*WARNING...Bitchy rant ahead! Read at your own discretion.

In a conversation recently, there was a lull.  I just turned my head and looked out the window lost in thought. Well that's not true exactly, I wasn't lost, I know right where I was. Today the vision was stronger than the current moment and it pulled me in. Not long, just until a string of words pulled me back to now, these words..."I know how you feel, I went through a divorce."

Please NO. Not you too.

I suppose you saw my lack of attention as a shared experience kind of moment.  Damn, I hate when that happens! Why?  Because you have got it so wrong and I don't want to feel 'less' about one more person. I try not to, always I do, but somehow I just can't help but think those 10 little words just brought your smarts down a peg.  Far too many times in that awkward need to say something...anything, people say the STUPIDEST, most insensitive things of all. I know it comes only from a place of good, never meant to hurt or offend, but it so would have been better to say nothing at all. Just be silent in the moment and wait for me, I will be right back, I'm never gone for long.

Please don't think that I believe your experience of divorce wasn't painful.  Oh it was painful...gut wrenching, drop to your knees, silent stare, soul sucking painful. That for you it may have been the single most painful experience of your life, I mean, statistically speaking it is way up there in the 'Most stressful life situations' category. It's excruciating.

I know. I do, really...I've been there too. 

I went through a divorce, a 4 year fight against a madman who knew the lay of the land, where I did not. I was warned, by him, "If you don't smarten up and get your ass home I will ruin you, discredit your name and turn everyone against you, take every last penny you have, leave you friendless, and take our baby boy from you." I wasn't afraid of him, I stood my ground and fought the battle of my life...and lost. He wasn't lying, he did everything he promised to do...and more.  But first!  First I had to go through a horrific marriage that I finally fled after 15 weeks of co-living.  Don't let the short time of 15 weeks fool you, when living it each day is an eternity.  I never had the pleasure of many wonderful years together living, loving, laughing, dreaming etc.  My marriage was one giant mind suck manipulation after another.  He was an ex Army Ranger who used psychological warfare on me to the best of his ability.  I was violently sick all the time, being poisoned does that to you I suppose.  Every night I went to sleep with a shotgun pointed at my head.  It wasn't until too late that I learned he was discharged under suspicion of severe mental 'inconsistencies' listed as psychotic and sociopathic behavior.  He never even made it past training.  And it was even later when I learned he was a pedophile. Wow...really!  Thanks for the heads up everyone!

So yeah, I've been divorced and lost custody of my baby by the time it was over.  But this, this other experience, well...there just aren't words to compare.

So no.  No, you do not know how I feel.  I can relate to how you feel, but you cannot relate to how I feel.  And you won't, ever, until the day you watch with your own eyes,  your husband and your girlfriend die.

At. The. Exact. Same. Moment.

Rant over.