When I was two years old, my parents got divorced. I can’t say that I remember anything that
was going on in the house or with my
parent’s relationship at the time. If I
did, I have long-since repressed those memories. So, as far as I’ve known, I have grown up my
entire life with two households. My
parents agreed to joint custody, so my brother and I entered into a complicated
life of being shuffled back and forth from one parent to the other. The arrangement was logical, I suppose, so
that neither of our parents had to be away from us for too long, but it was
brutal on my brother and I.
My mother got the odd months – January, March, May,
etc. My father got the even months –
February, April, June, etc. I’m not sure
how much thought went into that at the time, but it did ensure that my mother
got us for Mother’s Day, and my father got us for Father’s Day. Also, we spent one major holiday
(Thanksgiving and Christmas) at each of their houses. In addition to trading months, we were also
shipped back and forth every other weekend.
They lived relatively close to each other, so the drive wasn’t so much
of an issue. It was the life itself that
was hard on us.
When we went to one parent’s home, we left behind the life
we had at the other. Our friends, our
toys, our routine…all gone. We entered a
new world with different friends, different toys, and different routines. The only consistent thing was our school. After years of doing this, and essentially
growing up like this, you get used to it.
My friends eventually learned the routine and early on would plan things
based on if it was a month when I’d be around.
But my friends didn’t stop living just because I was gone for a month. So I often found, especially as I got older,
that they had moved on without me, developing different circles of friends and
doing things without me. Some stopped
even asking, because it was too much of a hassle to plan around my schedule. I found myself becoming more and more
isolated. I tried to connect with people
at both houses, but connection takes time and consistency…neither of which I
could provide.
My parents didn’t really seem to understand this or how hard
it was. Maybe they expected us to have
the resiliency of youth. Maybe they
thought we were coping just fine. Maybe
they didn’t think about it at all; so caught up in their adult lives and
getting even with each other, that they never stopped to consider what it was
doing to the two innocent kids caught in the middle. To be fair, we never really told them. My brother and I complained about it with
each other, but we never really brought it up to them. I’m not sure it would have made much
difference. What could they do? They were trapped in the cycle too.
Life went on like this, until I was thirteen. My brother, who was three years older,
decided that one day he wasn’t going back to my mother’s house. He was finally taking a stand for himself…for
his life…for consistency. He was
choosing to live permanently at my father’s.
Needless to say, this did not go over well. My father tried, to his credit, to get my
brother to go. But what can you do with
a sixteen year-old boy who has made up his mind? You can’t forcibly drag him into the car
(although I do remember my mother yelling that my father should have done just
that). So, on we went without him. My father driving ever closer to the
inevitable battle that he knew awaited him on the other side, and me sitting in
the back, terrified at the wrath that would be unleashed and the backlash that
would consume me in its wake. And just
like that, with that one decision, my brother changed my entire world. Life was in upheaval. The routine changed. Everything changed…and not for the better.
I won’t go into the fight that transpired between my parents
when we got there. I’m sure you can
imagine it just fine without it being described. But I will say that I was right to be
terrified. In her anger, my mother
inadvertently made my life a terror. I
don’t think she meant to intentionally be hard on me. I know that she was hurt by my brother’s
actions, not just the action, but the significance of that action as well. In her mind, it meant that my brother was
choosing my father over her, and that rejection hurt more than anything. I see that now, but I didn’t see that
then. Back then, I walked on eggshells,
because I never knew when I’d set her off.
It wasn’t only my mother.
I changed on both sides. I look
back at that time, the hardest of my entire life, and I see how it shaped
me. I became more introverted. I kept more to myself and became more
watchful. I had to learn an entirely new
way to think about and approach situations…to manipulate them to my advantage
without giving anything away…to dance the dance. I became more conniving and sly. I’m not saying this was a good thing, but I
can see how I became this way. For three
years, I traversed the waters alone. My
brother had abandoned me. The one person
who could empathize with my plight was not only gone, but his removal of
himself from the situation had actually made it worse for me. I was now the sole recipient of the negative
attention, the housework, and the pawn between my parents.
This went on for three years, until I was also sixteen. Then, I made the hardest decision of my life,
and I decided to stand up for me as well.
I chose to also live with my father permanently. But unlike my brother, I faced my mother and
stepfather with my choice. I sat there
on that fireplace, and I took every word.
I endured every question and accusation.
It was horrible. Understandably,
they were upset and hurt. But I was made
out to be the bad guy for choosing to correct a situation that I never asked to
be put into in the first place. Sure, I
could have chosen my mother’s house, but by this time, I had no friends in the
area. I had no social life in the
area. It was the formative years, when
you’re evolving your identity and your circle of relationships, and I chose the
place that was going to help me foster those.
It wasn’t about my mother or my father.
It was about me. It was what I
needed to do for myself. After fourteen
years of being something that my parents selfishly used against each other, it
was finally going to be about me. It
should have been about me, and my brother, all along. But if someone else wasn’t going to make that
choice for me, then I’d make it for myself.
So, I did.
I paid the price, in full.
I endured the wrath. I had paid
it for my brother, who was too much of a coward to pay it himself, and I paid
it again for me. I kept going to see my
mother and stepfather, every other weekend.
When I went off to college, I still went home on the weekends to see
them. I continued to be there, in their
lives. They weren’t always warm to me,
especially at first, but it got better. I
think when they realized that I wasn’t going to abandon them like my brother
did, that it wasn’t something personal against them, that they started to let
me back in. I think it also helped when
I went away to college. By that point, I
wasn’t choosing anybody at all.
Ironically, I ended up having an amazing relationship with
both my stepfather and my mother. The
one with my mother, which I still enjoy, is better than it’s ever been. At some point, we moved past all of that, and
became even closer. That is not the
ironic part. The ironic part is that
even as I grew closer to my mother, I grew further away from my father. Somewhere around five years ago or so, the
tables began to tip the other way. I guess
you can never truly have that perfect balance.
I look back at my life, especially those fourteen years, but
even the aftermath of the next seven or eight, and I can see how I was being
shaped as a human being. I see where my
negativity, suspicion, and manipulation evolved. But I also see where my maturity, bravery, and
loyalty evolved. I still fight the first
three, and I still have the last three.
And through the years, I have developed other qualities to help temper
and compliment those.
It was a hard life. A
life I would never choose for anyone. It
definitely wasn’t the best childhood that I could have had, but it wasn’t the
worst by any means. I mean I got two
amazing stepparents out of the deal, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, so it
couldn’t have been all bad. I don’t think
God chooses bad things for people, but He is there to help turn them into
something good. I was too oblivious to
realize it at the time, but I see now that He never left my side throughout all
of those trials. He was constantly
shaping me, lovingly helping me, and sometimes carrying me. I don’t know how I would have made it without
Him. In a word, I’m a survivor. I have come through the fire, and I’m still
here.
