Divorce

The one moment which ripped the life I had always known from my hands was the night the quaintly papered walls of our split-level farmhouse first heard the word “divorce.”

Over the scheme of a lifetime, it seems almost absurd to think that one day, one moment, may produce or act as the pivotal force which makes a life something it once simply was not. Over the course of my sixteen years, I have experienced a considerable number of such turning points. The one evening, the one moment, which ripped the life I had always known from my hands was the night the quaintly papered walls of our split-level farmhouse first heard the word “divorce.”
It was an ordinary afternoon in August of 2004 - or maybe it was not. (I would later look back on all the signs of the impending end to my parents’ marriage.) It was the last weekend before the first day of my freshman year of high school, and my parents were smoking in the garage after supper with my older brother, Brian. Meanwhile, Matt was watching TV, and I was bouncing off the walls waiting for the rest of my immediate family to come inside for a movie. Anticipation bubbled inside me until at long last the three entered the house with grim faces that I failed even to notice in my hyperactivity. Next, we all took seats in the living room for what my mother had called a “family meeting.” I sat beside her on one green corduroy couch, while Dad and Brian sat on the other and Matt lounged in the huge, tan armchair. Then it came out. It spilled from my mother’s mouth like tears behind wire frames and dusty lenses. My overly energetic cheerfulness faded with my naive smile to the devastating plunge of divorce into my chest. What was there to say? To do? We all cried. My father cried for the first time, and my mom hugged us all - except Dad. Time stood still as the shock of the word reached to pierce my heart where the end broke off and festered there for the rest of my life. Love, faith, and security died that night.
That evening will always be with me. It has made me reticent and cynical toward love. It ripped my family apart. It also, however, improved my relationships with both my parents and helped make me more independent. For both the good and the bad, that evening became a turning point in my life - the night life as I knew it dissolved at the word “divorce.”