The Outsider

I'll be honest: I'm someone that doesn't usually like change. I know it's inevitable and a part of life, but it's disorienting, and that makes me uncomfortable. I like to always have a plan, and change tends to throw all your plans out the window.

This Christmas was a big change for me. Since I was a little girl, I've always spent it with my family, immediate or extended. Since my parents divorced, our celebrations have been much smaller than they once were, but there has still always been a comfortable familiarity about them. Until this year. This year, instead of my mother doing a Christmas Eve party, she asked my father if he was okay with her doing Christmas with my sister and I instead. Normally, my father does Christmas with my sister and I, since Christmas is also his birthday. Because my father is in a serious relationship with a woman whose family does a big Christmas Day celebration, he told my mother that would be fine. It took the pressure off of him to cook, and he's very comfortable with his girlfriend's family, most of whom neither my sister or I have ever met. So, on Christmas Day, he went off to his girlfriend's mother's house, and I went off to my mother's house.

Every Christmas Eve, my mother throws a party for her boyfriend's fiancé's (they live together and have been engaged for a few years, but there's no serious talk of a wedding) family. Her own family is not invited, except for my sister and I and our significant others, if we want them there. So, this year was no different, it was just that everyone was coming on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve. No big deal, right?

Except in some ways, it was a big deal. I had become accustomed to the new normal: seeing my mother Christmas Eve, and spending Christmas at home with my father, having a really low-key day with good food, lots of time to relax, and being in the company of only those people I'm closest to. It allowed me to continue winding down from the day before, which was undoubtedly stressful. You see, I have never liked my mother's boyfriend fiancé. He and I are civil to each other, but we will never have a familial bond - I accept that he's a part of my mother's life and important to her, but that's where my regard for him begins and ends. He has done things that have had a direct, massively negative effect on my life, my sister's life, and my father's life, and as far as I'm concerned, the actions he actively chose to take - the things he chose to do - are unforgiveable. So... it's really quite awkward for me to be around his whole family.

His family loves my mother. They love my sister. They're civil to me, but they treat me like the daughter time forgot - even though I've been spending Christmas Eve with them for the past eight years at least. They all exchange their gifts for the holidays at my mother's house. My mother and her boyfriend buy everyone gifts. My sister and I never do. When it comes time for them to hand out their gifts, at least two or three of them always give something to my sister. I never get anything. And I realize that Christmas is about giving and not receiving, but I can't say it doesn't sting that my sister is always included, and I'm... just not. It doesn't help that it took most of them years to remember my name, and even now a few ask my mother what my name is when they walk in the house and see me.

This Christmas, I felt like an outsider, which is something I don't think I ever expected to feel on Christmas. Even when I realized, after my parents split-up, that someday it was likely Christmas would be celebrated with whoever they chose to be with, I had hoped anyone either of my parents chose to be with would at least try to make my sister and I feel comfortable during the holidays. I didn't expect gifts or to be considered part of the family, but people remembering my name after eight plus years and treating my sister and I the same as far as gifts/no gifts would be nice. I am my mother's daughter, not a stranger or a guest of my mother's they've never met before. I've thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone who also celebrated Christmas and to celebrate with their family instead of my own - even if I felt like an outsider, that would be a situation I chose.

Have you ever felt like an outsider at a holiday celebration?

Holidays from Hell

Okay, so can I just skip the winter holidays this year? Pretty please?

I don't mean to be a Grinch, but I am having the week from hell, and my level of Christmas spirit is at an all-time low. I was looking forward to being done with finals, decorating the house, sending out cards, making cookies, making some money babysitting, seeing my family, and spending time with my boyfriend. Of course, then shit hit the fan, and it took all of my excitement for the season with it.

