My parents are divorced. It's no secret.

I learned to live with it and accept I wasn't going to have the ideal and 'perfect' family and that was ok. It got to the point where if my mom ever got in contact with my dad or vice versa I would freak out and ask why. It was as if I had them in two separate universes and never wanted them to talk to each other.

Because they divorced for a reason right?

That meant they had some problem with each other that they could be married anymore.

If I ever got in trouble or did something academically good, my mom would let my dad know (as I lived with my mom growing up) and I would panic. Or if my dad came to pick me up for his weekend with me, I would hurry outside that way my mom wouldn't have to say 'Hi', and tell me she loved me.

It's weird now that I think about it now, I mean sometimes I still worry when I find out they talk about me without me actually being there for the conversation, or when they make plans together that involve me. I don't panic or constantly worry about it now but it is still a little odd every now and then. Though now I struggle with something a little different than my divorced parents talking.

It's finding time to spend time with both now that I don't have to have scheduled time with both.

In high school when I turned 18, I didn't necessarily have to go to my dad's house every weekend because technically, by the state of Texas, I was an adult and did not have to see my dad if I didn't want to or feel like it. But I still went because I loved my dad, stepmom, and youngest sister.

Also, it was like a schedule I couldn't shake off even if I want to. I was so used to packing a pair of clothes every Friday afternoon and wait for a text or phone call from my dad to let me know he was outside waiting for me.

The game changed when I was in my first year of college and came home for my first-holiday break.

Usually, the way things worked was that I would spend a holiday with my mom or dad for the year and the next year the day would go to whoever I didn't spend it with the previous year.

But for some reason I found myself spending the day with both my parents, one in the morning and part of lunch and the other for the rest of lunch and dinner, simply because I couldn't choose between the two.

No longer was it Thanksgiving with dad and Christmas with mom but Thanksgiving with mom and dad and the same with Christmas. I tried to understand where this change had spawned from and I think it was because now that I was finally out of the house, my parents realized they needed me more.

It sounds self-absorbed but it was true, my younger sister with my dad started to get I wasn't coming around as often cause of school and expected me more while with my mom (who is a single parent) I was like another parent to my other siblings - driving them around for school sometimes, helping them with school work, chores and feeding them when need be.

I remember thinking the holiday season was hard back then.

Switching holidays every year with each parent and giving my time equally but now is definitely hard because sometimes I have to put one over the other whereas back then I didn't make that choice but my parents did. It's hard to make that choice and sometimes I wish I didn't have to.

My mom will call when I'm over at my dads and ask when I'm coming back home and my dad will call when I'm at my mom's and ask when I am coming to visit with my sister. It's exhausting sometimes to figure out a schedule on when to exert my love and to whom rather than having an already set schedule that everyone has to follow.

When I was younger I was the pawn, being traded back and forth between my parents and now my time is the pawn and I wonder if there was ever a way not to trade it. Of course, I have had the last two-ish years to perfect it but there are times where I still haven't figured it out while the other times I think I have a hold of it all.