My gratitude for my reliable birth control is followed by another sensation, a deep and profound empathy for every woman I know with children at home.

And learns that beneath her heartache is a body capable of pure, childlike joy.

It was 2016, and I’d been on the last leg of a flight from Austin via Seattle back to Boise, Idaho. Why, I thought, my brain still fogged by Dramamine I’d popped on the layover in Seattle, is there a sign for Edmonton in the Boise airport?

It's the classic story: Girl meets neighbor, neighbor gives girl hunk of bacteria and fabulous tea recipe, girl's world grows wider and more wonderful with every batch.

How Mary Pauline Lowry went from knocking all things matrimonial to—surprise!—getting hitched.

I wondered if these urges would ever be appeased. But even as I hoped I would outgrow my love of fire, I took bigger and bigger risks. I would cover my arms with hair spray and then light them, watching the eerie blue flames dance over my skin before dunking them in a sink full of water. My childhood pyromania eased boredom, fulfilled a longing for rebellion and burned away a stymied restlessness. But it was a pastime, even I could see, that would come to no good end. Or so I believed.

The Oracle told me we would no longer use the words “envy” or “jealousy” to describe this emotion that had ahold of me. Envy was a demon that inhabited me and so we would call it a demon, and in the course of the spell we would drive the demon out.

Before I started, I had already formed a view of what my role would be. Abused women would arrive, meek and sweet, and I would listen to their stories, help them feel safe and get them back on their feet, and they would be grateful.