I spent every weekend with her in her apartment on the other side of town. We watched lots of movies and took cooking classes together to help her learn how to prepare meals since my father had always been the cook of the family. She told me she had found a new job in Washington D.C. and would be leaving the following summer. Around the same time, my father asked me to move to Germany with him to get a fresh start. This brought up the question: who would I live with? The divorce judge told me if I did not want to choose a parent to stay with, she would make the decision for me. We ultimately decided that I would live with my mother in Washington D.C. for a year and then decide for myself if I wanted to stay there or move to Germany to live with my father. I began my journey as a small town midwestern girl and found myself immersed in the culturally diverse metropolitan of Washington
It all started the day I woke up to my parents arguing. It was a warm morning, but you couldn't see the sky thanks to the thick and ashy dust clouds. I walked downstairs and my parents turned and looked at my. My mother greeted me with a warm smile and sighed “sweetheart we have to tell you something,” she said “we have to move.” This surprised me a bit. I love the house. I love this land I've grown up. “Why are we moving?” I asked surprised. She turned to look at my father who looked back at me. “The dust is to heavy out here, if we don't leave now we're going to go broke” my father said with a sad tone in his voice. I'm so surprised they are really making us leave. I can't believe it! I ran upstairs and started to pack my stuff with tears
Feeling responsible for situations out of my control was difficult. My grades were awful, it was impossible to focus on anything. I could hardly sleep at night with the amounts of stress I was under. Knowing that my father was an alcoholic with bi-polar disorder opened me up to a new world. I was exposed to so much more than the average kid, especially when he would bring me to the Alcoholic Anonyms meetings. I met so many interesting people threw my father. My entire view of the world and its inhabitants has been altered. Growing up was very difficult but the experiences that I had has shaped the person I am today.
...nd the short summers. She finally explained that she had seen a radical change in the family. In California it was always work and more work and there was never a time to unwind with the family. Once we came to Michigan we were dependent on each other and had been united more than we ever were in California. She also knew that California would have made us turn to gang, drug and alcohol abuse as many of our family members had resorted for their own lives. This truly made me reflect on how my life would have been if California were still our home. My life would have been filled with negative surroundings and bad influences, I genuinely believe that I would not have finished high school or even gone to college. The relationship between my mom and my is better than it has ever been and has made me embrace the change while being united as a family.
I was forced to grow up fast, my entire life and everything I had ever known, changing in the matter of a day. I grew up in a small town in Kansas and was raised by my grandmother and great grandmother. Everything I knew and loved was contained in that little one cop, one stoplight town. My mother was a part of my life, but almost in that distant relative kind of way. I would see her two to three times a year, one of those being, our annual summer family trip out to Colorado, where she lived with her husband and my half-sister.
While everyone has their own stories about their childhood growing up, I'm happy with the life I had growing up and having all of the patience and kindness I got from my parents. Not everyone was raised the same way as everyone else in their life but I know that my kids will be raised the same way as i was
My parents were in a heated debate over financial issues, an alien topic to my eleven year old intellect. As the discussion grew in excitability and anger, the room sucked into a suffocating density. At this moment I immediately knew where this was leading and rushed my younger brother upstairs out of harm’s way. There was never a physical harm to protect him from, but it was as though I did this to spare his innocent mind from developing into one like mine; doubtful and angry. Why can’t my parents just get along? Why are they even fighting? Why does my life have to be this way? Why me? Why are they so careless of our feelings? What did we do to deserve this lifestyle? Why us? I spent too much time questioning, and pitying myself over the fact that my parents didn’t love me enough to stay happy with each other. Amongst my questioning always came out the little blip that disrupted my parents arguing, “Are you guys getting a divorce?” I’m not quite sure where I first heard the word, but it became my magic word that took all...
