I was 12 years old when I found out that my parents were getting divorced. My father and I were driving back from Indiana and out of the blue he asked me, "Taylor, how would you feel if your mother and I got divorced?"

I remember feeling as if my heart had broken into a million tiny pieces and I remember pleading for him to take back the words he had just said.

I was born in New England and, when I was nine, I moved to Virginia with my parents. I don't remember them fighting when we lived up north, but I can vividly recall my parents arguing a lot once we moved. During the summer of 2004, I visited my grandparents in Massachusetts. I was originally only going to be there for two weeks, but two weeks turned into six.

My parents told me it was because they wanted me to spend more time with my grandparents, but I later found out that wasn't the case. The weekend I returned home from Massachusetts, my father told me that we were taking a road trip to visit his family in Indiana. That weekend changed my life forever. On the way home, my dad told me that he and my mom had decided to get a divorce.

I was devastated by the news. I grew up essentially as an only child. I have a brother, but he is eight years older then me and, for most of my childhood, he lived with my grandparents. My family was my rock and I felt like my rock was breaking. My parents tried to make the transition easy for me, but divorce isn't easy on anybody.

I can recall shortly after being told the news my best friend at the time invited me to the pool. My mom had told her mom what was going on, and I told my best friend what happened that day. I remember she was very sympathetic, and her mom hugged me and told me that their family was there for me.

I pretended that it was no big deal and that I was fine. I pushed my friend away when she was trying to comfort me. I wanted to appear strong and I didn't want anybody to know how much I was hurting because my parents argued constantly after the divorce.

The next 10 years of my life have been a little hectic. It's tough to feel like you must maintain an alliance with one parent or the other: you feel really torn. I love my parents, they're wonderful people who typically support me in whatever I choose to do with my life. As I have gotten older though, I have come to realize that they are humans as well and they aren't always perfect.

Being a child of divorce gave me some unique experiences. I had two homes -- although I never wanted to refer to either as "my home" for fear of upsetting the other parent. I lived with my father primarily and although this made me a complete "daddy's girl," it was hard when people asked if my mom was alive because people never saw her. They assumed my mom wasn't a part of my life because she didn't come over often.

I wanted to hide every time somebody negatively spoke to me about my mom because although my mom wasn't physically living with me, she always made sure to come to my choir concerts and take me out for weekly Starbucks dates. Plus, she was only a call away if I needed her. I would also go and stay with her every other weekend. We would bake together, take walks, and play board games.

Around my 15th or 16th birthday, my parents decided to start celebrating with me together. My birthday was a day I cherished the most because it meant that I would get to feel like my family was back together, even if only for a few hours.

Emotionally, I have learned to be sort of detached from people, and my friends don't always understand why. It's caused me to sometimes have trouble connecting with people; I don't always want to get close to people because I often feel that they will end up leaving me. When I'm upset, I don't talk about it. I don't lean on people and it's because it's a skill I developed a long time ago.

I wanted to be strong during the divorce. I didn't want people to know there was anything wrong in my life. I was really angry and I got great at expressing anger, but sadness was something that I kept inside. This isn't something that many people know about me. I didn't connect the dots until just recently, and anger is still something I struggle with. But it's also something that I'm trying to work on.

Some children of divorce don't experience lasting effects. I've come to accept the fact that my parents are not together. Now that I'm older, I realize that I would rather have two parents that are happy than two parents who are fighting but staying together just for me. My parents have learned to become friends and they talk occasionally about the "good old days."

I've learned to become a very independent person due to my parents' divorce. After all, divorce is common. I used to feel like I was the only person that had divorced parents. I knew this was false, but when I would attend youth group events at my church or go to birthday parties at my friends houses, nobody else had divorced parents. It made me feel isolated. I don't think I'll ever like the fact that my parents aren't married, but I've learned to cope with it. Sometimes that's the best you can do.