My week started off with me getting sick again, right after finals. I've felt crappy for days, all stuffed up and gross. Then, the father of the two little kids I babysit for got hurt at work, meaning he was home with the kids instead of me. I love those kids to death, and babysitting them seriously makes my day when I do, so that was super depressing along with meaning that both the father and I were out the cash he'd get by working and I'd get by babysitting, right before Christmas, when it's usually needed the most. My mother then decided to turn everyone's holiday plans upside down and cancelled Christmas Eve dinner, replacing it with Christmas Day dinner - which would be okay, except my sister and I was planning to be with my father, as we have for the past eleven or so years since my parents split up, since Christmas is his birthday. He's okay with it, because now he'll go spend Christmas with his girlfriend and her kids, but my sister and I aren't invited since we're supposed to be with our mother. My mother is having her boyfriend's entire family over, and none of her own besides me. It's awkward, especially since her boyfriend and I have never and will never be on good terms due to the circumstances surrounding them getting together.

As if that wasn't enough, there's relationship crap going on - I couldn't even tell you if I'm in one anymore. I've been really upset, so now in addition to being all clogged up, my face is sore and swollen from crying and I'm nauseous. (And he's not speaking to me.) A bad fight right before the holidays when you've been together for almost three years will do that to you.

Originally, I'd planned to make a happy post about holiday traditions, but for obvious reasons, that isn't happening. I'm happy that nothing worse as happened yet (like a death in the family or something), but at the same time, it's hard to be grateful that the worst hasn't happened, you know?

What's screwed up your holidays?

Spirit of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving for Americans is tomorrow, and it's always been a bit of a strange holiday for me. There's always the normal stuff: food, family, and watching at least a little bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. But... Thanksgiving has always been a bit different for me, because I literally would not be here without it.

Since I was a little girl, I knew that I was descended from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Our genealogy is well-documented, and I grew up fascinated with my father's copy of the Mayflower Compact and all the information about my ancestors that came along with the book on the first four generations of that family in America. My 9th great-grandfather was one of the few who survived the first harsh New England winter; around half of the original passengers died. Not only did he survive, but he went on to have... more children than I could ever fathom having, went from being an indentured-servant to a well-off landowner, and died when he was in his eighties. None of that would have been possible without the help the Pilgrims received from the Native Americans that permitted them to get through another winter.

A lot of people like to talk about how Thanksgiving is a BS holiday, given the many conflicts between the Europeans and Native Americans that came after. As far as I'm concerned, those people are missing the point. No matter what came after, the First Thanksgiving was the result of people who could hardly be more different coming together, working together, and tolerating each other. What's more, the Pilgrims expressed that they were grateful for it. In a nation built on personal freedoms, it's easy for us to get caught up in idealogical battles and forget what we can accomplish when we set aside our differences and prejudices and simply try our best to tolerate each other, whether or not we actually accept each other.

For me, Thanksgiving has always been about the virtue of tolerance, of being grateful we live in a society where people are different, because when we pressure ourselves to get along, we can accomplish great things. The fate of our nation depends on our tolerance of differing points of view, of realizing that we all have something to bring to the table, if everyone can be respectful enough to let us.

My family has never been the type to go around the dinner table and have everyone say what we're thankful for. That isn't because we're not thankful, it's because we're hyperaware that we have so much to be thankful for, including the fact that we're even here to celebrate the holiday at all. This year, I discovered that my family is actually descended from another Mayflower Pilgrim, a few generations down the line, one of my 9th great-grandfather's descendants (who was also a great-grandfather of mine) married a descendant of another man who came over on the Mayflower, and I'm descended from their children. This wasn't unexpected, since most of the families in the area married each other at some point or another, but now I know there wasn't just one person that needed to survive that second winter for me to be here, but two. I am thankful I was given the opportunity to be alive, to be on this earth and breathing. I've been through a lot of ugly stuff, but I'm still here. I'm still breathing; I'm still living. I don't need to "count my blessings" - I'm aware they're numerous. And isn't that the point? To realize that no matter how hard things may be, we still have hope, because we're here, aren't we?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans celebrating tomorrow - and a Happy Hanukkah to those who begin celebrating it tonight!

