prey. If you looked like you didn't know what you were doing, if you admitted you were new or unfamiliar with things, if you did things differently or asked questions, if you got lost and ended up in the wrong place, if you made mistakes, if you were less than completely prepared or completely perfect, at best you would be mocked or taken advantage of, but at worst you could be robbed or raped or murdered. I always assumed that I "just" didn't want to appear stupid to people, but when I snapped at the toll collector I saw my reaction coming from a place of deepest fear, out of proportion to the situation. We all, every single one of us, make mistakes sometimes, are unprepared sometimes, don't know what we're doing sometimes. But admitting that, showing that, having that exposed in myself can feel to me like being the one gazelle walking with a slight limp past the lions.

In the past, the only lesson I would have taken from this would be to learn the one small skill that many of those around me had mastered: how to correctly pay that toll. But what I can see I need to learn in addition is to release my fear of being someplace new, of not knowing everything, of making mistakes. Making sure I have correct change for the toll will certainly help me on specific bridges and highways, but letting go of fear will help me (and the toll collectors I won't be snapping at) wherever I go.

When I was a child, my mother used to drag me off to church every Sunday. Oh, how I hated it, and I told her so. "I hated going to church when I was little too," she told me, "But then, when I was older, things got hard, and I found comfort in those rituals from my childhood. One day, you are going to need God, and you will have this to come back to." When my life started to spin out of control five years ago -- when both autism and sex addiction simultaneously became part of the language of our household -- I knew she was at least partially right; I did need a higher power to lean on, but I was still too deeply bitter toward the religion of my youth to derive comfort from it. So, I did what any twenty-first century spiritual seeker would do: I googled "Buddhism" and found a meditation center within a somewhat reasonable driving distance.

I asked my husband to accompany me to a newcomers' meditation session, hoping both for support and to, er, "persuade" him to walk this particular spiritual path with me. I had never meditated or been to a Buddhist ceremony before before, and I listened nervously to the instructions, hoping to get everything just right and not appear to be what I actually was: clueless. I was unfamiliar with the practices and rituals; the very things my mother had hoped to provide for me. I wouldn't have to wander into a church and figure out what to do with the holy water or how to give the proper response to the priest's call, but here I was lost. And I didn't know how to be vulnerable without seeming weak, so when the instructor reassured us that it would be hard to sit still, I took it not as comfort and encouragement, but as a challenge. This at least I was going to get right. Other people might not be able to sit still, but I was going to be the best meditator ever. I was going to win the meditation medal. I was going to show them all who could sit still.

So I sat. For forty five minutes. And didn't move an inch except for the soft rise and fall of my breath. I could feel my legs aching and my feet falling asleep, but I didn't budge. I heard other people rustling around and laughed internally, because I was totally winning. A chime sounded, ending the meditation, and I felt disoriented but triumphant. I couldn't feel my feet at all. Everyone else was standing up, so I (being the gold medalist newcomer) tried to follow along dutifully, but my foot — cramped, bloodless and numb from sitting — couldn't bear the weight. I heard a loud pop as my ankle buckled and I collapsed on the floor in front of a room of silently stunned Buddhists, who very kindly gathered me up from the floor and told me they'd been there too once.

And the winner is? Not me. I hobbled out, leaning on my husband and shivering from shock and embarrassment. We went off to the closest emergency room to have my rapidly swelling ankle x-rayed and diagnosed as a bad sprain, but fortunately not a break.

The foot healed slowly, but my ego not so much; it was (thankfully) quite shaken. Since then, I have been keeping up a meditation practice in my own home, but I hadn't been back to the meditation center in years. There were lots of good reasons, of course. I have two young children, and it's hard to get away. But the main thing holding me back hasn't been my busy schedule, it has been fear. This is something new, something I don't know, something I have to learn from scratch. And there is nothing scarier for me than learning, than admitting I don't know, than being vulnerable.

I promised myself that I would finally go back. It has taken five years of recovery work to feel like I could even make that promise to myself and another two months to work up the courage to carry out that resolution once I had made it. This week, I went back at last. I was anxious every mile of road I drove and every step I walked to get in. I didn't chant the right words or bow at all the times I was supposed to. And as I sat in meditation, my chest tightened with fear when I felt my foot falling asleep. I didn't sit perfectly still. In fact, I didn't perfectly anything. But I showed up. And this time I was willing to admit that there was lots I didn't know and I was willing to admit there was lots I still thought I knew (but was probably wrong about). I followed the leads and accepted help of people who knew more than I did and hoped they didn't remember me as the chick who crashed and burned five years ago. And afterwards, I promised them, and myself, that I'd be back and try again.