My feelings about my parents' divorce

Sometimes I wish I could travel back in time. I often envision what it would have been like to have witnessed my parent's wedding day. It's so strange and almost sickening to picture them happy, in love and willing to spend the rest of their lives with each other. Those days are long gone. They’re not coming back. The hardest part about this whole reality is not the fact that my parents became divorced; the hardest part, was watching it all fall apart right before my eyes.

As foggy as my memories are, I know that there was a time when there was peace. My parents would always spend time together when I was young. I remember when they went for walks every morning, took my sisters and me on vacations and stayed up until midnight cooking Thanksgiving dinner together for the next day. When I was eleven, things started to get out of hand. My father would often abuse my older sister, and I would hide in the closet while it happened. I can still hear my mom screaming as she jumped in front of her daughter. It was all such a mess. As the years went by, my mom seemed more and more unhappy. At sixteen years old, I knew what was about to happen. I remember the day I saw the divorce papers on some coffee table in the house. I cried all day at school. I didn’t fully understand the reasons why this was happening then; I just knew that nothing was working out right. Our family was breaking apart and nothing that I did could keep it together.

I’m twenty years old and now in college. I still ask myself why. How could my father choose to be so selfish and unfaithful? Weren’t we good enough for him? Wasn’t my mother good enough? She left everything for him, yet he still lusted for more. It’s amazing to me how such ardent lovers could become such fierce enemies; how people could toss aside feelings that once filled their hearts and gave their lives meaning. Every day it saddens me, but now, I’m trying to move on.