I started hiding things before I had secrets.

Maybe it was my older brother’s influence. We grew up in separate households, and when I visited him during summer break, we would go out most nights with his friends. In the morning, my stepmom would ask “What did you do last night?” If we had seen a movie, he would say we were bowling. If bowling, he’d say Meijer. We didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs while we were out. He just didn’t want to be known, and obediently I followed his lead.

I started writing in middle school. By high school, I had joined the Natalie Goldberg school of automatic writing, with a goal to fill an 80-page notebook per month. Perpetually writing, I was even grounded from my notebook during one disagreement. My mom felt it was something I kept from her. Was I writing a story without her, or worse, about her? Both–it was my one true escape.

As an adult, writing has been mostly about remembering, processing. I keep a number of journals and logs at any time. Though I don’t write in each nearly every day, I have at this time: a cooking journal, hosting log, “meta” writing notebook, “feelings” journal, a poetry notebook, date books with daily notes, logs I keep for each of my daughters, and finally a journal I share with my 9 year old.

Writing can be relevatory–things naturally tend to become clearer in its practice. My writing was in competition with another habit that tends to hide things. If you saw “A Very Murray Christmas” a while back, you heard Bill Murray ask Paul Schaeffer whether he’s quit drinking yet, as if it’s inevitable. I always felt it was inevitable for me, and when I was finally ready to quit, I asked for help. I leaned on my husband, some close friends, and even went to some AA meetings.

During my AA experiment, I asked a stranger with five years’ sobriety to sponsor me. I met her at a fellowship meeting, where her friend was telling his AA narrative. I watched as she nodded knowingly and wiped away tears. I thought, this is the person for me. She sponsored me for a couple weeks. On one of our 3 or 4 phone calls, she chided me as I talked about going to school and moving. “You sound like me,” she said. “Don’t try to change so much at once. Live today; more will be revealed.” Hearing this set me ablaze with foolish pride. I thought, she’s been sober for years and is just now in school? Taking classes is just something I do. And “more will be revealed”? What is this, a fucking magic show?

I thought, she doesn’t know me. How I always rise to the occasion–whatever the cost (as if that’s a good thing). How big-screen and HD I see the world. How could anything possibly be revealed to me? I’m the revelator (I tip my hat to Gillian Welch for the term). Yet months of solo sobriety later, I could finally appreciate that she knew what it’s like to wake up from a fog, from the influence of something that dulls. The “more” to be revealed was what I had become so skilled at hiding from myself. As when a teacher walks by while you’re writing a note, I had been folding myself as if a page, covering one bit of myself at a time. Folding as if to put away, folding as if to put in order, folding as if to hide a stain. It was all there, just separated and stacked. You couldn’t see through me. I was a cootie catcher, with my scribbles tucked neatly inside.

Pick a number. Pick a color. Unfold the corner. What’d you get? Drinking made it easier to hold fast the folds, and nothing would have been easier than to keep doing the same.

Today three years have passed, and I can tell you: I used to be a cootie catcher. And now I’m the flat, though thoroughly creased, paper. Two sides, that is all. It is revealed.