Book Club No. 3: Strangers
Divorce is one of the those big heavy words that carries a lot of emotion. It’s the big D. It tends to bring up a lot of emotion and a lot of feelings. Throughout my experience of getting divorced and being divorced, it has often reminded me a lot of my experience with cancer.
People either have a lot of opinions or they ignore it. The later being more common with cancer. The former being more common with divorce. People often don’t know how to respond. Both life experiences leave the one going through it with a great sense of loneliness and feeling alone. The experience is not one everyone can relate to and sometimes those who can, project their own experience of it onto you. Which can often remind you of the loneliness that you feel and give a new sense of protection for yourself.
In book club, this month, we are reading Strangers by Belle Burden. Strangers is a marriage memoir, but not the happily ever after of marriage the we like to imagine. It’s the story of a marriage ending in divorce.
New Monthly Read: Strangers by Belle Burden
Whether or not you’ve been through divorce, most of us have experienced heartbreak at some point in our life. Divorce is the biggest result of heartbreak. Through Belle’s story, you hear about the deep emotional experience that she goes through. One that speaks to the many emotional themes in divorce.
The loneliness comes through in many areas of life and the other relationships that we have. When we go through a big life change, it can be polarizing as it impacts everything. There are periods and waves of grief that intertwine with the reinvention that must happen in the wake of a divorce.
Consider that a little kindness and a little support go a long way. Just as you desire to be seen and understood, so does someone who is going through a divorce. A positive small bit of support can go a long way. That person is reinventing their entire life. They are finding new meaning, new purpose, new identity, and discovering a new way that they are going to live.
I hope reading this book gives you a better idea about how to respond to the people in your life when they go through a divorce. I hope that it gives you a more empathetic and thoughtful look at what it might feel like for a person who is going through a divorce. And I hope that it reminds you that you never know what someone is going through and that you never know the whole story.
The more we read about other people’s experiences of life and their emotional experience, the more we can relate to the world. Belle’s book, Strangers, gives you a deep look into the raw emotional experience of divorce. One that often makes us uncomfortable. The more knowledge that we can gain about life, the more empathy and understanding we will have in our relation to the world.
As we grow and become the best versions of ourselves, remember to challenge your experience. This book is a good reminder to challenge how you view relationships, divorce, and the intention we give them.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
xx Megan