Last night after I gave Maggie a bath and put her to bed, I met some friends out for a beer at a local dive bar. It is the best kind of dive bar, where shady characters mingle with twenty somethings, and the average age of the folks bellied-up to the bar is about 50. A real dive bar complete with the stink, and the smoke, and the sticky tables.

An acquaintance once told me that being in bars like that made her sad. This same person is also said to have the ability to see into people. She can often tell them surprisingly accurate things about their inner selves and their past lives, and about angels that follow them wherever they go. She has the ability to see all sorts of wild things that my concrete mind has a hard time grasping. She said there is too much darkness in places like that. I think I understand what she meant. Dive bars are fun in your twenties. When you are older (like me), they can be fun just for the novelty factor. However the thought of being a permanent fixture in a place like that is really quite depressing.

Bars like that are for people trapped in limbo. For people who have sad stories to tell, who can’t seem to climb out from under their own personal tragedies. People go there to numb themselves to pain. In doing so, they also numb themselves to life’s more remarkable offerings like unadulterated joy and peace. I think those barflies were the people my gifted acquaintance was talking about.

The conversation at the gunky table in the smelly bar somehow turned to James Frey’s book “A Million Little Pieces�. We are all probably aware of the controversy surrounding the book, and quite frankly, sick of hearing about it. I read the book long before it was featured on “Oprah� and long before anyone knew that a number of the details were shamelessly embellished. The story moved me, plain and simple. I have always been fascinated by the ways through which people struggle to accommodate their bad with their good. I believe that each of us has to acknowledge and accept our imperfections, and the dark, tarry, sticky things in our hearts in order to be at peace. The icky things we don’t like to acknowledge, because they frighten us and make us ashamed. In the book, James Frey (or his character, whichever you believe) came to terms with those demons. He learned to accept the insidious parts of himself, and in doing so, revealed the beauty of ugliness.

Steinbeck’s “East of Eden� is another one of my favorite books. I don’t think a person can be real until they acknowledge and accept those dank parts of themselves. When we embrace the pieces of ourselves that are decidedly un-beautiful, we give ourselves a chance to experience joy in its most real, imperfect form. I suspect that the true barflies in dive bars are stuck somewhere in that process. Mired in the fear phase of the journey, they seek out anesthetic because they feel overwhelmed and ashamed.

The conversation about addiction and recovery turned very personal when a good friend of mine admitted that she struggled with two particular people she loved very much, who were immersed in addiction. She admitted that she loved them even though doing so caused her pain. She couldn’t stop caring even though it was excruciating to witness their self-destruction. She had taken actions to separate herself from them, but still hurt for them. This friend of mine has been through life’s wringer several times, having survived the death of her fiancé and the drug addiction of another love she had to let go in the end. She let him go because she had to choose herself.

I thought of a time when Maggie was not even a week old. I was exhausted and immersed in post-partum blues and insecurity. I felt totally overwhelmed by motherhood and my responsibility for this beautiful tiny human who was my daughter. I sat on the couch and cried big fat tears that were propelled from somewhere deep in the recesses of my soul. I couldn’t stop them. They had a sad song of their own to sing and a life all their own. I was overcome with fear for my daughter. I was terrified of the things in her future that I couldn’t control. I understood that I was helpless to stop things that could hurt her and cause her pain. Things that would damn near kill me to witness. “What if she gets cancer?� I sobbed. “What if she becomes a drug addict and I can’t help her?�. It felt like my insides were being pulled out of me and exposed to the cold air of the world, inside-out. I felt more powerless and fearful than I have ever felt in my life.

Loving people can be awful sometimes.

It takes guts and massive bravery to love another human being. In loving we make ourselves vulnerable to having our delicate hearts ripped right out of our ribcages. We take enormous risk in loving. At the same time, we open ourselves up to massive unimaginable joy. When I was pregnant with my daughter I thought about the kind of person I hoped she would be. I realized all the things that could go wrong. As her mother, I have always understood that it’s my job to love and accept her regardless of what life brings our way. I promised myself I would never forget for a moment that bringing her into the world was my decision, and that she will be whoever she ends up to be. And I will love her unconditionally.

I hope my daughter doesn’t end up a barfly in a dank, sticky dive bar. Addiction runs in my family. So does depression. These are things I can only protect her from to a certain degree. I hope I can teach my daughter to be kind to herself. I hope she is better able to acknowledge and accept the things in her soul that make her imperfect and human than I have been. I hope she can see the beauty and brutal honesty in imperfection. I hope my daughter knows that regardless of what life brings our way, that I love her. Even if loving her breaks my heart, and I am certain that at some point it will, that my choice to love her has opened up doors of pure joy in my heart that I never knew existed. That even if my child ends up a barfly in a dive bar, she will be a barfly whose mother loves her. I will never regret opening myself up to that kind of risk. Ever.