Welcome!

Thank you for taking the time to come by and see what this is all about. I have been toying with the idea of blogging for a few weeks now. I even almost signed up last week, but I couldn't decide what to call my blog. The name came to me last night, in a moment of inspiration amidst a fight with my husband.

It turns out, we look at the world differently (and it's taken only 2½ years of marriage to figure that one out). He listens to people and tries to understand what they've been through by imagining himself in their shoes. I listen and try to understand by finding common themes in my own experiences.

I'd like to think I have a pretty good imagination. The problem is, just because I can imagine something, doesn't mean I understand it. Like...take divorce, for instance. I have a number of friends who have been divorced. And, I can imagine what it would be like to sit in a stuffy conference room with my lawyer on one side and my husband's lawyer on the other, listening to them argue about our (meager) possessions and how we agree to custody arrangements. I can even imagine being so angry at him that I would want to hurt him by taking away what he holds dear (heck, we've been married 2½ years--I've had my moments). But that doesn't make me feel as though I have understood what it is like to actually be in that room, dividing up the remnants of a life together.

The things I understand are the things that have happened to me. If I can relate your experience to my own, it makes sense in my head. If you tell me your father died when you were 12, I can say, "I think I understand." My father did not die when I was 12. In fact, he's alive and well now. But when I was 16, my mother died. I know what it's like to be in that place of just tasting independence and beginning to rebel, when suddenly you no longer have someone to fight with. That's what I know. That's what I understand.