I can’t believe Heather B. Armstrong is getting divorced.

I know it’s not really any of my business that Heather B. Armstrong is getting divorced.

I know that I don’t actually know her (even though we met that one time), and that we are not actually friends, and that it has no bearing on my life whatsoever. I also know that any desire to learn the details of her divorce, no matter how well I justify them in my brain, are purely out of desire to know. For my own, selfish sake. I just want to know.

For those who do not follow Dooce.com, Heather is pretty much the blogger who all the other bloggers in the world want to be when they grow up. She writes about her life, and makes about a $1 million a year doing so. And, she writes books on the side like other people knit on the side, she has two beautiful daughters and I truly, truly thought she had the perfect life.

And I don’t mean “perfect” in the sense that nothing bad ever happens to her, because her books are mostly about bad things happening to her. (See: It sucked and then I cried: How I had a baby, a meltdown and a much needed margarita). 

I mean “perfect” in that she had everything important. A great, tech-savvy husband who treated her as an equal, a way to make a living a writer on her own terms, and a community of support on the Internet that she could turn to no matter what was happening to her.

And then, a few months ago, she got separated from her great, tech-savvy husband. And she has recently announced that they will, in fact, be getting a full divorce.

For some reason, the news was devastating to me. If Heather B. Armstrong can’t keep her marriage together, what the heck hope is there for the rest of us?

I think what makes the news even more stunning is that Heather has decided not to share the ins and out of the decision. Which makes perfect sense on a human level. But after reading about everything that’s ever happened to her over the years, it makes this news so much more striking. What went wrong? Why did this happen? Can a marriage really dissolve that quickly? Without anyone noticing until it was gone?

As a child of divorce, I though that I understood what really happens to a family when parents split up, but I have to say that during my last four years a youth leader, I have come to see first-hand how completely tragic divorce is for everyone involved. For the parents, for the kids, for everyone. It’s tragic. And I would not wish that on anybody.

I know they had their reasons and that most of us will never be privy too them. I get that. And for them, the reasons were surly tragic enough to warrant this tragic outcome. I am not judging in the least. But I am saying extra prayers for their family right now.

I’m also, slowly, starting to see, that really, nobody out there has the perfect life. Not even Heather B. Armstrong.

Which makes it a little easier to live my own life, I guess. All of us are struggling after all, bearing our crosses and slaying dragons on a daily basis. And it is that common struggle that bonds us all as equals. And makes it so important to do as Jesus commanded, and “Love One Another.”

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All of our wrists are probably doomed.

My wrists are feeling better than they were. I mean, they’re not like “better” as in pain free or anything, but they’re on the mend for sure.

I’ve had three physical therapy appointments where I basically just sat with my wrists in huge heating blankets for 10 minutes or something and then the therapist used ultra sound therapy on my wrists.

And not like, “Oh, let’s just make sure there’s no alien living in your wrists to be on the safe side”-ultra sound therapy, but like the ultra sound rays or whatever are supposed to help them heal.

There’s not even a screen with an image of the inside of my wrists, which is kind of disappointing.

When I asked the dude what the ultra sound machine even did, he seriously said, “Nobody really knows.”

That was his answer. “Nobody really knows.”

But it doesn’t really matter I guess, because it does seems to be working.

I just have to stay pretty well medicated, and not use my wrists for anything at all ever for a little while longer. The prognosis is good after that. In fact, if I play my cards right, the whole thing could heal and I could be using my wrists for all sorts of activities by summer!

But, I need to tell you, as a sort of life warning, that for some reason, right now, in my current condition, doing anything on my super huge smart phone makes them throb.

Seriously. Throb. Like, “bum bump, bum bump, bum bump” with pain.

And I’m not saying tendinitis is definitely going to happen to you because you have a smart phone or anything, but you should probably be on guard for it. Maybe set it down every three hours or so, and cut back on the Words with Friends and Facebook.

Because I wouldn’t wish the pain I’ve been in the last few weeks on anyone.

 

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