A Little Piece of My Heart

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged; unfortunately, I got caught up in school stuff for about a week and then came down with an illness that I've been calling the Plague. I don't know what happened, but a week ago I started feeling horrible - my ears hurt, my throat hurt, I lost my voice, my sinuses were clogged like no one's business, I had a really bad headache, my muscles hurt about 10x more than they usually do, I kept getting chills, and I even ran a slight fever (which is insane, because I've only ran a fever once since I was two, despite chronic bronchitis, sinusitis, and ear infections). After a few days, I thought I was getting better. Then, I woke up and couldn't breathe - whatever it was moved into my chest and gave me a horrendous cough on top of everything else. It's been horrible, and unfortunately, no matter what I do, nothing seems to be killing whatever this is! I'm on antibiotics, taking my allergy medicine with decongestant as often as is safe, I'm on steriodal nasal spray, I'm taking my asthma medicine and my rescue inhaler every four hours, I feel like I'm drinking my weight in water, I cut out pretty much all dairy from my diet, I've been resting and really not doing anything... so why do I still feel so disgusting? I don't know. Moving on...

In the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about something that always has made me feel a little bit out of place living on Long Island in suburban New York, and that's my family's non-obvious country roots. On my father's side of the family, I'm descended from a long line of people who only ever knew wide-open spaces, the kind of quiet and solitude interupted only by a bubbling stream or the occasional wandering bear, and simple living, consisting mainly of working to live and going to church. I have never, ever been a country girl, and I never will be, but part of my heart will always be tied to those roots in a way I can't seem to put into words.

Mountains and fields on the way to my grandparents' former home in Massachusetts

Most people in my geographic region see nature in parks and zoos; they keep a safe distance from nature even while they're experiencing it. They don't know what it feels like to go swimming in a lake and have a turtle shoot out from underfoot or see tiny fish flitting through a stream. They don't know what it's like to breathe fresh mountain air in the morning, to wake up to a bear trying to get into the birdfeeder or a group of deer grazing behind the house. The story of how your family cleared some land in the mountains and built their own house on it from the ground up - completely by themselves - is something they can hardly believe. They don't understand why anyone would have a shotgun to defend their family from animals, because wolves, coyotes, and bears are something they've never come close to seeing in the wild.

People in my area don't know what it's like not to have basic things instantly available to them. They have no idea what it's like to drive through the mountains and the fields to reach town and get the mail - and they don't understand how a post office, a general store, and a couple of old houses can be considered "town." They don't understand why someone would need to drive to a neighbor's house, because they can't fathom their nearest neighbor being well over a mile away. They don't know what it's like to have to drive forty-five minutes to a supermarket or an hour to the family doctor's office.

A younger me at the Chickley River in Massachusetts, after crossing

When I'm explaining to friends and acquaintances that my father is a hunter who has two hunting dogs, they're usually intrigued. They generally only think of dogs as companions, and they think of guns as something for police. They usually ask how the dogs know what to do, what my father does when he goes out east to train them each week. Sometimes they ask if the dogs are vicious, which is funny, because they aren't at all. My dogs are extremely friendly (usually too friendly!) and wouldn't hurt a fly; there isn't a mean bone in their bodies.

Lots of people look at me strangely if I tell them about raising pheasant chicks, and/or how we actually have a pheasant pen in my backyard. They have no idea that there are actually codes regulating these things or that my father actually had to get a license to be able to have them. They assume we get baby chicks from somewhere and then feed them up; they're in disbelief when I tell them how we keep one rooster and several hens, and then when mating season hits, we collect the eggs and put some of them in an incubator. They get turned several times a day, and after a certain amount of days, they all start hatching at once. It's a pretty amazing thing to watch baby chicks finally push their way out of the shell, all wet and tiny and exhausted from pecking their way out. It's also pretty funny holding the last two to get out in your hands to keep them warm while the others are transferred to a brooder, a big refrigerator-sized box with a heat lamp, water, and food. Coming home one day and realizing that several birds are missing from the brooder is a nerve-wracking experience, and it's a sure sign that they're all learning to fly. It's funny going around and finding them all with one of the dogs on a leash - they'll end up behind a couch, comfortably nestled in a pair of your dirty socks, or perched on the top of a lampshade.

