The table chatter is rampant. Waiters and waitresses rush through the packed crowd. The wine glasses fiddle from hand to hand in between the noshing of tapas.

There are three of us on this weekday evening. We discuss work while others are well into the post-work, happy hour mood.

We are discussing features for an upcoming magazine.

“Why would you want to write an article about divorce?” says the publisher. “That’s depressing.”

I just smile.

That is what writers do. We write about what people don’t want to talk about.

This is a regional publication and, therefore, the content differs greatly from national outlets.

The truth is, that in between the happy times we all experience the ebb and flow of life, the yin and yang, and the peaks and the valleys. No one escapes this. These are the moments we become better human beings. Where we reach new levels of empathy, of understanding, of human frailty, of human strength and scale a new level of emotional and spiritual greatness.

The publisher is correct. Divorce is depressing, yet over 50% of people are experiencing it. Then, of course, there are the countless number of married couples on the near brink of it. Thereby, making it a conversation that effects at least, conservatively 60% of us.

That’s why in between diet and beauty and fitness and fashion, there are articles that pulse with the inevitable heartache of life. Tucked in neatly. To be discovered by those who don’t want to share their heartache over wine and tapas. Instead, they seek refuge in a quiet moment and bond with a writer that understands their pain.

Divorce is depressing. Those of us who experience it know this. Those that do not are happy to escape it.

Still, I find myself proud to write of the ebb, the yin and the valley.

To find the others like me.

So that together, we may exercise our hearts to a new level of emotional and spiritual greatness……….holding hands as we make our way to our flow, our yang and our new peak.