“Your team is here,” my mom said, when I got to the bank this morning. She was with her banker (my mom is of an income and a generation that she has “her banker”), who also happens to live up the street from me. We were meeting the mortgage specialist at the same bank where I opened a passbook savings account when I was ten. I remember that little book and the typed in numbers that went up with every birthday and Christmas. It was supposed to teach me about money, but I’m not sure that it succeeded given my current situation. It certainly didn’t teach me how to say  NO to a man in love with credit.

As we met, everyone was so helpful and even funny, despite the very heavy thing on the table – the fate of my house and its mortgage, which is mired in all of the gunk of both divorce and the current mortgage crisis. We told the mortgage woman, who was irreverent and also divorced, that we were forming Team Jennifer. “I want to be on the team, too!” she declared. “We need t-shirts.”

The team is growing. There’s my neighbor who turns out to work for Legal Aid who gave me great advice over coffee the other day. Another neighbor who is helping me put in new parts to my kitchen and comes over at a moment’s notice when anything breaks or doesn’t turn on. The violin teacher who gives me an extra long hug each week, and the teachers and counselors at my kids’ school who are keeping an extra eye on them. The friend who is organizing a yard clean-up day with me after I expressed how overwhelmed I was by the prospect of doing it alone. The friends from afar who send periodic cards and even care packages.

It takes a village to get divorced with your sanity intact, that’s for sure. What I’m finding is that people know divorce sucks, and if the mere mention of it doesn’t send them running for the hills – as it does with many, just like the word “cancer” – then they’re probably willing to be on your team. They may only show up for outfield duty a few times a season, but that’s plenty. Don’t be too proud or passive or shy to ask. I’m finding that if you ask, they will come.