These types of things are something I wonder if my children will someday get to experience, provided I'm someday blessed enough to have them. I wonder what "normal" to them will be if they don't, if I'll always feel like they missed out on something. I suppose children will always grow up in a different world than their parents did; maybe that's why children and parents have so much tension with each other at times - they just can't understand.

Is there a part of your heart that people around you just don't seem to get?

Finding "Home"

I think most people have heard the quote, "Home is where the heart is." Since it's craft fair season, I've been seeing it a lot on homemade items for sale - dish towels, wooden plaques, wall hangings, etc. The emphasis is clearly on home as a place, and it makes me wonder if "home," for most people, is a place. For me, "home" is sometimes a place, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes, home for me is a person - or a feeling.

This week, October 20th to 26th, makes me dwell on the concept of home. If my Nana was still alive, she would have turned ninety-five this week, and this week also marks the nineteenth anniversary of her death. Nineteen years. How have nineteen years passed since she died? It seems absurd. She still has such an active presence in my life, yet she's been gone nineteen years already. Where did the time go?

My Nana died when I was five years old. She was a huge part of my upbringing from the time I was born; I saw her almost every day, I was constantly sleeping over her house, and in many ways, she felt more like my third parent than my grandmother. All my early memories are of her; I have almost none of my parents. My parents and I lived with her for the first two years of my life, and then while my parents were at work or needed some time for themselves as a couple, she was the one who watched me. When I was an infant, she was one of people who got up at night when I cried. From the day my mother brought me home from the hospital until she went to the hospital days before she died, she soothed me. She fed me, she changed my diapers, she bathed me, and she tucked me in at night. She held me, she played with me, and she helped me learn to walk and talk. She took me everywhere - to the park, to the docks, to my friend's house... had she ever learned to drive, she probably would have taken me to school. She loved me to pieces, as I loved her.

When she died, the one thing I never did was blame her. I felt absolutely shattered, but I knew that if she had the choice, she wouldn't have left me then. I learned, at a very early age, that even when people want to be there for you and say they'll never leave, sometimes they don't have a choice. It doesn't mean they love you any less. It doesn't mean they've abandoned you. And the one thing I've constantly thought since then is that even though in a way she left, she's never really ever left me at all.

My home was her. My home was a person, the person who made me feel safe and protected and loved. It wasn't a building, it was her. When she died, I craved a place to feel close to her. My parents and I used to drive past her house every holiday on the way to or from my aunts' house. It was almost like visiting her grave, since she had chosen to be cremated and have her ashes scattered. For the longest time, I thought it was the place that felt like home, but it isn't so much as the place itself as it is the feelings it allows me to bring forth. It's painful to think about loss, and being in that place helps me get home; home to her and those feelings of being safe and protected and loved.

Over the years, my home has expanded - it's been places, mostly, and sometimes feelings. The feeling of freedom that college provided me with and my dorm room were my home for a few years. My father's house has been my home, on and off - or rather, my bedroom has been, maybe even just my bed, at times. My Nana, to this day, is still a part of my home. When people say you can't go home again, I think they're wrong - sometimes you can. Some homes will always be there for you to go back to.

It took my boyfriend saying that his home wasn't a place, it was a person, for me to finally understand why I didn't feel like my house was my home. It took him telling me that I was his home for me to realize that he has become a huge part of mine. When I was around my Nana, she made me feel like I could do anything; I didn't have to fear the world. I knew she'd be right there to help me back up if I fell, and she'd never love me less for trying. He makes me feel, in many respects, the same way. Around him, I can do things I never believed I would be able to, because I finally have the ability to let myself. He's reminded me that I have a home, that I don't need a place. And all I have to do is look into my heart, because the people and feelings that are my home can always be found there. I can be home anywhere, as long as I remember my heart.

What is "home" for you?

Standing on the Edge

One thing I absolutely loathe about being in my 20s is how frequently I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down, and wondering what the heck is going to happen next. All of my expectations have gone out the window - I have no idea if I could fall off the metaphorical cliff, if I could be pushed off of it, if I should retreat to whatever's behind about me, or if I should jump to whatever is to be found below me. It's exhausting.

