This isn’t about denial; it’s the opposite, in fact. It’s a mighty and potent mixture of radical acceptance and radical refusal. Like the way, each time your heart breaks, you have to open it wider.

To quote the early 20th-century philosopher Pete Clemenza: That’s all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.

Where there is collective pain there is often splintering personal pain that goes unnamed and unannounced. And I want to tell you that you’re not alone.

Maybe a more useful way to approach the situation is to think in terms of net values. Like attracts like, after all. Despair begets despair.