From In The Bubble

We walk through life with all these titles, some bestowed upon as at birth (sister, brother, daughter, son), some earned throughout our life (lawyer, friend, alcoholic) and then there are the unwanted ones, the ones you wish you could shed like a skin and leave behind. Of course these are the ones that are with us forever. The best example is being a child of divorce. You don’t chose it, you aren’t there signing the papers, but you’re included in the negotiations, split the money, split the furniture, split the children.

Shuttled back and forth every two weeks, my half packed bag was always left about 5 feet from the back door. What’s the point in unpacking when in two weeks you’ll pack up the same shit, take it to the same place and come back with it less than 48 hours later. My dad’s house never felt like it was ours. It was his. All of it. I was afraid to touch things, move things. He told me recently that when he first moved in I would follow him all over the house, from room to room, I couldn’t stand being more than 10 feet from him. He uses this as an example of how close we were, how bonded. When he says it I have a hard time not correcting him. We were close, but I followed him because everytime he got up I thought he was leaving us again. Leaving me again.

Life before the divorce was ours. Our house, our backyard, our creepy basement. Even though they were probably just talking about the two of them, I felt included in the our. After they resorted to ‘my’. My house, my car, my life. After the divorce the thing that hurt the most, that felt the worst, wasn’t that my parents were apart or we weren’t a family anymore. It was that I felt like I had no home, I didn’t belong anywhere. Everything was temporary. I’ve never really considered myself a child of divorce because my parents get along better now than when they were married. I’m not a child of divorce, I’m a child of my.