Ativan, Calgary, and the art of supporting sobriety.

"Oh GAWD, I seriously love Ativan."

My eyes darted across the room to one of the other counsellors I hadn't yet had a chance to meet, but now definitely needed to. Finally, a coworker who is at least interesting, and seems to have my sick sense of humour. Even better, she's going to bust it out after the last three hours of this dry mental health first aid course.

"Let me clarify: I have only got to take Ativan a handful of times because one time my brain got infected and I had to, like, re-learn how to walk and do literally anything and whatever and... ANYWAY when they gave me Ativan it was frickin' awesome. Like, I get it. People who abuse Ativan-- I get it." Her blunt explanation was followed by utter awkward silence from the rest of the Catholic school counsellors and administrators. Silence, except for my muffled laughter I tried to direct into my complimentary paper coffee cup.

In a way, I think I knew right then that this aspiring casual Ativan user and confident story teller would later end up being my best friend. I could have never predicted, however, that one of the greatest lessons I would learn from her would be about womanhood and being a proud portrayer of femininity. That's exactly what her story and her friendship are about: finding the space in this strange, sometimes cruel world, to be an empath and be a healer, to be a leader and be a listener, to be bold and to believe that the world is a kind place (no matter how unkind it seems to have treated you), and to choose to respect, inspire, and promote womanhood no matter where that woman comes from... is being a woman. A woman like my best friend. A woman I am so inspired by every day.

Not only had she overcome a traumatic brain injury/infection at the time I had met her, but she and her husband had recently moved here from Calgary, where she was born and raised, to be closer to her family members in great financial need after losing their business. She adored her city and missed it dearly, something I could relate to after just moving back to Central Alberta after finishing my own 6 year stint of living in Calgary. We bonded for hours over our favourite restaurants, parks, day trips, and Calgary-isms. On top of all of this, her husband had just finished a residential treatment program for alcohol addiction, while she and their three little girls awaited his healthy return for about two months. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, this was also around the time she had started her new job at the stuffy Catholic school board, her first job since having their first daughter. Just a few things on her plate, no biggie.

About 9 months after she had just had her first daughter, she awoke one morning and fell out of bed, unable to move her entire body. Unable to go get her crying baby. Unable to pick herself up off the floor where she had fallen. After 5 days of an excruciating headache, she had returned the night before being told there was nothing the hospital could do, and she was now paralyzed. She was 29 years old. Even once she was admitted to hospital, they thought she couldn't possibly have a neurological issue given her age and health. They were wrong. For 5 days, she laid there obtaining what would later seem like irreversible nerve damage; her cranial nerve, the nerve that helps you balance while walking, and her optic nerve, the nerve that helps you track objects in your field of vision, were so badly damaged that for three months she could not walk, had constant vertigo, and could only leave her bed to do her physiotherapy exercises to re-teach herself to walk and see. She could not hold her baby, she could not visit with her family or friends, she could not make herself something to eat, she couldn't watch TV. She would be so dizzy and weak during her daily exercises that she would vomit the entire time she did them, yet, she got up every single day and she did it until one day, she walked just like she did before.

Of course, once she was healed through her perseverance and femininity, her strength was tested again, when she asked her husband to take his healing into his own hands. She asked her husband to either go to residential rehab, or watch her and the girls drive away the next day. He chose to be well, he headed to rehab the very next morning, and has been sober since that very day. As someone who has spent a good deal of time working in and studying addiction, and as someone who was currently studying to be a wife, this was one of her greatest feats yet. I was constantly curious about the dynamic since her husband came home. I remember sitting in her kitchen one day, chatting over a glass of wine, when I just couldn't fathom what they had been through as a couple anymore.

"How do you make sure he stays sober?" I blurted out naively. At first, she couldn't help but to laugh at me. Calm and confident, she practically sang her answer back.

"I don't. That's his responsibility. He's a big boy and he is in charge of his own health and happiness. I am just here to support him and love him through it. I can't make sure he stays sober. I can't make him do anything. I especially can't heal whatever hurt he had previously chosen to heal with his drinking-- he's working on that his own way now. I'm not his mother and I never want to feel like that-- not only is that totally not cool for him, but what a waste of time and effort for me!"

I thought of all the women in the past who complained about their "man-child" husbands and how much they have to do for them and suddenly it clicked: maybe wives don't have to do anything. Maybe it's our job as women and as the healers of the world to let people do some things for themselves. She told me that, despite our "inherent" role as caregivers, we as women need to stop taking on the happiness and wellbeing of others as our responsibility, especially our spouses. We talked of countless women whose marriages resembled parent-child relationships between wife and husband, and how, despite her having reason to perhaps not trust her husband at all, to want to control his wellness, and to want to run his life for the ease of her own, she realized that this would mean she was not only failing her husband and her children, but failing women. Women like me, who had too many friends that ran their husbands lives and wondered why they were so stressed and unfulfilled. Women who, instead of prioritizing their own happiness, took their worth from how happy she made her man.

Each time I spent time with her, I listened to each of her heavy stories with a fascination, not just for the content of her stories or even the difficulty of what she had been forced to overcome, but the fact that, through all of this, she was still so... sure. So sure of her place, of her worth, of her strength as a woman, because she was a woman. She was an open book from the first time I decided I needed to talk to her, and it wasn't long before we were sitting in her office at her designated school, bawling and comforting each other about supporting our husbands through tough times, missing Calgary, and maybe needing some Ativan. Soon we were gardening together, hiking together, baking together, shopping together, and it wasn't long before she was like a sister to me. I found myself so recharged and refreshed each time we spoke to one another or spent time together, feeling so affirmed by her experiences and advice, and feeling so valued each time I shared my own point of view and advice. Feeling so valued as a woman who was being asked by another woman to share my viewpoint and be proud of it.

I begun a stage of my life where I was feeling so liberated by befriending a woman so comfortable with being exactly the "type" of woman she wanted, which had no type. Suddenly I too was embracing the girly side of me, the not-so-girly side, the sexy side, the subtle side, the wild side, the domestic side, and loving each one as the same woman. She taught me that each of us are only in charge of our own happiness. Her role as a woman was whatever role she wanted to play, and I can't thank her enough for the role she chose, and the way she has pushed through her struggles, to sit across from me today and tell the tale. She did it.

She did it to be able to hold her baby again. She did it to be able to play hockey again. She did it to be able to, 10 years later, hike the west coast trail (twice!), go on to have and hold two more beautiful girls, get a PhD (yes-- she works full time, parents three girls under the age of 10, and is working on her PhD!) and a house on a beautiful acreage. She did it to get the man that she loved back, and to have the best version of their marriage possible. She did it because she is a woman and she gave herself no other choice but to be extraordinary. She did it because believes in her femininity as a super power that she has now harnessed. She is my best friend, and she is one of the greatest women I have ever known.