My Family Divorce And Change In My Life

During middle school, I had to mature very quickly. My parents got divorced when I was 12 years old. When they first told me the news, I was devastated. I had always thought my parents would be together forever. I started crying because I didn’t know what else to do. My other siblings were too young to understand what was happening. While they were working things out, my parents would leave us home alone. I realized I had to step it up, and take care of my siblings. This moment was very important in my life because it made me grow up at a very young

Throughout my childhood, my environment consisted of switching between my mother's and father's house every week. Since I was an infant, my parents have been divorced and I believe that being a child of divorce has shaped my life tremendous ways. Through the hardships that came with living in two houses for 16 years of my life, I had the time to mature and learn a lot about myself and who I wanted to be as a person. Watching my parents for many years, I realized what I did and did not want to be when I grew up. From my father, I wanted to have the dedication and perseverance that he exhibited. From my mother, I wanted to be friendly and beautiful like her. However, there was many qualities that my parents carried that I did not want to take

The biggest memories that come to me are going to church in my hometown. Every Sunday was a special schedule. I got to wear my best clothes of the week, which was usually a dress, long socks, and a bow for my hair. Once my whole family was ready we would walk to church. On our way, my mom would often stop and talk to neighbors. Sometimes I would have to remind her that we were going to church or tell her that we were going to be late. Mass was an hour or so. After mass, my mom and dad would give me money to buy an ice cream or junk food. When I finished my ice cream, we would walk home with neighbors who lived on the same street. Walking home everybody would talk about how beautiful the ceremony was and how well the priest explained the Gospel. I loved the sense I was given by my neighbors. Comforting and belonging is what I felt when I was around them. McClay and McAllister refer to this as “anchor our memories in something more substantial than our thoughts and emotions,” which is my hometown connecting me back to my neighbors at my

There is one loss in my life that affected many aspects of my life for many years, the divorce of my parents. I was in barley entering the first grade and the tender age of five, soon to turn six, when my parents spent their last night as a married couple. I do not have many memories of my parents as a couple but I do remember the day my Daddy left. He was a policeman and I watched as his cruiser drove away from our family home. I remember my mom crying and not being willing to console me or explain to me what was happening. All I knew is there was a fight, my dad left, it seemed different than other times when he left, and my mom was crying. Everything about my life changed in the blink of a five year old’s eyes which is what makes this loss so significant in my life.

Six years ago, a summer afternoon, my dad hugged me and I said “I will be gone for three days, I have a job in Austin, but I promise that I will be back before your birthday. I promise.” Days, weeks, months almost two years passed by and I did not receive any phone call or text message from him. Throughout that time my dad was gone, my mom told me that she was getting the papers ready to divorce my dad. I was noticing that the last three-four years that I was living with both of my parents, their relationship was getting worse. It was not a healthy situation for anyone in the house. What I mean about not being healthy is that my mother and father were damaging one another, emotionally and verbally, which my brothers and I would watch everything. Every day was the same routine, we forgot how it was to have a peaceful home. Around that moment, I honestly never thought divorce was going to be their solution.

“What you are afraid to do is a clear indication of the next thing you need to do.” (-Ralph Waldo Emerson). My parent´s divorce has shaped and influenced my whole life, with a lot of side effects. I fell into a state of depression. I learned not to dwell on the bad things in life. I found a person within myself that I could live with for a while, a kid that I could be proud of, someone I wouldn’t hate. Over the years, I’ve changed, little changes, big changes, it’s all happened, and I am who I am today because of it. Not all crummy circumstances stay awful, even though it may feel like it. I can’t tell if I’ve changed for the better or the worse, but everything starts with something, one thing. My parent´s divorce shaped me into who I am today, whether the changes were good or bad, little or big, this has changed me.

