Children of Divorce

When I was a child, I was so very happy to be alive. I would wake up with a smile on my face, ready to experience everything life had to offer. My mind would race around like a dolphin gliding through water. Sunday mornings were my favorite. I would wake up, have breakfast prepared by my mother or father, and watch my favorite cartoons on TV until I went outside to play the day away. My siblings and I would pretend sticks were swords and slay mighty beasts or go on a mystical crusade through the patch of trees that, at the time, seemed like a forest to our tiny bodies. We would ride our scooters and bikes down the hill by our house. Many times we walked downtown together to play in the park. After a long day of playing in the sun, we went to get frozen custard at our favorite ice cream parlor called the Yum Yum Tree. Days went by so slow and were filled to the brim with joy. 

Something began to change inside me when my parents sat us down and told us they were getting a divorce. I didn't feel anything at first other than an icy sensation crawling up my spine like a spider. I shivered and it hit me all at once. I bolted out the door and ran to hide somewhere. I spent hours outside hiding from my family as they searched for me. Those words could rend any child's heart from within the cavity of their chest and split it in two. How could one choose a parent? We would never be whole again. 

They brought us into the courtroom to speak to the judge: "Who would you like to live with?" she asked. "Both of them!" I cried as she looked at me with a stone-cold gaze that could freeze even the hottest embers in a moment. She didn't accept that as an answer and asked me again. I refused to answer. I could never pick between my parents, but the choice was decided for me. For almost the entirety of my teenage years, I barely saw my father. He had to fix himself to be a part of my life again, but in doing so left me broken. I desperately yearned for a father figure in my life. I wanted to feel that paternal love that I was missing inside me. When I would see other kids with their fathers and hear them say "dad" or a loving exchange between them my battered heart would sink into my stomach. I could feel tears swelling up inside my eyes as I stared at the pair longingly, craving that same connection of which I was deprived. I searched for it in different people who could give that guidance and love I needed. 

The romanticization of romance is a tricky thing. Because I had seen how poorly it went for my mother and father who had claimed to love each other but in the end amounted to spite and lifelong hatred, it has always been in the back of my mind that it isn't real; however, the idea of a real love that is pure and burns for eternity still was what I hungered. Something to repair that black hole of a heart that was left from my childhood being torn asunder.

Searching for that feeling to meld my soul with someone else has always been something that I search for to complete myself again with someone else, but trust has been a difficult thing for me to give another person. Creating a family of my own that is whole and not broken seems so distant to me now, but I still have hope for that ideal future that cures my disabled heart. 

I haven't been feeling like myself as of late. Emotions wash over me like a rising tide, but each hour it is a different ocean. When I wake, I feel happy to be alive, but the dread of existence sinks in slowly and sours me into feeling forlorn. At times, it fades. Thinking again about starting something new with someone else begins to feel like a spark of hope, but there is something holding me back. The loss of what I had once has begun to creep into my thoughts again to remind me I should never do this to myself again and risk what has become of my parents. I dream about past relationships and how they ended so poorly. Will this doubt ever escape my thoughts, or will it house itself as a squatter not paying rent for my suffering?