Personal Narrative: Divorce Has Shaped My Life

Divorce can be a good thing. I know it sounds crazy but really, divorce is great, and has shaped my life in the most unimaginable ways I ever thought possible. Sometimes the best way to learn is to not look at what other people are doing, but what other people are not doing. Though my memories of my parents actually being together are very vague, from what I can remember it was not a healthy relationship by any means. From my mom saying my dad was “emotionally bankrupt” to my dad calling my mom every name in the book, the environment was tumultuous for a kid to be growing up in.

Fast forward around a year, I am going into the first grade and my parents have split. Dad kept the original house and mom moved into an apartment. At first I was really

Mom met a guy named Sean and he too had just been divorced. He also had two daughters. One my age and one a year younger than me. Dad had met a woman by the name of Darla who, guess what? Had also come from a recent divorce. She had a son but he was nearly in his twenties and lived in a place of his own.

One of the first challenges that arose from this new situation was moving house to house every other week. Something that really got on my nerves when I was younger, and into my early teens was the lack of consistency divorce had provided. You had two different households with two totally different dynamics, and not to mention to completely different parenting styles. What might be acceptable at one house might not necessarily be allowed at the other.

As Sean’s kids and my two sisters and I got more comfortable with each other, we started fighting like any other siblings would. Me, being the only guy amidst four other girls would lose my mind because I didn’t really have much in common with the other people in the house. They would want to play house or dress up, and since I didn’t really have anything better to do I went along with