Kenisha’s Reviews > Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage > Status Update

Still I asked myself, Would I have wanted to hear about someone's divorce? Would I have moved toward them? Or would I have assumed it was too private to talk about, or that they were a bit un-hinged, and moved away? I hope I would have chosen the for-mer, but I'm not sure.

Others moved away from me, often literally, a few slow steps away from the heat of me. It was the equivalent of New York friends who responded to my news with texts like, "T'1l be thinking of you," or I had never thought about this before how a closed-ended response, no matter how well-intentioned, can feel like an ending the declining of an invitation to engage.

Others moved away from me, often literally, a few slow steps away from the heat of me. It was the equivalent of New York friends who responded to my news with texts like, "I’ll be thinking of you," or "Sending love to you and the kids." These responses, though kind, felt distancing, a turning away when I had flung my doors wide open.

The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending, of his exit, felt like matching bookends. The both came out of nowhere. The both left me reeling. In both instances, he was definitive, certain. There was no gray area. The switch went on and then it went off. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t.