It's easy to isolate yourself when you're buried in work, or to rely only on work friends for empathy. And while your work friends will always 'get it' more than your life partner, they don't know how to comfort you like your partner does.

You're not a victim of your divorce. What you decide to do with yourself and your personal life after your marriage ends is your decision, and completely under your control.

Some divorcees turn their pain inward. They brood, and they grieve for a long time, always wondering if they could have done something differently to keep this from happening. They make every problem in their relationship into something they could have prevented.

Dealing with wedding stuff is a bit of a double-edged sword - it seems that divorcees are expected to either burn it all on the front lawn, tears silently coursing down their faces, or keep the stuff, shrine-like, concealed somewhere in their homes.

Things can be tough even when surrounded by nice Pottery Barn stuff.

People get married for a wide array of reasons and have all sorts of expectations of how marriage will change the relationship. And while it's true that turning the person you're dating into a legal partner does affect certain things, those who expect marriage to be a cure-all for all your relationship woes are sorely mistaken.

I am fairly convinced that people plan destination weddings because they would actually like to elope but want to have given you the option to attend.

Get married wherever you like, make accommodations for the people you love so they can attend, and forget about the people who can't.

No matter how you handle alcohol at your wedding, you will most likely be upsetting someone.

As any daytime judge show can tell you, spending someone's money or taking their stuff because they hurt your feelings is not justified.

I have a pretty intense work ethic. If something's not done, I cannot let go until I get it done.

Far from 'rotting my brain,' as I was often told would happen, TV helped me feel less alone at a time when I spent so much time alone.

I'd watch shows like 'The Kids in the Hall' or 'Twin Peaks,' and I'd see weird people being celebrated and appreciated without compromising their weirdness. On 'The Facts of Life,' I'd see girls who were pudgy, beautiful, popular, tomboyish - many ways of being female - and I'd feel quietly reassured.

I grew up in a very small town in North Carolina, weird and pudgy, without too many other kids to play with. I spent a lot of time watching TV. It was my reassurance that the outside world was bigger and more colorful than the one I lived in.

For so long, TV consisted of a limited number of shows a year, and those shows had to appeal to as many people as possible. The joy of TV now is that shows don't have to be broad anymore - they can be small, weird, and niche.

Parents go to sleep early. This is universal.

Holiday food is rich and indulgent. Going-home-to-see-family food is richer and even more indulgent.

Nothing makes me feel more mushy and full of love for my husband than going back and looking at our flirtation unfolding online. I love reading our old e-mails, texts, and Gchats.

'The Babadook,' written and directed by a woman, is a gorgeously told female-focused story of grief, longing, loneliness, and what mourning can become.

In high school, I decided that all of my female friends were stupid and traded them for guy friends. I loved horror movies and heavy metal and used these interests to become a 'guys' girl.'

Without knowing your own history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Keeping physical items from the past is important - we keep old toys, grandparents' jewelry, yearbooks, dance recital programs - and we assign meaning to them. Those items become the memories, and that's a very healthy thing to do. The problems occur when we have too many of those sentimental items, and they start weighing us down.

Love is a good thing.

Burlesque dancing didn't solve all my post-divorce problems, but what it did do was force me to court myself for a little while.