All to frequently, I feel like I'm having the day/week/month/year from hell. Sometimes, it's so bad that I feel like Earth must be hell, only people are too caught up in themselves to realize it. Of course, when I realize I'm thinking this, I tend to think about how screwed up that thought must be, and what a drama-llama I must be for having it. Then I wonder if it's just my depression talking.

I was twelve when I was formally diagnosed with depression, and looking back, it wasn't a surprise. Yes, I was young. But by that time, I had also been exposed to the deaths of several loved ones, the deterioration of my parents' marriage, and physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. On top of puberty and all the crazy crap it does to your hormones, mental illness runs rampant in one side of my family.

Needless to say, I often wonder - and worry (yes, my anxiety diagnosis went hand in hand with my depression diagnosis) - if things are really as horrible as they feel. It's a product both of my depression and anxiety and the way people close to me have treated me over the years, always quick to tell me that whatever I was feeling was wrong and pathetic and weird and screwed-up. It made me become exceedingly careful about revealing my feelings or allowing myself to even feel them, for fear that I would be judged harshly for it.

At the moment, I feel like I have a lot going on.

• I'm in the middle of transferring law schools, something I really didn't want to do. Unfortunately, I didn't really have much of a choice after I lost my scholarship. I'll have a longer commute, a more hectic schedule, a very new/different campus environment, a number of new traffic laws to remember, a new group of people to get used to, and new challenges related to my mobility impairments to deal with. I'm hoping it will be a better environment for me, but I still haven't been able to let go of the resentment I have towards my old school for making this change necessary. I was comfortable there, and despite the constant stream of bad luck I got hit with during my first year (shingles, cellulitis, an allergic reaction, numerous joint injuries, a severe concussion, getting rear-ended, and the major health scare of a loved one), I still managed a GPA over a 3.2.
• My hypermobility is worsening, probably due to the lack of exercise I can do without dislocating something/subluxing something/ending up in a shit-ton of pain. In the past six months, both my shoulders and my knees have started dislocating, mostly notably when I'm trying to get to sleep.
• I've become estranged from two close family members. Even though one was extremely abusive during my childhood, it still hurts.
• I don't know where my relationship stands. There's an issue my SO (?) has had since pretty much the beginning of our relationship. At first, I was understanding, and it wasn't a big deal. It did, however, present issues for the long-term future of our relationship if it remained the way it was. I encouraged him to seek the help necessary to become psychologically healthier in that respect, doing whatever I could to make him realize the gravity of the problem while trying not to push too hard and respecting the fact that these things take time. Nearly two years later, even after seeking help, the problem is not better but exponentially worse, and it makes me feel horrible. I can't help resenting him for putting me through this and not doing the necessary work to get through it. I love this guy - I want to marry him someday, for fuck's sake, but I've gotten to the point where I lash out at him in desperation to make him see how much he's hurting me. He insists he loves me and that he's working on things, but I can't take it anymore. How long am I supposed to wait for things to get better?

Above all, my relationship is what has me the most stressed and upset lately. That's what has me on the edge of the cliff right now. We're not talking, and everything feels so hopeless. I love this guy and want to be with him and be happy more than anything in the world, but he doesn't seem capable of meeting me halfway... or even realizing that he isn't. Whenever we try to talk about it, I feel like he's so insensitive and/or completely out-of-touch with the reality of how this makes me feel; he de-values my pain. First, he seems to understand, but reacts by beating himself up about it and getting down on himself. Then, he does a one-eighty and suggests that I'm taking out my stress from other things on him, and that he's the one who deserves an apology.

It makes me infuriated and extremely depressed all at once. I've had eleven years to get used to my depression and anxiety and how it can cause me to react, and I have become almost hyper-aware of the things I'm feeling or not letting myself feel at every moment. I DO NOT let myself take my stress and unhappiness about something on a person unrelated to it under any circumstances. Doing so is one of my worst fears. If I feel like I'm going to, I tell the person that I can't talk at the moment, need to be left alone, etc. and that I need to decompress and calm down; it isn't personal, I just don't want them to be the victim of misplaced anger/agression/whatever.

