In 1992, when I was newly sober, I sat in the tiny New York apartment of a woman

with advanced aides while I fidgeted with the papers on which I'd handwritten all my

sins.

It was the fifth of twelve steps required of me to try to stop being such a drunk mess,

and I was so filled with shame about my past that the only reason I trusted her to hear

my moral inventory was that I was certain she'd not be alive eight or nine weeks later.

She offered me some tea, and after placing a red cup and sauce her next to me, she took

her seat on a worn, easy chair from which she listened to me tell her about all the shit

I'd done.

Anna sat there, kind-faced and patient.

Her breath rattled in and out of her lungs as my list of affairs, crimes, and betrayals

rattled out of mine.

I'd been terrified of her judgment, but she held my confession with nothing but an easy

compassion, and that compassion softened everything in me enough that I could see the truth

of my wrongdoing with even more clarity.

I actually added some things in the moment I'd been too afraid to write down beforehand.

When I finished, she adjusted her oxygen tube and just said, let it go, girl.

That shit is in the past now, so you can stop bringing it with you into the present.

Her compassion moved the needle for me in a way her disgust never could have, and for

that I will always be grateful.

So I found that I'm not so interested in compassion as a virtue you can adopt to try to make

yourself a better person.

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