Idiot - Laura Clery Page 0,78

aren’t really his forte.

“Um, not so much recently.”

“You know, when I go to the gym I listen to an iPod. I play some Nirvana, a little Beatles . . . you know, the greats. That just makes the whole experience better. And then—wham bam—you’ve run a mile! Good stuff, those iPods.” My dad then got up and joined my mother over near the towel closet.

Ultimately, they could really see the effort that Stephen was putting in. After all, he didn’t just make a phone call to apologize. He flew all the way there, walked for miles in the rain, and flew back the next day. It was the perfect triumph of a great effort, bad planning, and some lousy luck.

In AA, they say that you have to be willing to go to any lengths to complete the steps. I could see that he was willing. I was living on my own in the Venice apartment when one day, I got a call from him.

“Hello, Laura.”

“How’s it going?”

He cleared his throat. “If you’re free tonight, I’d like to—if you don’t mind, I think it would be nice if—can I take you out on a date tonight?”

“Okay.”

He took me out that night to this cute diner in between our houses. We started to laugh again. At the end of the date, he took me straight home. A few days later:

“Can I take you out again tonight?”

“Café Gratitude?”

“Let’s do it.”

That night we arrived at the restaurant, and right as we got seated a chipper server came up to us. “Hi, my name’s Jeffrey, and I’ll be your server today. What makes you happy?”

Stephen and I looked at each other awkwardly. I forgot that the servers ask you a cheesy (but still vegan) question every time you eat there. I’m all for gratitude, but tonight I wasn’t in the mood.

“Butts.”

Stephen smiled at Jeffrey. “Yes. For me as well: butts.”

We started over slowly. We dated again. Eventually, he asked me to move back in with him. Once I trusted him completely, I did.

I believe that people can change. If they have the willingness, if they see a need within themselves, they can reach down within and change. I hate when people use the phrase “you are who you are” as an excuse to let themselves be less than the person they could be. Stephen did a really thorough inventory on himself and made one of the most difficult changes possible. He hit bottom and got better because he wanted to live. I could see it in his actions and I could feel it.

Remember when I had my relapse at six months of sobriety? That was when I learned that I had to put my sobriety before everything else. That struggle gave me the courage to get my own place and have space from Stephen. It doesn’t mean I didn’t love him dearly through all of it. I never stopped loving him, but I knew that I had to put my sobriety first. I had to have faith that if we were meant to be together, we would be. It was either trust the universe, or stay with Stephen and enable his addiction. If I had just been okay with everything he was doing, he would have just kept doing it. In the end, I believe it made him stronger and he is a better man than the one I met at that party. He’s kinder, more compassionate, more loving. He truly appreciates every day that he is alive, and that’s a wonderful way to live.

It was a bit past our second anniversary when we finally looked around our Santa Monica apartment and decided we couldn’t be there anymore. The whole space was filled with bad memories. The fighting, the abuse, and the lies all took place here. We weren’t in that place anymore mentally, so why should we be there physically? We decided to move out and start over, fresh.

We found a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills, next to Frank Zappa’s old house. Joni Mitchell was down the street. It had this sweet 1960s Laurel Canyon vibe. Our neighbor across the street was this seventy-five-year-old gay hippie who would always have these massive, crazy parties. Stephen and I had a window on the second story of our house that looked out onto the street . . . and honestly, sometimes it was better than watching TV. The neighbor would blast heavy metal in the morning and sometimes have busloads of little people trekking inside

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