I wish I could look back and remember my idyllic child. I wish there were treat or treating memories of when my mom came to school and volunteered. I wish there were birthday parties and vacations. But there’s not. My parents divorced when I was ten, but it was over way before that. I remember being little and playing alone a lot and I remember my dad sleeping all day long. I don’t know what I ate for lunch, or how I didn’t manage to get hurt. I remember feeling lonely but also really quiet because he’d be grumpy if I woke him up. And I remember nights, I would be sleeping on the sofa and my parents would be screaming and screaming at each other. Full on top of the lungs screaming, and then there would be crying. I don’t think I cried though or got scared because it was never about me. I just kind of took care of myself and yes that sounds so conceited to say, but I think if that’s all you know you just do. I think around 4 or so I learned how to dial my grandparents phone number and from then on in, I would call and my aunt or uncle would come and get me and take me to my grandmothers house. And since then I’ve never wanted help for anything, I never wanted to be a bother to anyone so I try to do everything myself. And why am I thinking about this? Why do I feel like I need to write about this? I think that when people say if kids are young divorce doesn’t make too much of a difference is bull. Divorce at any age makes a huge difference and it messed up your life. I do not know one person whose parents are divorced who is totally normal. There is always something there. As a parent and as a person I keep seeing all this stuff coming out in my life and I can only tie it back to my parents divorce. Let me also say I was not abused- not physically, not mentally (at least not on purpose). I had food and clothes and toys and a roof over my head. I just have a lot of deep issues and it all stems from the fact that when I was a child my normal was anything but.
Kids nowadays or maybe in the late 90′s probably knew many people whose parents are no longer together. In the early 80′s there was only 5 kids total in my whole school who had divorced parents. I didn’t ever have a friend to turn to and to this day, all of my friends have parents who are still married.
I am just trying to get through each day, and trying to grow and become the person I want to be.
My issues are anxiety and insecurity. And I can not in my wildest dreams, on my worst days of my kids whining and fighting, imagine dropping them off at my in-laws and just going on with my life, having my kids be an after thought of my day to day. My kids are my life, they are my world. I get up each day to take care of them and help to raise them to be good people. I love to just hang out with them and listen to them talk to each other, I love to hear them laugh, I love when they learn something and share it with me. I just love them. For most of my life I didn’t want kids, because I didn’t want a commitment to anyone or anything. I wanted to be free to come as I please and not be hurt by rejection. But then the kids came along, and I they are my life. Who does that? Who is that selfish? I mean lots of marriages don’t work, but one parent usually steps up, my parents thought oh well we aren’t good at this so let’s give her to the grandparents and then we can go on just living and doing what we please. Talk about rejection, is it no wonder I’ve lived the last 36 years petrified that friends would dump me, boyfriends would be tired of me, my husband would leave me, bosses would fire me. The only attachments I formed were to my grandparents and when they died, my anchor in life just vanished. I was back to square one of life being me and only me. I feel like at this time I need to write about this. I need to address what it feels like to be an adult child of divorce. I want to share my story and maybe some others will also.
