I'll tell you my story, you tell me yours...

I recently ran into a friend whom I hadn't seen in a few years. Last I'd heard, her divorce was final and she was dating a wonderful man, whom she adored.
However, she now filled me in. Her new man, thanks to a fling before the two of them got together, had fathered a child – a fact that came to light after my friend was completely in love and committed to this guy. And though her new love was eager for a relationship with his new son, the mother was using her child as leverage to try and extract some sort of relationship.
Which left my friend feeling constantly off-balance. And wounded. Full of fear. Full of "what-ifs".
I could offer little more than my sympathy.
"I'm in such pain," my friend confessed. "And I wonder if it'll ever go away."
I know the feeling. Well.
And so I said, "It might not. It might just be something you learn to live with." And, I suggested, leaving her beloved might remove the pain of his fatherhood and relationship with this other woman...but it will replace it with the pain of the loss of this man in her life.
She looked at me, surprised. And relieved.
Her friends had all pretty much told her to "get over it," she said. They thought she was making a big deal out of nothing.
Easy, I assume, for them to say.
And it drove home something of which I've become increasingly convinced.
Pain left unshared isolates us. It keeps us feeling alienated.
Yet pain shared connects us. It allows us to bear up beneath its weight and know that though we might not feel we can handle it, there are those who will carry us. If you take one step towards the gods, the saying goes, the gods will take ten steps towards you.
The need for connection is why I began this site. And why I'm so grateful for your comments, the ones that let me know how valuable you find it. The ones that tell me your story.
No matter the specific details, our stories, though ours alone, connect us. They remind us that we're not alone in our pain. Every crisis we face is a chance to step into our own greatness. And to share our story in order that we can help each other.