A family is like a chain. Each link holds the others together, and makes the chain stronger. But once that chain is broken, it is very hard to fix. My chain has always been broken. Yes, new links have been added, and those have been holding strong, but the chain has never been truly whole. It has always had this rift, this separation. I can’t remember ever having the conversation of why this rift existed with my mother, but I can imagine it went a little something like this:

“Mamma? Why doesn’t Papa live with us? All my friends papas live with them!” I would’ve inquired, all chubby cheeked and knobbly kneed.

“Well,” my mother would have calmly replied “we just didn’t get along anymore.”

And that would’ve been that. The answer would’ve sufficed for three year old me. I would’ve toddled away, chasing after my brother, or gone and found a toy to play with, or forced my mother to play something with me. I would have soon forgotten about the conversation, happy and content with the answer I had been given. But eventually, that answer stops being enough. The doubts and fears would start nibbling away at my brain, turning the good thoughts sour, making me wonder.

“Is this my fault?” I would ask myself. “Did they split because I wasn’t good enough?”

And that’s the thing you don’t hear much about divorced kids. We always think that it was our fault.

“They were fine until I came along!” the nagging, evil voices whisper. “It’s your fault, your fault, all your fault. If you weren’t born they would still be together.”

And see, the thing is, when you finally break down, just can’t take the voices, give in, and wail to your parents that it was your fault, they just say the same damn thing every freaking time.

“Of course it’s not your fault, we love you!”
And you would believe them.You would belive them the first time they said it, the second, the third. Every single time you would believe them. But eventually, the voices would come back.
“They’re lying,” they tell you. “They just don’t want to hurt you”. Because, you realize, parents are supposed to say that. Parents are supposed to love you unconditionally, and show their love in whatever way they can. Parents are supposed to be there for their kids whenever they need them, but how can they do that if they don't even reside in the same zip code? They’re supposed to go to every sporting event, every show, every awards ceremony, they’re supposed to just be home when you get home.
But that’s not the case with divorced parents. They’re not home. They don’t come to every sporting event. They don’t come out of their way to see you on nights they’re not with you. They don’t just show up when you need them to. They’re gone. And it’s all. Your. Fault. And frankly, you start to think they’re better off without you.
But of course, you don’t want them to know how they are hurting you, because they’re your parents, they aren’t supposed to be hurting you. So you don’t say anything about how you feel. You bottle up your emotions and hide them behind a handheld screen. They don’t understand why you’re always on your phone, so you tell them it’s because you are connecting with friends, doing school work. But really, your phone is your mask, your force field. If you aren’t paying attention to the screaming it can’t hurt you. When my parents take the screen away, because they don’t like my social anti social attitude, I drown myself in words, letting their current pull me away to a new world, where I am fighting dragons instead of divorce.

When my brother was little he had slight insomnia, so when he couldn’t fall asleep at my dad’s, he used to go downstairs and watch hockey with him. My father would sleep on the couch especially for this occasion. My brother’s soft padding footsteps would be enough to arouse my father from his slumber, and he would motion for my brother to come near. My brother would curl up with him, until her finally fell asleep.

When I couldn’t sleep at my dad’s, I would lay in bed, shaking and crying until I finally wore myself to such exhaustion that I fell into a fitful sleep.

I tried going downstairs once, but no one was laying on the couch waiting for me. The darkness never felt so huge than on those nights, when I would stand alone in it. So frail in the sheer blackness of the night. So I never went downstairs again. I was too scared to fall asleep, and too scared to wake up my father.

Whenever something like this happened at my mothers, I would get out a flashlight and read. Reading has always helped me calm down, it gave me something else to focus own rather then the dream I had just had, or the thoughts in my head. I could stay up for hours in this way, and feel just as rested as if I had slept through the night. It was as if the words of the book became my dreams, and the trancelike state of reading became my sleep.
But at my fathers, this was frowned upon. They thought I would be antisocial and angry if I stayed up and read. They didn’t understand the rest that reading brought me.