I don't know what is going to happen, and part of me wishes I could freeze time right in this moment, so that I'd never have to deal with any of those questions standing on the edge gives you.

Do you ever feel like this?

Between the Lines

"There are many stories between the lines."

- J. K. Rowling on the Black Family Tree

Okay, so I'm really, REALLY into genealogy. Truth be told, I find it fascinating. I've devoted much of the past year of my life to researching my family's history and lineage for many reasons, something a lot of people would probably find boring. I don't though, because for me, it's a challenge. Doing genealogy research is like attempting to put together a really large puzzle - only you don't have all the pieces, some pieces seem impossible to connect, and every time you do connect two pieces, the puzzle itself expands. It's frustrating, but it's so crazy, the types of things you can find out.

Before I really started this past year of research, I thought I knew a lot about my family. My father's side of the family was a direct line from a Mayflower Pilgrim, after all. I didn't know much about my mother's side of the family, and I wanted to, but it seemed unlikely that her lineage would trump my father's. As it turns out, both sides of my family have some insane genealogy that I never would have expected.

What would you find among the branches of your family tree?

  On my father's side of the family, I'm a direct descendant of at least two Mayflower Pilgrims (the second which I had no knowledge of until recently), and I'm distantly related to more than a couple of U.S. Presidents and several famous entertainers. I managed to find someone online who's something like the 5th half-cousin once removed of my grandmother, and through his records, was able to trace one half of my grandmother's family not just back across the Atlantic to Norway, but back from Norway to Denmark in the late 1600s. The person I got in contact with had an entire website up dedicated to family genealogy, and through a common however-many-times great-grandfather, I was able to add over 200 relatives to my family tree. Because he lives in Denmark, he also owns or has access to a number of old family artifacts, including a portrait of that great-grandfather I just mentioned. I've always thought my father looked more like my grandfather than my grandmother, but holy crap, my father's nose and lips are identical to that great-grandfather's - even though they lived over 200 years apart!

On my mother's side of the family, I was anything but prepared for the things I found out. As it turns out, my mother's maiden name is a very, very old Italian name, and by very old, I mean it turns up in records as early as the 7th or 8th century. It apparently comes from a man who came from another country and conquered part of modern-day Italy; everyone with the last name in Italy is considered to be descended from him. He settled there and had children, becoming a noble, and along with a number of famous descendants, including at least one (infamous) pope and an old Italian princess, there are a whole bunch of freaking castles that - to this day - belong to, used to belong to, and/or were named for the family. I haven't found a definitive genealogical connection yet, but my great-aunt, who unfortunately passed away long before I began my research, always insisted that we were directly related to Italian royalty/nobility. She'd had information on our direct line going back several centuries, and she was an extremely intelligent but humble woman - unless she verified that information 10 ways from Sunday, I don't think she'd have told anyone. It wouldn't be a big deal to her that she was related to such people; it would just be a big deal to her that she was able to go that far back.

I've also found out a lot of things that probably aren't interesting to other people, but they are very interesting to me. Take, for example, the fact that one of my great-grandfathers was a barber. His brother was also a barber. No one had any idea how my great-grandfather met my great-grandmother, but as it turns out, her brother was also a barber who lived in the same area. Whether they ever worked together I couldn't tell you, but it's something that could easily explain how they originally met. Being related to all those barbers is also kind of funny when I think about the fact that I cut my own hair. To my knowledge, I'm the only one in the family that does, and I'm good at it. I've taken as much as eight inches off and people tell me it looks professionally done. One of my grandmother's also used to sew all the time; she made everything, and she was good at it. As it turns out, her grandfather worked in women's clothing as a "presser," and it seems like his siblings did too.

All in all, it's been shocking to discover the stories between the lines, to realize how much we don't know - or don't expect - about where we come from. There's a lot of truth in the way people say, "It's a small world." In some ways, it feels like that's an understatement; a lot of the time, we may be more connected than we think.

