Suzanne’s Dear Reader column this morning really hit a chord with me. When Rudi and I first moved away from Connecticut to D.C. so he could pursue grad school, I was lonely and miserable (and unemployed).

But we were about to enter an election cycle and I’d read about a group that was forming, so I went to an organizational meeting. We divided up into groups and I joined the “visibility committee,” which was charged with raising awareness about the candidate. The guy who was organizing the group at large asked for a volunteer to head up the committee and there was silence. I hate that silence. It inevitably means that the person who asked the question is going to get stuck doing all the work – so before I knew what was happening, my own arm was up in the air.

“I have some time,” I said. “I can do it.”

And, indeed, just as Suzanne noted in her column, it was good for me, despite my reticence to volunteer for it. Before I knew what exactly was happening, I was accosting strangers with flyers, organizing “small” crowds of 150 to meet the candidate at events, marching in parades, and standing on tables exhorting crowds to reclaim their party through involvement. For ten months, I slept four hours a night. But I suddenly went from lonely and sad to over-involved and recognizable on the street. Literally, strangers would come up to me in Dupont Circle and say, “Hey, Kirstin, that was a great speech you gave last night,” or “I have some time. I’d love to get involved.” And, in fact, people whom I can’t remember ever meeting still approach me. And on the night of the election (when we lost), a whole bar full of people sang “Happy Birthday” to me.

The people in that political group became my surrogate family down here and remain close, even though the campaign has now been over longer than it lasted. We have barbecues. We go to ball games together. We go out to dinner.

So whenever I notice a void and feel myself guilted into volunteering to fill it, I try to remember that sometimes those experiences can be the best ones.