How it slowed my racing heart, and calmed my aching nerves. They just thought I didn’t want to sleep. But I wanted to sleep, to fade away, I wanted it so badly, but I feared the anger of my father even more. So I wrapped myself in blankets, shut my eyes tight against the tears pushing their way out, and waited in the darkness until the soft monotony of sleep finally overtook me, or until the harsh morning light shone through the window and it was finally acceptable for me to wake.

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” My stepmothers exasperated voice trickled down the hallway, worming its way under my brother and my shared door, and weaving its way through the very fibers of the fabric covering the pillow wrapped around my head. The fighting had only been going on for maybe twenty minutes, but in my head each second had stretched out until it felt like a lifetime.

My brother and I had been playing cards when the first shout had reached our ears. We shut our door, hoping it would drown out the sounds. I wish we could have shut our ears. The voices rose louder and louder, the tones sharpened. I don’t remember who starting crying first. I only remember that when the fighting finally ceased, we were curled up under the blankets of his bed, the pillows around either head moist with the residue of our tears.
I remember the feeling of exhaustion, the emptiness that I was left with. And I remember asking my brother, but two years older than I, a question that was far too dark and sad for my mind too have concocted. My voice was feeble, raw from crying. The words barely came out as more than a hoarse whisper. 
“Is it going to happen again?”

My brothers vice-like embrace was the only response I ever received. My brother and I never really got along when we were young. We ourselves fought constantly. Our fights were boxing matches, and they would almost always end in wet salty faces. We were like puppies before they get taken to obedience school and taught to sit, to heel. Incontrolable. But, we were always closer after being apart. It was only after we realized that we actually missed each other, that we would enjoy the other’s company. At least, until we grew tired of it.

Those were the times however, when my brother and I were closer than ever, when we clung to each other like we were hanging on to the mast of a ship in a raging storm. Those were the the times we needed each other most, the times I was the most thankful to not be alone. If I had been alone, i'm not quite sure if I would have endured.

My father and stepmother didn’t fight often, but when they did, it terrified us. We were worried about the newest link in our families chain, that it too would break. We were worried that we had come to love our new stepmother too soon, that she would leave us, want nothing to do with our difficult family. In times like these, we believed we were about to have the love so easily placed upon her by young naive hearts, thrown back into our faces.

“Why did he have to be so difficult to live with, why couldn’t he just get along with people?” 

The words burst out of me in frustration. I blamed I my father for all the distraught i was feeling. But then, those awful voices would creep back in, and all that anger towards my father would fade away, leaving all the resentment towards myself. Everything I thought about him, now became about me. I was the one no one wanted, I was the reason she might leave. My brother must have felt the same, because when I looked into his eyes, his shattered soul stared right back at me, a mirror to my own. And we could find comfort in eachother. He would pick up my broken pieces, and I his. There may have been many pieces to find, but two work faster than one.

I am a sword. I must be heated in fire in order to grow stronger. My parent’s divorce broke me in many ways. But is also has brought much good. I am now an older sister. I am now the daughter of not two, but four parents, and the granddaughter of not four, but eight grandparents, and I am so fortunate that they chose to accept me too. I can pack a bag in record time. The group of people I love enough to call my family has only expanded, and will never cease to expand.

But, my heart still flutters, and my breath still runs short when I hear screaming voices arguing over inconsequential things. I never feel like I am truly wanted, disbelieving and doubtful of even my closest friends. I make sure to exhaust myself before I fall asleep, so that the evil voices in my head do not have time to wake, whispering doubts and fears in my ears. Eventually, these things may fade. I may one day learn to truly accept that I can be loved, I may accept that everything is not always my fault. But that day has not come yet. For now I will struggle, I will break down, I will cry, I will scream. I will be surrounded by the fire, by the pain and slowly, slowly, I will temper, and in that way, I will be strong.