Have you ever looked into your own genealogy and found something you definitely weren't expecting?

On Being an Adult Child of Non-Amicably Divorced Parents

I am an adult child of divorced parents.

That fact is neither surprising nor particularly noteworthy. With the American divorce rate being as high as it is, often estimated at about 50%, I am far from alone. The statistics are depressing, but for many people, they're just a fact of life. So, out of all the topics I could write about, why am I writing about something so unremarkable?

Well, because I had what seems to be a non-traditional divorce experience, namely that for the longest time, I considered my parents' divorce to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. It's only recently that I've come to realize the effects my parents' divorce had on me and how it will inevitably affect my future.

My parents originally split up when I was 13, and their ensuing divorce was anything but amicable. Their break-up was preceded by years upon years of fighting; I remember thinking once, when I was little, that they seemed more like brother and sister than husband and wife. Neither of them really ever seemed happy, and displays of affection between them were few and far between. My initial mental reaction to their decision to get divorced was, "Finally! It's about time." It didn't surprise me, and I honestly thought it would make everything So Much Easier.

A lot did get easier, at least for me. I was able to live full-time with my father, and I was happy about that. My mother and I had always had issues, and I felt it would be healthier for us both not to live together. I believed it would allow me to limit the amount of emotional baggage and stress I'd carry around on a daily basis, and that was liberating.

Of course, a lot also got harder. The dissolution of my parents' marriage led my younger sister to move in with my mother two years into their divorce negotiations, which left me feeling like someone had dunked me in a pool of ice water, punched me several times in the face, and then hit me with a bus. My mother got serious with someone I was acquainted with, and who was close enough in age to me to have been my older brother. My father seemed to get hit with emotional negativity at every turn; he took the divorce hard and both of his parents died in the midst of the negotiations.

I was never plagued by the normal questions kids of divorce ask. There was no, "Is this my fault? Do Mom and Dad still love me? How are my friends going to react?" or "Why is this happening? Will I ever see Dad/Mom? What's going to happen on my birthday and holidays?" Now that I'm older, I feel like all I have are questions. When I started dating my boyfriend, it was, "How will he react to me having divorced parents when his are still together? Will his parents think less of me because my parents are divorced? How do I explain that I live with my father and have for years, when most people in my situation live with their mother? How is my mother going to react to my boyfriend being only a year younger than hers?" As we've gotten progressively more serious and some of our friends and peers have started getting engaged and married, it's been, "Oh f***, what am I going to do in a few years if we decide to get married? How do I incorporate my parents into my wedding and put them in the same space with each other - not to mention each other's new significant others - when they can't stand each other? How do I deal with their significant others, one which I'm okay with and one I don't like at all?" Recently, as two of my cousins cousins have started families, I've found myself thinking, "How is my parents' divorce going to affect my future children? Will my kids call my parents' partners their grandparents? Can I give the title of grandparent to one of my parents' significant others and not the other? Are my kids going to be confused? Are they going to be worrying that their father and I might break up? How are my future spouse and I going to deal with holidays? If we split the time 50-50, is that unfair to one of my parents? Is it unfair to his if we don't?"

When my parents first got divorced, not one of these questions occurred to me. I figured that after they were officially divorced, they wouldn't hate each other anymore; neither of them would be holding the other back and each would be free to pursue their own happiness, so what was the point of staying angry at each other? Surely they knew that my sister and/or I would be in situations in the future where it would be important for them to get along. Surely they knew that they still had two kids together who would need them both, at times. Surely the animosity and the bitterness would fade with time.

I'm old enough to know now that it's not that simple. I'm going to be put in uncomfortable situations, and I'm not going to be able to make everyone happy. I'm going to have to figure out the answers to questions I'd never thought to ask myself before, and talking to my parents about the answers is not something I look forward to. But while it isn't going to fun, that's life. This is the hand I was dealt. In the end, I can only do the best I can do, and in the future, that's going to have to be good enough for both of my parents.

Are you an adult child of non-amicably divorced parents? Are you trying to figure out the answers to any of these questions?