"This is the part where you find out who you are."
Being a child of a divorced family changes you. Both for the good and the bad, divorce changes everything. When you're young the changes are about where you go to school, who you spend holidays and always feeling stuck in the middle. Those changes are all very physical. As we get older the changes become more internal. You question your own relationships. You wonder if it is still normal to feel the affect of the divorce so many years late. We internalize our emotions and try to act like because we're older now our parents divorce doesn't still affect us, but it does.
My parents got divorced when I was two. I'm now twenty one and still deal with the repercussions of them getting divorced nineteen years ago. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my huge crazy family but sometimes it is exhausting. When I was younger I went back and fourth between my mom and dad's house every week and my family tried their best to make things easy for me but it was tough. I had to grow up a lot quicker than people around me because I had a lot more pressure on my plate. There was always pressure to understand the rules at both houses, please everyone and try to make my little brothers kind of understand what was going on. Now there are new dynamics in my life because I am away at school. Everyday I spend anywhere between an hour to two hours calling both sides of my family and filling them in on what is gong on in my life. I still travel between both houses on my winter and summer breaks. Still, it is seriously exhausting.
While my parents' divorce still affects me in a negative way sometimes, it has made me a stronger and better person today.
Know that your parents chose to get divorced for their own reasons and it was never your fault. It is now up to you to take the hand that you have been dealt and try to grow. Learn to love yourself. Learn that you are strong and will be able to overcome any hard times thrown your way. Being a child of divorce means you have double the love and encouragement in everything that you!
They say music heals the soul and for children of divorce we never really had a song to heal. There are songs for breakups, love stories and fun summer nights but there are no song out there that helps us deal with our parents' divorce. A few weeks ago country singer Raelynn released the song "Love Triangle." She wrote this song about her own parents divorce and you can feel her raw emotions behind it. With the country's divorce rate at nearly 50% this song is there for half of the children in this country. It can help children of divorced families know that there are other children out there who are going through the same emotions and problems.
Unless you've been through it yourself you don't completely understand what it's like to go through all of those ups and downs throughout growing up. I've listened to this song every day since it came out and it still gets to me, there's just something very powerful behind it. Although we can't change what happened with our parents we can grow from it and become stronger people and I truly believe that this song will help many many people.
"And some mommas and daddies
Ran outta love in '94
And some mommas and daddies
Don't even talk no more
And some mommas and daddies
Let their heart strings tear and tangle" - Raelynn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FUVdTEQxu8I
Right now I am trying to find a balance between accepting my family for who we all are but also still wanting us to be one big happy family. While my family may never all sit around a dinner table together I know that they will ALL be there for my big moments. They were there for me when I graduated high school, they will be there for me in May when I graduate college and they will ALL be there for me in everything that I do.
