Kathleen Buhle - If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing

In 1992 I was living in Portland, Oregon, trying to reinvent myself as a social activist and tree-hugging liberal. I barely understood climate change but proudly wore my Love Planet Earth T-shirt. With my flowing bohemian dresses and Birkenstocks, I pretended I knew something about the alternative music scene that was exploding there at the time. I couldnt name three bands, but I could sway and groove with the best of them. I was twenty-three and working for the year as a volunteer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC). Having grown up in working-class Chicago, I had no idea what the Pacific Northwest even looked like before I arrived, and the year in Oregon was as ambitious as anything Id ever set out to do. I was yearning for new experiences and dreaming about who I could become.

I lived in a rambling Victorian house with seven other volunteers. We were strangers to one another but shared the belief that we could make a difference. I listened to heated discussions about the environment, the impact of logging, and what needed to happen to protect the planet. Yeah, I would add, nodding along. But I knew as much about logging as I did about space flightzero. My South Side Chicago neighborhood was populated by Polish and Irish laborers who were busy trying to make a living and werent talking about carbon footprints. But my roommates taught me to not only recycle but compost. At dinner, we passed a talking stick to make sure everyone was allowed to speak their mind without interruption. During one meal, a roommate commented on how quickly we were going through toilet paper and suggested, in all seriousness, that we each use no more than two squares. You might as well just use your hand, I thought, secretly continuing to make a toilet paper mitt.

When it was time to make the grocery list, wed all sit down to talk about what we wanted. Gourmet coffee was all the rage in Portland, but I didnt drink it. If we get expensive coffee, can we also get Diet Coke? I asked. The answer was a resounding no.

That was the year I learned that beans didnt always come in cans and that you had to be able to tell your organic products from your nonorganic. When I inadvertently bought the wrong honey, my roommates delicately explained to me that the nonorganic honey contained pesticides. Who knew? I said with a smile. Honey seems so straightforward. That night I wrote a note and taped it to the honey bears chest: Im sorry I wasnt enough. I was just trying to bring a little sweetness to your lives. The bear, with his note, stayed on the counter all year.

I had been working since I was twelve, but it had been selling hot dogs at Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox, and washing dishes at a party rental store. In Oregon, I worked with adults living with mental illness, and I finally felt I was doing something that mattered. My previous four years at St. Marys University in Winona, Minnesota, were spent playing pool and drinking cheap beer, not sitting around debating social policy. My roommates now seemed like theyd been in the fight for social justice their whole lives while I was just getting started. But regardless of where wed come from, JVC put us all on the same playing field. We each had an eighty-dollar monthly stipend and we explored the city together, seeing live music and hiking through the parks.

After a few weeks, I found myself dancing with a shaggy-haired volunteer who came from a little state Id barely heard of. His name was Hunter Biden. As he swung me around that night, my heart started to beat just a little bit faster. He was shy at first, but I never stopped talking. After that night, whenever I would see him and hed smile at me, I would feel my entire body respond. Id never met anyone like him before. Despite the longish hair tucked behind his ears and his ripped-up jeans, he carried himself with the elegance of a movie star.

For weeks he and I found ourselves talking on the porch at every JVC party. When a few of us went to a bar the night after Thanksgiving, my eyes stayed only on Hunter, and at closing time, he walked me home, where all of my roommates were fast asleep. He and I sat in two old armchairs in a living room strewn with mismatched furniture, and I waited for him to make a move. It was our first time alone together, and the room hummed with our energy. After what seemed like hours of talking, I couldnt take it any longer. I stood up and walked over to his chair, climbed onto his lap, put my arms around his neck, and leaned down for a kiss. Fireworks! From that moment on, my life would change in ways Id never imagined.