WA-1 Draft 2

This is not something that i can hide from anymore, its my life. For 2 years, 730 days, 104 weeks, and 52 switches later I’m done, absolutely and completely through. Packing and unpacking. Unpacking and then putting it all back into the same bag, like coming back home from too many vacations with the dread of unfolding, washing, and refolding everything. Hell, why not just live out of the bag? Your wrong to think I haven’t and don’t.

According to my mom, it all began a long time ago. She tried to shield my brother and I from it all but we were naive at the time so her job was well done. Of course things seemed a little odd sometimes but our questioning passed quickly. My mom slept on a bed with bear sheets while my brother moved to made his bed in my room. My dad stopped going to Memphis for family vacations with my maternal grandparents. Many clues that became easier to decipher with time.

It was one night after dinner on September 7th of my eighth grade year that my parents sat us down and told us that they needed a break. My mom had rented a house about two minutes down the road where she would be living while my dad somehow had gotten to stay put. The deal, one week I would stay at my mom’s house and the next at my dad’s. Through all of this I never really expressed how I felt, I just kept living like nothing had ever changed, I didn't tell any of my friends and I tried not to think about it. After the one year of mandatory separation (VA law) was complete, the divorce was filed. By then I didn't really care anymore, it was not necessarily a better lifestyle but it was more peaceful.

Fast forward to now. Tonight is probably one of the last nights that I will be sleeping in this bed, in my dad’s house, what was my childhood home. Not because this is necessarily what I want but because I cant stand living like this anymore. Once my mom moved out of this house I became the only female figure. Therefore, in my fathers opinion I assumed all womanly tasks: laundry, dishes, and cleaning all of which I was supposed to do while juggling school, sports, and a teenage life. I wanted to live with my mom full time but I also knew that I couldn't because of legal matters. Also, I knew that I would naturally miss my dad. Despite the fact that most of the time we are on completely different pages I still love him. Plus, my mom’s country store couldn’t support my brother and I financially full time.
It was however, at the beginning of the summer that I knew this would no longer work for me. My brother and I had headed out to Arkansas to visit family. The plane we traveled on was financed willingly by my mother. Her opinion on the matter was, god and family are all you have in this world. Everything she works and lives for follows that motto and that is how she always raised us. When we returned home with my cousins, that also happen to be my best friends, it was supposed to be my week with my dad however, he refused to let my cousins come too on the basis that they are my mother’s sisters’ kids. So, in turn i refused to go and it wasn't until the last week of summer that I spent with him. That whole week I kept up a facade in order to keep the peace.

There is no way that you would know what i am talking about but it is a relationship that has too many issues for words. Some of the time I am with him I have a good time and there is a spark of hope that this good path will continue, but then in the blink of an eye it’s over and the demanding, tyrannical ways have returned. The reason that this is all looming now is because next week I will be 16 and that is the age that you are legally able to chose who you want full custody with. I am pretty sure I am going to stay with my mom but then I feel like I will be losing a whole part of my life, half of my self. I also know, that if I keep living like this I will eventually break down, I am human, I can only deal with so much. I wish I could explain everything and make it all make sense but life doesn't always make sense. That is why this verse has helped me get through a lot though and I thank God for the blessings he has given me.

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Phillipians 4:13