Everything is perfectly fine, everything is great, then one day it all comes crashing down and shattered pieces are left. My life would never be the same but I guess change is for the best and it forced me to become the person I am today. It’s rough to be the oldest child, especially when your mom is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and you have 3 younger sisters that look to you for comfort when their mom can’t be there. When the cancer is spread throughout your moms body doctors can’t just get rid of it no matter how badly you wish they could. Rounds of chemotherapy only slow it down, yet it’s still there a lurking monster waiting to reappear at any given moment. Nothing can even begin to describe the fear I felt, and still have to deal with today, but something happened where I could be there for others. What would Sheridan think, or what would 8 year old Lane think if they saw me cry? I had to be Strong not only for me, but for my other family members.
For me, it was very hard having my parents divorce, but I think it helped me become the person I am today. Even though I know that it was better for my parents to no longer be together, it still hurt me. I am not very close with my mother and that is why I partially blame my parents divorce on her. Me not being close to her affects me everyday. As a result of my parents divorcing, it has caused me a lot of emotional trauma for the past four years.
As I heard the screeching sounds of the gates of my compound, I dashed out in excitement knowing that my mom had returned from what seemed to be a long day of work. Upon reaching her, the gloomy look on her face did not sit well with as me as my mother is the most cheerful person I know. In my curiosity, I asked her what the problem was. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she told me that she had to close down her store because the business had failed and she had been suffering large amounts of financial losses. This memory, I recall so vividly, as this news initiated a series of changes in my life. Within the next week, I was told that we were relocating and that I had to enroll in a new school. At the age of 8, I was oblivious to why my family had to make so many financial cuts because of the loss of one business. Filled with anger and disappointment, I realized that what was once my reality had become my dream.
As the persistent, hot sun left beads of sweat on my neck, I ran along the pavement to my family’s apartment. I unlocked the door and, out of habit, I went to set my book bag on the couch. I froze. The couch was gone. In fact, everything was gone; all except a few cardboard boxes sitting on the dusty windowsill. It was only then that I noticed my dad sitting against the wall, eyes puffy and red. Before that point, the divorce never phased me. My parents had been quiet about their problems, keeping all the drama behind the curtain. It wasn’t until that moment, the moment I saw my dad break inside, that the divorce really set in.
My family consists of five children, which today is considered a large family. Of the five I am the youngest by six years. My parents were married for twenty-eight years before they decided that divorce was the only solution. I was fourteen years old and the one child that suffered the most emotional damage. Because of the many years my parents were married and the wide age difference between my siblings and myself I was the only child still living at home with my parents. The day my dad decided to move out was the day my life changed forever.
As I walked in to their bedroom, I found my mother sitting on the bed, weeping quietly, while my father lay on the bed in a near unconscious state. This sight shocked me, I had seen my father sick before, but by the reaction of my mother and the deathly look on my father’s face I knew that something was seriously wrong.
The summer before my freshman year of high school, my mother called me and my two sisters into the living room. We were all confused as to this surprise family meeting. My mom began to speak beginning with the words, “This is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to tell you girls...” Now, myself, becoming highly concerned; my mother continued with, “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”
It was going well for a while, then February came along and the factory where my dad was working wasn’t selling as much product as it did in December. My dad was not working as many hours as he did in the beginning. So we experienced the same problem again. By this time I was 16 and I suggested to my parents that we move back to Houston. Besides, I didn’t like being in New York. My parents thought about it for several days. We came back to Houston because of me. My dad came back to a temporary job; he didn’t have a stable job. We survived for a couple of months but again my dad lost his job. We started experiencing greater hardships and we started arguing about everything. Sometimes I felt that this was all my fault, because I had encouraged my parents to move back to Houston. By this time I was 17 and finishing my sophomore year in high school. I was not looking forward to going on summer break, I knew I was not going to have an awesome summer because we we’re facing many problems. I wondered if there was ever going to be a solution to all of the problems we were facing. Of course, there’s always a solution to everything, we just had to be positive and be confident in ourselves. We needed to believe in ourselves and ask ourselves, “How can we solve