I hung up the phone that morning and thought about my mother, about how alarming it must have been for her to hear me like that, incoherent and sobbing in the middle of the night. I felt intensely guilty for a second, and intensely ashamed, but the feelings didn’t last. Like I said, all you’re really aware of after a night like that is the hangover. The head pounds. You may feel a twinge of embarrassment, a pang of worry or despair, but most of the pain is physical in the morning, so you choose to focus on that. Get me the Advil; I feel like shit. You roll over in bed. Let me go back to sleep;
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