I swipe at my keyboard to log into my computer. I find an e-mail waiting for me from an old friend. I will call her “Kiki.” I am excited to hear from her. Just seeing her name takes me back to shared laughter and sipping cocktails.

I start to read and I only make it to the third sentence before I realize things are not okay.

Her pain jumps at me through the screen. It has the markings of marital agony.

“Kiki” is strong and independent. She has built an impressive career, traveled the world and married a bit later than some of us. Nonetheless, I hear the same vulnerability in her words, in her voice that I also feel.

Somehow, I believe that because I stayed home all of these years that I am more vulnerable. That I am more frightened. Only that’s not true. Our loves start with youthful passion and somewhere along the way they morph into family and to lose them feels as though we are losing everything.

It punches our stomach, it hits our stability and it pillages our self-doubt. Why me? I tried everything or did I try everything? How did this happen? What did I miss? Was I in denial?

Love is universal as is all that accompanies it.

The rest is all semantics. True, they are also things that can make the journey elongated and even more difficult. The lack of financial security, the rebuilding of a career and all of the other things that accompany having stayed home for many years. In that same vein, big careers can bring other divorce attributes to struggle with during proceedings.

Yes, these are just the semantics, the individual characteristics of each divorce journey, but the inception, the birth of marital heartache and divorce are universal.

“Kiki” and I are at the same party. We just showed up at different times wearing different outfits, only we are still sipping the same cocktail.

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