And I sit here in my much smaller house, with my much smaller bank account than theirs. My kids are romping in the living room, sporting Australian accents while my husband vacuums. Our house is a mess. We are in debt. And I am lucky.
Divorce makes me nauseous. My parents divorced when I was 2. I don't remember them together, except a few fleeting memories of a phone ringing above my head while I sat in my high chair watching them prepare dinner. I remember running and jumping into their bed one morning. I remember I was wearing a night gown. I remember my feet slapping the hard wood floors. And that's it.
I do remember a lot afterward. Things that seemed normal at the time. They were just my life. I knew no different.
First of all, I was loved greatly. I saw both of my parents on a timely schedule. My parents never fought in front of me or discussed their relationship with me while I was small.
I also remember many things that, as I've grown older and had my own children, shake me.
I remember banging on my mom's boyfriends bedroom door in the middle of the night because I was afraid of sleeping on his couch again.
I remember when I was about 4, Dad took me to the lake with a woman with beaded hair who looked like Bo Derrick. I had to swim in my underwear because he didn't think to bring a bathing suit. I remember hating having to spend my weekend with her and purposely picking my nose on the drive home to embarrass him.
I remember another girlfriend sunbathing nude on the back porch of his condo. My dad was uncomfortable. I knew it. But he said nothing.
I remember crying as my mom drove away from Dad's condo because I knew he would be so lonely without me until our next weekend together.
I remember him taking me to the dollhouse store to buy me a dollhouse. I spent hours there, looking at dollhouses, dolls and miniature furniture. He spent lots of time talking to the pretty lady that owned the shop. He bought me the dollhouse. I never really knew what to do with the family of four. Mother, Father, Daughter and Son. I would put the brother away and then alternate between Daughter & Mother or Daughter & Father. I thought that was fair.
I remember letting both my mom's boyfriend and my dad's girlfriend into my life with childlike innocence. Loving them with a little 4 year old heart. And then one day they just didn't come back anymore. One of them had given me a dog. I loved that dog.
They were all good people. Trying to live life. Trying out relationships like various shoes. Except that I was tagging along.
I remember going to my friends' houses with 'whole families'. They were big and loud and messy. They shared rooms and had more than two chairs around their dinner tables. They wore hand-me-downs and squished together in the backseats of cars. The mom and dad held hands.
I remember my friend Amber's dad was a janitor. I thought it was sad that her dad was a janitor. Until I went one night we had a sleep-over and we went to pick him up in their one family car, her two sisters sitting on either side of me. He walked out of the huge glassy office building in his washed-out blue coveralls to 4 huge hugs and squeals of "Daddy!!". He tossled my hair and took us all out for cheap Mexican food. I decided that Amber had the most wonderful family I'd ever seen.
I remember believing with wholehearted, childlike faith that they divorced because they didn't like me. I was logical... they were married for 10 years, had me, and then divorced two years later. I later learned that the majority of children of divorce think that the break up of their parents' marriage was their fault.
So, now, years later I am an adult. I am a good person. I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. I am married to a man who will stay by my side forever. I adore him. I have my big, loud and messy family. We hold hands. I am happy.
Yet, I know. I KNOW that I would be a completely different person if my parents had not divorced. I don't know who that person would be, what she would look like, or if I'd even like her. I know she'd be different. Because no child goes through the break up of a family unaffected. No child. Divorce tears a child's life apart. The pieces can fall back together nicely, even neatly and 'successfully', but never the same.
And so, today I will chat on the phone to my sister-in-law. I will pray for my brother-in-law and write him a letter. And I will try not to scream "NOOOO!!!" and the top of my voice. I will try not to overreact. I will try not to shake him and plead, "Do you know what you are doing to these boys you love so much? Do you really think that they will pass through this unscathed?"
Because, I can tell you. They won't.
