Being an Island....

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

                                         ---- John Dunne, Meditation XVII

This might seem like a strange quote to start a post with, but at this early hour or late I suppose depending on your point of view, it seems oddly apt. Tonight I spoke on Facebook with someone who I hadn't talked to in a while. We met in college, and become friends, but as life happens, we didn't really keep in touch. However tonight for some reason I felt compelled to talk to her. 

Turns out she is in a similar situation that I was in 2 years ago. We both moved away from our families to places that we didn't know anyone, only to have our husbands be our only actual continuous face to face contact. At the time I was like everybody has someone else besides their spouse, and I spent the better part of a year feeling sorry for myself. Now she is in a similar position of being lonely, [granted I do not know the specifics] but what I realized is that we aren't all that different, we go through the same experiences, maybe at different times, but at the core we are all the same, wondering about jobs, relationships, babies.