When I was only four years old, my life changed forever. It was the year I moved to North Carolina. My dad’s friend got him a job opportunity that he simply couldn’t give up. So, he quit his job and found a nice rental house to live in. I had moved before but I don’t remember. I moved from Indiana to North Carolina with my brother my cat and my parents. When I moved to North Carolina, I was aware of what was happening, but I never realized how different everything would be. The house we moved into we only lived in for a year, but it was a pretty hectic year.

Even though situations seem averse they might become positive in the end. To me and probably most people in my situation would say that their parents being divorced would be a negative situation. Although at the time I was distraught, I learned that my parents divorce might have not been helpful at first, but later on it affected my life dramatically.

     Let me go back up and say that my dad was not perfect by any means. He was a hard worker and a good provider and he loved my mother and us. But he also allowed my mother to always be in control of the household, the finances and the discipline. My mother resented him for this and when things went wrong she wanted to blame him for his lack of input.

My mom and I loved cheesy Hallmark movies and having coffee parties until the wee hours of the morning because “just one more episode!” turned into another 5 episodes. It’s where my Saturdays were never free because we had 8am football games and 1pm baseball games. However, I would rather be caught dead then miss a game because being a personal cheerleader for my brothers was the best thing since sliced bread. It’s where we had spontaneous family card night with endless amounts of junk food, laughing, and the forbidden table talk. It’s where we had family pool days with picnics in the backyard where my brothers and I would rub our popsicles all over our bodies so that our dad would have get the hose and chase us with it to clean us off before we went

Looking back at my past, I recall my mother and father’s relationship as if it were yesterday. I am only four years old, small and curious; I tended to walk around my home aimlessly. I would climb book shelves like a mountain explorer venturing through the Himalayans, draw on walls to open windows to my own imagination, or run laps around the living room rug because to me I was an Olympic track star competing for her gold medal; however my parents did not enjoy my rambunctious imagination. My parents never punished me for it but would blame each other for horrible parenting skills; at the time I did not understand their fights, but instead was curious about why they would fight.

7th grade was the year I woke up. My mom called me into her bedroom late one afternoon and was still sitting on her bed, wearing her pajamas. The bright and cheerful sunshine that lit up the room gave a false ambiance of the tension that clouded the air. I already knew what she was going to say, but I did not want to believe it as the truth. I had noticed that my mom and dad's relationship with one another was growing apart just by the way they acted around each other. The conversations between them became shorter and their affection for one another began to fade. My dad spent his nights falling asleep watching TV on the couch, while my mom slowly disappeared back into her bedroom, alone. This had been happening for a while now, so I do not know why I was even surprised when my mom said to me that, “Your dad and I are getting a divorce”. I should have seen it coming. The clues were all in front of me, but I was too afraid to put them together. I was scared because, for the first time in my life, the image of my "perfect" family was crumbling before me. I knew inside that my family was falling apart, but I was desperately holding onto the fibers that I thought were keeping us together. It is hard to believe that one encounter can change the course of one's life forever. In this instance, I was awoken from the dream that I had been living in for so long.

I have an abundance of grotesque, yet, barely visible memories of childhood. However, no breathtaking family trips, no unique family togetherness that taught a moral lesson, no abnormal holidays. We still ate family meals together, but most often the children and adults lived in different worlds. When I needed comforting or wanted the best of both worlds, I could turn to my Grandpa.

Everyone has that one experience that makes them look at life with a new set of eyes. My life changing experience happened a little earlier than most. It was the summer before first grade. We had gotten an exceptional amount of rain in the past months even though it was summer. I did not notice, though, because summer was every six year old's favorite holiday, next to Christmas and their birthday. My summer was supposed to be like any other but it quickly took a turn. For the best or for the worst? That is debatable.

I remember myself sitting near a little block with letters and my mother teaching me the name of each of them. She starts to sing me a song to help me to memorize the alphabet. It is so funny singing the ABC song. At that instant, the door opens, and my father enters the room. That is the first thing carved in my memory, and each time when I think about it, I conclude that we are the best family in the world.