Coping With The Unexpected

When I sat down to write my blog this morning, I expected to be writing about healing, which I fell asleep thinking about.  Before I write, I always check my emails.  There were quite a few from people I had never heard of.  I opened the first one, and was just about blown away.  My first blog for The Huffington Post had appeared, on divorce, and a man had written about losing his wife (illness), and being terrified.  Which is what my blog was about: my debilitating terror after my first of two divorces.  He has two teenagers.  I responded – how could I not – and thus my morning began. There were quite a few other emails, and then, when I went to check the HuffPost, I saw that my article had already generated almost 600 responses.  Another email came, from the Post, telling me that commenting on the comments is an important part of this process, getting dialogue going, etc.  So that’s what I’ve been doing!  Even the nasty ones are kind of interesting.  “How could a divorce from 30 years ago relate to what anyone’s going through today?”  Obviously, from what I’m reading, it could.  Nice to know I’m not irrelevant.  But overwhelmed, yes.  I’m leaving tomorrow to meet up with Northwest Paddle Journey, but will have to come back sooner than I had hoped.  I have to try to answer a lot of these I think, and write my next blog for the HuffPost for a few weeks hence.  Proposed title:  If I Still Love You, How Do I Leave?  That was my experience the second time around, and one I’m sure lots of  women and men still have. But my questions for myself today: How do I cope?  I’m going to swim, to ease the tension, pack quickly, and get back to answering as many of those comments as I cn.  And watch this journey expand, and feel grateful for all the help I’ve gotten and am getting.  More next week, when I do plan on talking about healing.