Fairytales Aren't Real Kid (A Personal Essay done for my New Journalism Class)

When I was, young I understood marriage and love like most kids do. I thought of princesses and perfection and pretty dresses. I believed that love was forever no matter what. As I got older I continued believing that my parents loved each other because they were married and you always love the person you’re married to. They didn’t show their affection and they argued; they would go days without really communicating and they never really went out together, but that I told myself, “this is what marriage is, that’s just how it turns out,” but I was wrong. That is how a marriage crumbles; that is how a divorce arises.

On November 30th 2016 I found out that my parents were divorcing, because of something my sister tweeted, I had honestly slightly foreseen this. While I had been home over Thanksgiving break, I witnessed the complete deterioration of my parents’ marriage. They had absolutely no communication, unless you count their screaming at each other, which I don’t. I remember sitting in my room and feeling as if the walls were shaking as their voices echoed up the stairs and slammed into my open doorway. The walls weren’t shaking though, that was just me. Despite it being inevitable at that point, I clung onto a little hope. After my sister officially told me I lost not only my hope but a small part of my younger self that still lived within me. That little girl that believed in fairytale marriages and love that didn’t end, she was gone. In her place was a 19-year-old adultwho was terrified. I distinctly remember looking at the background on my computer and sobbing like a kid who had gotten lost in the grocery store. A picture that displayed both of my parents and my sister all smiling with me after my NHS induction, a photo that was once so comforting was now ruined. So many memories that were once so happy to me now just seemed tarnished.

Everyone tells you, “don’t blame yourself,” and “my parents are divorced and I’m okay,” but in those early moments I couldn’t help but blame myself and I wasn’t okay. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that this was happening to me, so I tried to turn to scientific explanations. According to the American Psychological Association the divorce rate for people on their first marriage is 40% to 50% but people with children are less likely to divorce since not having children is one of the leading causes of divorce in the United States. This fact did not comfort me even slightly. I then sat and asked myself why, why are my parents getting divorced? Were my sister and I not enough for them? Did we not love them enough? Did they not love us enough? Me, being a person who is terrified of failure, was at my lowest. I felt as though I had failed because my parents were just letting everything go. I continued to research and then realized that children of divorced parents are four times more likely to get divorced than children with parents who are still married, my heart sunk. Not only did I have to deal with the fact that my parents were divorcing but also that I was now more likely to get a divorce in my future. My fear of failure was at an all-time high while I had hit rock bottom. Everyone told me I was being irrational but I don’t think I had it in me to rationalize in that moment. I try to not go through life fearful but I fear divorce. It is a fear that burrowed its way into my heart with the wounds caused by the broken homes my friends had and the constant fighting of my own parents.

Grieving for a divorce is similar to grieving for a death. There are seven stages of grief: Shock and Denial, Pain and Guilt, Anger and Bargaining, Depression/Reflection/Loneliness, the Upward Turn, Reconstruction, and finally Acceptance and Hope. Many people in situations such as a divorce try to shut down and avoid the emotions that are taking them over; but in order to truly heal from any trauma it is important to accept what you’re feeling. For me it was difficult to turn to my friends. It is difficult to explain how you’re feeling when everyone is trying to tell you that you shouldn’t feel that way or saying you need to try and let go. In the end my emotions were what eventually gave me the most comfort. As a began to accept what I was feeling it was easier for me to accept what was happening and then when I fully let the emotions wash over me I would take a step forward in the process of grieving.

I started to look at the statistics I had found as a challenge to simply overcome, just as I was overcoming the challenge at hand. There are plenty of people who learn exactly what a marriage should be. Their parents teach them how to love their spouse. My parents just taught me how not to. I don’t resent either of my parents. They’ve both struggled and they’ve done their very best to provide for my sister and I. They may have been short on love for each other but they were never short on love for the two of us. Divorce is scary, that fact is inevitable, its affects never just end at two people and that is scary as well. The most important thing to remember is that you can control how it affects you. In the beginning, I was ready to give up and to run but my parents aren’t me. Giving up and running is exactly what a divorce is and I don’t choose that for myself.