Break-ups are difficult at best, traumatizing at worst.  There’s the bottoming out of the stomach, the crushing pain in your chest, the anger and tears, the questions that plague your sleepless nights.  There’s betrayal, or a sense of failure.

And then, there are the children, caught in the middle.

Children of divorces are breaking up, too:  they’re breaking up with the imaginary vision of the perfect nuclear family, and wondering what they could have said or done to make it right.  They’re being told that everything will be okay while beyond their bedroom doors, they listen to screaming, sobbing, or a chilling silence.  They don’t know whether to hate one parent or both; some days, it varies.  Even when things are amicable, it stings; the child sees nothing wrong, and can therefore not reconcile why mommy or daddy is moving out.

I knew my parents needed to be apart for years before they did, but I was still shattered the night my father left.  Because I was clinging to the pathetic image we’re sold on TV of what a family should be, what parents should do and say.

I was still deluding myself that things could be wonderful.

Day 222:  Wonderful – Everclear